The Patron Saint of Butterflies(75)
The two policemen lead the sixty or so children, including Benny and me, into a side room near the front of the Great House. I don’t recognize the room, since I have never been in it before. It is sparsely furnished, with a wooden desk on one side, a single bed on another, and a white, knotted throw rug in the middle. A large cross hangs above the bed.
“Sit anywhere,” the chubby policeman says, surveying the lot of us. “Get comfortable. We’re just going to talk.”
Iris Murphy and a few other little girls scramble on top of the bed. Amanda Woodward settles herself down in the desk chair. Peter stands against the wall, his arms crossed against his chest. The rest of us sit cross-legged on the floor. No one speaks.
“Okay, then,” the tall policeman says. He is standing in front of the room, his legs askance. For some reason, he looks familiar. A small silver bar pinned to the breast pocket of his navy shirt reads CAPTAIN MARANTINO. Could this be the same police officer who came a few years ago? “We just want to ask you guys some questions, okay?” Silence. He clears his throat. “How many of you have ever heard of something called the Regulation Room?”
Benny buries his face in the side of my arm at the mention of the room, but no one else moves. Not a hand raised, not a word spoken. I look over at Iris. She is picking a scab on the front of her knee. Peter has turned his head in the opposite direction.
“No one here has ever been inside something called the Regulation Room?” the policeman presses. “Not even once?” Silence. He shoots a sidelong glance at the other policeman, who raises his eyebrows, rocks back on his heels, and then clears his throat.
“Okay, why don’t we start from the beginning? How many of you like living here?”
A small forest of hands rises up from the group of us.
Captain Marantino nods approvingly. “Anybody not like living here?”
Iris’s hand shoots up.
Captain Marantino pounces. “And what’s your name?” he asks.
But Iris bows her head, absorbed once again with the scab on her knee.
“Sweetheart?” he asks again. “Can you tell me your name?”
Iris shakes her head.
“Why not?” the chubby policeman barges in. “Are you scared of something?” Silence. I know exactly what Iris is scared of. “You know, we can help you if someone here is hurting you,” the policeman pushes. “We can make it stop. We can make sure it never happens again.”
All I have to do is stand up. Take out the Polaroids in my back pocket. My neck feels tight. What should I do? I look at the crucifix on the wall—will it tell me anything? Will I get a sign, a hint of some sort? The blue uniform in front of the room is starting to blur. My nose begins to wiggle as I think about the preacher in the church in Greenville.
All we have to do is ask. Lord, here I am. Show me the way.
Was it any safer out there? With the red and orange foods and the awful songs on the radio and the vanity-promoting hair products? All temptations to sin, to blacken the soul, permanently erase any chances of ever becoming a saint. But what about the word on Honey’s bruised back, the belt marks on mine? What does it mean that Honey is my first cousin—and I have never known it until only a few moments ago? And why, if the world is so evil, as Emmanuel is constantly telling us, did it provide me in the past few days with the first sure footings of safety, something I have never felt—not once—in all my years at Mount Blessing? How else to explain the strange happiness I felt after leaving that church service, or the terrible security I felt locked in Lillian’s bathroom? How could a world so evil have such a beautiful statue of the Blessed Virgin in the mountain? Or let people cry and shout out in church?
A tug on my shirt tears me away from my swirling thoughts. Benny is staring up at me. “Tell them, Agnes,” he says.
I look at him dumbly, shocked at the sound of his voice after all this time. “Benny,” I whisper.
He pushes himself closer against my arm. “Please.” His voice, soft and urgent, throbs in my ears. “Please tell them.”
The Lord knows, the woman in that church had said, we have things inside we can’t keep quiet about … Sometimes, the longer the silence, the louder the shout.
The story of Saint Agnes races through my head for maybe the hundredth time. She was just about my age when she stood up in front of the emperor of Rome and told him that she would not believe in his pagan gods. I have always, I realize suddenly, imagined myself doing the same thing, for God, and for Emmanuel, who in some inextricable way, have become the same thing. It has never occurred to me until this very moment that perhaps they are separate, that maybe the God I want to stand up for is not the one Emmanuel represents. Maybe Emmanuel is the pagan god. Would the real God send children to hell if we messed up on that road he keeps asking us to travel? Would the real God have a Regulation Room?
Have you ever tried to trust yourself to do the right thing? Instead of always waiting for some sign or trying to figure out what Emmanuel thinks is right for you?
My sign is right in front of me. All I have to do is open my eyes.
Slowly, on trembling legs, I stand up.
HONEY
After making sure that Nana Pete is safe at the Jackson & Sons Funeral Home, Lillian and I get into the Queen Mary and drive all night and most of the next day to get back to Mount Blessing. It takes me a while to convince her to let me get behind the wheel, but her exhaustion from working all night at King’s finally takes over and she gives in—especially when I remind her Nana Pete let me drive on the way down. She sleeps soundly in the front seat, her head slumped down against her chest.