by Selena Kitt
“They value their privacy,” Marty explained “As long as you sign a waiver saying you won’t tell anyone you were there, or what you witnessed, they’ll pay you.”
“Fifty dollars...” Fifty dollars could buy her a bus ticket to anywhere. It could put a down payment on an apartment. It could mean freedom, a new start.
“Will you?”
Leah put a protective hand over her belly. “Okay. Okay, I will.”
“I’m so glad.”
Marty snuggled closer, tucking her head under Leah’s chin, resting her ear against Leah’s heart. Leah stroked the redhead’s hair, soft as silk. They were quiet for a while, listening to the wind whistling through the eaves. It was a lonely, haunting sound, and she was grateful for the warmth and weight of the girl, her friend, in her arms. She didn’t know what she would have done at Magdalene House without Marty. Lizzie and Frannie and Jean were fun and sweet and she cared deeply about all three of them, but Marty was her anchor, a rock. Marty was her “Erica” here, yes, she had to admit it, her best friend.
“There’s something else...” Marty sighed in the darkness. “I’m afraid to say it. But I have to.”
“What is it?” Leah couldn’t imagine her telling anything more shocking than she already had. She still couldn’t quite believe it was real.
“Maureen. My real name is Maureen O’Connor.”
“We’re not supposed to...”
“I know, but I wanted you to know the truth. I wanted you to know all of me. And I want to know you too.”
She felt tears welling up in her eyes. “I’m Leah. Leah Wendt.”
“Leah...” Marty breathed. “You trust me? I told you my secret. Will you tell me yours?”
“I’m so sorry” Leah sighed. “I know I’ve been keeping things from you, from everyone. But I do trust you. I do.”
“Please tell me.”
So she did. Leah let it all out, talking and talking and talking, telling her new best friend about her other best friend, not just about falling in love with Rob, but also all of the wicked, sinful things they had done together and apart. She confessed, and when she was done, and Marty hugged her close, their limbs twining together in the little twin bed, she had never felt so unburdened, so light.
“Thank you, Leah. Thank you for trusting me.”
“You’re my best friend too.” Was there any rule of law that said you couldn’t have two best friends? Besides, Marty—Maureen—was here, and Erica was a million miles away.
“I love you, Leah Wendt.”
Marty kissed her. It was a soft, sweet caress, and it conjured up body and sense memories of Erica in her arms like this, kisses and caresses, tender flesh and soft, mewling cries of pleasure. Leah felt her body respond instantly, on fire. It’d been too long.
Leah whispered, “I love you too, Maureen O’Connor.”
What else could she say? What did it matter, if she took comfort in this girl’s arms, if she held onto her, clung to her, in the darkness. What did it matter if they took some pleasure in being here together? Was it such a sin?
“Oh no!” A voice across the room piped up, and they both recognized Lizzie’s blond, curly head sitting up in the moonlight. “Oh crap. I think I peed the bed.”
Marty met Leah’s eyes, a brief flash of understanding passing between them. Frannie was waking up, rubbing her eyes, mumbling to herself in Spanish. Probably swearing. Marty jumped out of Leah’s bed, going over and turning on the light. Frannie protested, groaning and pulling the covers over her head, stringing together Spanish obscenities. Lizzie was sitting straight up, wide-eyed, looking down at her belly.
“That’s not pee. Your water broke.” Marty pulled down the covers, seeing the soaked mattress and sheet, and Lizzie’s wet, white nightgown.
“Oh no.” Lizzie howled, hugging herself and rocking back and forth. “No, no, no, no! I don’t want to. I can’t do this. I don’t want to go home. Please! Please let me stay! I’ll be good!”
“Lizzie, honey, you were due days ago. You knew this was coming.” Marty sat, wrapping her arms around the young girl, and rocking with her.
Leah met Marty’s eyes over Lizzie’s blond curls, and felt her own welling with tears at the sounds of the terrified girl’s sobs. She had to go home after giving away her baby. Not only did she have to give her baby away, the baby she’d carried for nine months, but she had to go home to the father who had impregnated her in the first place.
Leah sat on the other side of the bed, sliding her arms around Lizzie, she was so tiny, so slight, Leah didn’t know how the girl was going to possibly give birth. She was just a baby herself. Marty and Leah held her between them, rocking. Then Marty began to sing. It was a sweet, Irish lullaby, soft and soothing, and Leah thought she’d never heard anything so beautiful in her life. How had she never heard this angel sing before?
“It’s okay Lizzie.” Leah whispered into the girl’s ear. “You’re going to be okay. We love you. You’ll get to come back and see us. Remember? One time, you’ll get to come back and see us. When your parents pick—”
There was no sense reminding her about that part of the visit, but her parents would arrive and take her home, down the same front steps from whence they had arrived. The girls only ever used those steps twice, coming and going. The rest of their stay, whenever they left Magdalene House, they used the back entrance, with four stairs up and down. Easy access. The bus would pull around the back, and pick them up and take them to town, and drop them off at the same back entrance.
“Please, Lily.” Lizzie wrapped her thin little arms around Leah’s waist, burying her wet face against Leah’s white nightgown, smearing it with tears and snot, but Leah didn’t care. She stroked the girl’s hair, those tangled curls, and looked down at her little cherub face, the same china doll face she’d seen on the very first day at Magdalene House, when she came up the stairs. She remembered little Lizzie calling, she’s here, she’s here!
“It’s going to be okay.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Lizzie’s initial cry must have woken the nuns. Two of them came upstairs, sweeping into the room, seeing the three girls sitting on one bed, Frannie up on her elbow, watching from another.
“I think my water broke.” Lizzie’s voice was small.
“Come with us.” Sister Benedict held out her hand.
Leah and Marty helped Lizzie get off the bed, her nightgown dripping on the hardwood floor.
“Can I change?” Lizzie asked, glancing up at the nun.
“Come with us,” Sister Benedict said again, holding out her hand.
Lizzie’s eyes welled up with tears again, and she turned to Leah, cupping her hand around Leah’s ear, and whispering, “Tell Jean she can have our scrapbook.”
Lizzie went with the nuns, a little blonde girl bookended by two formidable figures in black habits, down the stairs they went. Leah and Marty sat on the edge of Frannie’s bed, one on each side of her, they all sat there quietly, thinking, someday that’ll be me.
They whispered together for a while, until Sister Benedict came back up the stairs, clapping her hands, turning off lights, and shooing them to bed.
“Is she okay?” Marty dared to ask. Lizzie was the first of their little foursome to “pop.”
“She’s been taken to the hospital.” Sister Benedict flipped off their light. “Go to sleep, girls.”
But Leah couldn’t sleep. Marty’s confession weighed heavy on her, and Lizzie’s sudden departure made her nervous. She’d come to love all of them, in such a short amount of time. What happened when it was time to go? She didn’t want to lose anyone else, ever again, but that’s what Magdalene House was for, that was its sole purpose, to end relationships, to sever ties, too make them invisible to the world until their sin and shame was washed clean with blood and pain and then, only then, would they be allowed back into the world.
Go forth and sin no more.
Leah knew better.
&nb
sp; In the moonlight, Marty stretched her hand across the gap between their beds, reaching, and Leah took it, squeezing it gently, not letting go. The girls fell asleep that way, just like that.
Chapter Eight
Erica was in big trouble and she knew it. Sister Agnes had shot down Erica’s picture choice, a smiling Elvis Presley shaking hands with a smiling Father Patrick, choosing instead the picture her father had taken of Erica and Elvis together, the star standing a foot taller than her, his arm around her shoulders. Erica had a goofy grin on her face, but that isn’t why she replaced the picture, unbeknownst to Sister Agnes.
She switched the photograph for the same reason every journalist looks for the hook in the story. The photograph of Elvis with Father Patrick showed the church’s hypocrisy, even if it wasn’t explicitly stated in the article, because of course, Sister Agnes had vetoed Erica’s admittedly editorialized article in favor of the straight news story about the gallery show.
Erica sat outside of Father Patrick’s office, wondering if she had just managed to get herself removed as senior editor to Mary Magdalene’s little paper. It wasn’t such a big deal, this was her last year, and she could still list it on all her college applications. But she didn’t relish the thought of telling her father, who had been thrilled when Erica found her niche in journalism and writing. He was a creative soul at heart, and encouraged creative expression wherever he could.
She was mostly afraid of losing ground with the Mary Magdalenes.
She had kept her meeting in early October with Father Patrick, already knowing far more than he ever could have suspected, thanks to her mother’s journals. After a lengthy interview process, and a list of invasive questions, Father Patrick had finally agreed to allow her to begin the process of entering the order of the Mary Magdalenes. She had been to five midnight meetings, introduced as “Elizabeth,” the name she had taken at her confirmation, the day she’d taken first communion.
They all had “fake names,” confirmation names, taken from Saints, and the other girls, girls she had seen walking around school, sitting in the pews at church, girls who seemed normal enough, girls she never would have suspected participated in the strange rites and rituals occurring in the church basement.
They met at night, parking down the block and walking to the church, going in the back door, and down the back stairs. There was much to learn, to memorize, and Erica was having a hard time keeping up with her Mary Magdalene “homework,” as well as her regular homework.
But she was one meeting away from being initiated, and the deeper she delved, the more she realized, with her journalist’s nose to the ground, what a big story this really was. She had gone into it thinking she would expose some secret sorority, a sisterhood of girls gathering against the church’s refusal to allow sororities or fraternities of any kind. Father Patrick’s involvement made her believe it was in defiance of the nuns’ wishes rather than the priests’, but she was beginning to wonder.
Father Patrick had paid closer attention to her since she had begun the process of becoming one of the Mary Magdalenes. She saw him watching her at school, in the cafeteria, walking down the hall. She could’ve sworn he was looking directly at her several times at mass. She wondered if he knew somehow, she had read her mother’s journals, that she knew what had happened between her mother and Father Patrick. She couldn’t get the image of her mother and Father Patrick together out of her mind. There was a picture of him on the wall outside of his office, it must have been his graduation from seminary school. He had changed considerably over the years, but the man in the picture was quite handsome and virile. She couldn’t imagine him young, like her mother had known him.
She hadn’t managed to get the latches open on the other boxes containing what she assumed were the rest of her mother’s diaries. She had tried every single key her father kept in his desk drawer to no avail. She was desperate to get into them, almost desperate enough to break them. The metal, however, was unyielding. She’d already tried a screwdriver and a hammer to no avail. She wanted to know more about the Mary Magdalenes before her initiation and, ever curious, longed to know what had happened with Father Patrick. Had they consummated their relationship? Where did her father fit in the picture of the romance between her mother and the priest?
She couldn’t judge her mother for what had happened. At one time, she might have, but considering her own feelings for Father Michael—like mother like daughter? —she didn’t dare. She knew what it felt like to want someone you couldn’t—shouldn’t— have. Her feelings for him had grown over time, as they worked together, side by side in the records room, looking for clues, pouring through alumni directories, looking for former students, nuns, priests, anyone who had left the order who might speak of the secret society known as the Mary Magdalenes.
What she hadn’t told Father Michael was that Father Patrick had invited her personally into the fold. He had given her a key to the back door of the church, so she could let herself into the midnight meetings. She didn’t tell Father Michael about the litany, the ritual, the candles and the rites. She didn’t tell him about the gradual, progressive way things had happened, so now, just before her initiation, they were stripping down naked, putting on masks, learning to kneel, be submissive, subservient. The older, more experienced Magdalenes teaching the younger ones what was required.
She knew Father Michael wouldn’t approve.
“Erica?” Father Patrick opened his office door, already scowling. She was in for it. She just prayed she hadn’t compromised her position in the Mary Magdalenes. She was almost in, almost there. She got up at his insistence, and followed him into his office.
He asked her to sit down, and she did, across from him, looking over his big desk. He leaned back in his chair, fingers tented in front of him, and looked at her. She had known Father Patrick her whole life, and she never would have guessed his passionate secret. Father Patrick had lusted in his heart at the very least. She wondered constantly if her mother and Father Patrick had pursued their attraction. Of course, she wasn’t about to ask him.
“You disobeyed.”
“I’m sorry, Father Patrick. It won’t happen again.” She kept her eyes down, hands in her lap, trying to look as demure and compliant as possible.
“You seem to think it’s a joke.”
“I don’t, really I don’t.”
“It’s not a game,” he snapped.
“I understand.”
“I don’t think you do. What you did in defiance of Sister Agnes showed me quite clearly you’re not ready.”
His words made her stomach clench. She didn’t want to lose this, not now. She was so close. “Please, Father, I am.”
“Stepping into the inner sanctum of the Mary Magdalenes is like walking on holy ground. We only accept candidates who are fully committed and completely trustworthy. The Mary Magdalenes own order dates back thousands of years. It is a secret order and you must agree to keep it as such. You must agree to silence and we need to be able to trust your commitment to silence.”
“Yes, Father.” The journalist in her was racing around her heels barking and yapping like crazy. The journalist in her liked secrets only because they were so fun to tell. Father Patrick seemed to know this about her, even though Erica attempted to hide it. It snuck out in little ways, like switching the photograph printed in the newspaper. She was going to end up sabotaging herself at this rate.
Father Patrick stood, hands behind his back as he paced back and forth in front of his wall of bookshelves. He was talking to her, but he was also watching her. Erica noticed him looking at the way she sat, the way she folded her hands, if her eyes darted around the room, and she tried to stay as still as possible as he spoke.
“Jesus saved the whore, Mary Magdalene, from her womanly sin. He lifted her up and gave her hope, rescuing her from despair. We do not and will not entertain the notion that Jesus Christ ever consummated his relationship with Mary Magdalene, so there’s no direct bloodline left i
n this world from Jesus. But Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, she was taken by man after man, and the seed of that union was brought forth in agony and blood. The seed was sewn out into the world, redeemed only by the woman who would give up her own flesh to another woman in desperate need. Like Leah for Rachel, she bore the child of her sister, she was a vessel for life, giving that gift, transformed into a righteous woman only through her heinous sin. The blood and the pain of childbirth was Mary Magdalene’s punishment. Like Eve before her, she sought forbidden knowledge by tempting man.”
Father Patrick slowed his back and forth pace, stopping in front of her. She kept her hands clasped in her lap, eyes downcast. She was face to face with the crucifix hanging to his waist.
“The Virgin Mary, our mother, mother of our Savior, did not conceive through the worldly act of the flesh. The Virgin Mary is the epitome of innocence and purity, unsullied by the touch of man. She conceived through light, and gave that gift to the world. She did not refuse her calling, nor did she shirk from the sacrifice required of her womanly heart. She opened herself completely and let God in.”