All These Things I've Done (Birthright #1)(3)

The first day of school stank more than most first days of school, and they tend to stink as a rule. Everyone had already heard that Gable Arsley and Anya Balanchine were over. This was annoying. Not because I had had any intention of staying with him after the foul he’d committed the night before, but because I’d wanted to be the one to break up with him. I’d wanted him to cry or yell or apologize. I’d wanted to walk away and not look back as he called my name. That sort of thing, right?

I have to admit: it was amazing how fast the rumours spread. Minors weren’t allowed to have their own phones, and no one of any age could publish, virtually or otherwise, without a licence or even send an email without paying postage and yet gossip always finds a way. And a good lie travels a heck of a lot faster than the sad, boring truth. By third period, the story of my break-up had been carved in stone, and I hadn’t been the one doing the carving.

I skipped fourth period to go to confession.

When I entered the confessional, I could see the distinctly female silhouette of Mother Piousina through the screen. Believe it or not, she was the first female priest Holy Trinity School had ever had. Even though these were supposedly modern times and everyone was supposedly enlightened, more than a few parents had complained when the Board of Overseers had announced her as their selection the prior year. There were some people who just weren’t comfortable with the idea of a lady priest. In addition to being a Catholic school, HT was also one of the better schools in Manhattan. Parents who paid its exorbitant tuition fees did so on the understanding that the school wasn’t allowed to change no matter how bad things got everywhere else.

I knelt down and crossed myself. ‘Bless me, Mother, for I have sinned. It has been three months since my last confession . . .’

‘What’s troubling you, daughter?’

I told her how I’d been having impure thoughts about Gable Arsley all morning. I didn’t use his name but Mother Piousina probably knew who I was talking about anyway. Everyone else at school did.

‘Are you considering having intercourse with him?’ she asked. ‘Because action would be an even greater sin than the thoughts themselves.’

‘I know that, Mother,’ I said. ‘Nothing like that. The thing is, this boy’s been spreading rumours about me, and I’ve just been thinking how I hate him and I want to kill him or at least hurt him a little.’

Mother Piousina laughed in a way that only somewhat offended me. ‘Is that everything?’ she asked.

I told her that I’d used the Lord’s name in vain several times over the summer. Most of the instances had occurred during the mayor’s Great Air-Conditioning Ration. One of our ‘off days’ had coincided with the hottest day in August. Between the 110-degree temperature and the heat generated by Nana’s many machines, the apartment had been a pretty close approximation of Hell.

‘Anything else?’

‘One more thing. My grandmother is very sick and even though I love her’ – this was really hard for me to say – ‘sometimes I wish she would just die already.’

‘You don’t want to see her suffer. God understands that you don’t mean it, my child.’

‘Sometimes I have bad thoughts about the dead,’ I added.

‘Anyone specific?’

‘My father mainly. But my mother sometimes, too. And sometimes—’

Mother Piousina interrupted. ‘Perhaps three months is too long for you to go between confessions, daughter.’ She laughed again, which annoyed me, but I continued anyway. The next one was the hardest to say.

‘Sometimes I am ashamed of my older brother, Leo, because he’s . . . It’s not his fault. He’s the kindest, most loving brother but . . . You probably know that he’s a little slow. Today, he wanted to walk me and Natty to school but I told him that our grandmother needed him at home and that he’d be late for his job. Both lies.’

‘Is this your entire confession?’

‘Yes,’ I said, bowing my head. ‘I’m sorry for these and all the sins of my past life.’ Then I prayed the Act of Contrition.

‘I absolve you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost,’ Mother Piousina said. She told me to say a Hail Mary and the Lord’s Prayer as penance, which seemed a ridiculously minor punishment. Her predecessor, Father Xavier, really knew how to give a good penance.

I stood. I was about to open the burgundy curtain when she called to me, ‘Anya, light a candle for your mother and father in Heaven.’ She slid open the screen and handed me two candle vouchers.

‘We’re supposed to ration candles now,’ I grumbled. With the endless stupid coupons and stamps (weren’t we supposed to be rationing paper?), the arbitrary point system and the constantly changing rules, ration laws were incredibly annoying and impossible to keep up with. It was no wonder so many people bought goods on the black market.

‘Look on the bright side. You can still have as much of the host as you want,’ Mother Piousina replied.

I took the slips and thanked Mother Piousina. For all the good lighting candles would do, I thought bitterly. I was pretty sure my father was in Hell.

After giving my vouchers to a nun with a wicker ticket basket and a box of votives, I went into the chapel and lit a candle for my mother.

I prayed that, despite having married the head of the Balanchine crime family, Mom somehow wasn’t in Hell.