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School was about to start, meaning new notebooks and fresh pens and pencils, classes with friends who’d been apart all summer

long, crisp air, and colorful leaves painting the city with warm shades of amber and pink and orange.

On the morning of the first day of school, Mairin pinned up the season schedule of football games. St. Wilda’s didn’t have

a team, obviously, since it was an all-girls school, but the boys’ school, St. Joe’s, across the road, had a powerhouse of

a team. Mairin loved the Friday night games, a chance to wear her favorite jeans and boots and sweaters, and sit among friends

with thick plaid woven blankets to cover the bleachers, and cheer the boys on until their throats were hoarse. It wouldn’t

be the same without Fiona, of course, but there was popcorn and root beer from the concession stand, and a chance to catch

a glimpse of Kevin Doyle, who had made the varsity squad this year.

In the days leading up to the back-to-school rush, tension had run high at Mairin’s house. At the Catholic Women’s League

on Sunday, Mam had visited with Mrs. Doyle, and when the two had compared notes, they realized Mairin and Kevin had gone to

the movies together without permission from either of them. According to the moms, this infraction was a direct route to teen

pregnancy and utter disaster for both families.

And after the Colm incident, nothing seemed to go right.

The very night of the fight, Mairin had told her mother everything in a shaking, sobbing voice, certain Liam was wrong to predict Mam wouldn’t believe her.

“He came into my room when I was changing my clothes,” Mairin said.

“He tried to...” She caught her breath, gagged a little. “He tried to grab me.”

“Lies,” Colm had said, his voice a low blade of contempt. “Dirty, disgusting lies, and we all know it. I was there to give

you counsel about your outburst in church, taking the Lord’s name in vain for all the world to hear. And you paradin’ around,

flauntin’ yourself like a damn hussy.”

“I was in my own room. With the door closed,” she shot back, then rounded on her mother. “My own private room. Liam said— ”

“Liam lies as bad as you do,” Colm said. “Maybe the army’ll straighten him out. The two of you are thick as thieves. Always

have been. I work my fingers to the bone to keep a roof over your heads and this is the thanks I get. I swear, I don’t know

why I bother.”

There were a hundred things wrong with his statement. He spent most of what he earned at the bar and at the racetrack. He’d

made her and Liam work every summer, and after school, too. Mam took in mending and alterations for people in the neighborhood.

The argument had played out exactly as Liam had predicted. Mairin found no sympathy from her mother, because Colm somehow

managed to convince Mam that he’d done nothing wrong. He swore on all the saints that his sole purpose had been to talk to

Mairin about her outburst in church. He claimed that Mairin had teased him and flaunted herself, and when Liam had arrived,

she’d lied to her brother and caused a fight.

Even though Liam had corroborated Mairin’s story, saying he’d heard Mairin yelling at Colm to leave her alone, Mam chose to

believe her husband, not her own children. She had dolefully shaken her head and said she didn’t know what had come over Mairin.

She didn’t understand why her own born children were being so horrid and disrespectful to their stepfather.

Mairin felt sick with betrayal, because somehow she knew, deep down, that her mother realized what was going on.

Mam simply didn’t have the courage to stand up to her husband.

She was too afraid he might leave her, and if he did, the Church and Women’s League would judge her for it.

The only acceptable way for a husband to leave his proper Catholic wife was to die.

In the middle of all this, Liam had to report to training camp. Still bearing the bruises from his fight with his stepfather,

he left from the Greyhound station on a bus bound for Fort Dix. At the station, their mother wailed that she might never see

him again. Mairin told her brother goodbye in a soft, broken voice, and when she’d watched the bus leave the terminal, she

had felt her soul empty out, the way it had when the power company men had come to the house to deliver the news that her

father had died.

These days, everything seemed hard. Every. Single. Thing. She didn’t even have Fiona to talk to. It would be the first time

in history that they didn’t walk to school together.

She pulled out her dress uniform—it was always dress uniform on the first day of school. Plaid jumper, crisp white blouse

with the Peter Pan collar, navy blazer, knee socks with tabs. And because everything was hard these days, her blouse was hopelessly

wrinkled. She’d forgotten to iron it the night before. The nuns always inspected their uniforms, and if the blouse lacked

a perfect knife-blade crease down each sleeve, there would be a demerit.

All Mairin could do now was put on the blazer and hope for the best. At the last minute, she noticed one of her penny loafers

was missing a penny. She grabbed the only coin she could find—Flynn Gallagher’s Mercury dime—and she slipped it into the slot.

Maybe it would bring her good luck. She went downstairs and was loading up her backpack when Mam ambushed her.

“No need to bother yourself with all that. You’re not going to school today,” Mam said, her expression stony. “Not St. Wilda’s,

anyway.”

Colm came striding into the room, coins jingling in his pocket. He wasn’t wearing his usual work clothes—gray utility pants,

shirt with the power plant logo, keys on a retractable belt clip, and steel-toed boots. Instead, he was dressed as if for

church, in a stiff white dress shirt and dark tie, his one good suit jacket, his shoes shined to a high gloss.

“What? It’s the first day of school,” Mairin said, frowning. “What the—what do you mean, no school? There’s never been no

school.”

Mam cleared her throat. “I had a meeting with Sister Carlotta at St. Wilda’s.

We’ve got a different plan for you.” The air in the room felt heavy, weighed down by Colm’s glowering expression and Mam’s resolute certainty.

“It’s been a difficult decision to be sure, but this will turn out to be for the best,” she said.

“This?” Mairin demanded, her brain scrambling to comprehend. “What do you mean, this?”

“After sneaking out with a boy, and that outburst in church, and then causing a fight between Colm and your brother, it’s

clear you need to learn more discipline than St. Wilda’s can provide. We can’t allow you to—”

“Causing a fight?” Mairin’s face, her eyes, her throat, her chest burned with outrage. “ I caused a fight? Mam, I told you what happened. I told you everything that happened.” She swung around and threw a furious glare at Colm. “It’s the truth,

whether you believe me or not.”

“We’ve been through this,” Mam said, her voice weary and exasperated. “I’ve heard quite enough from you.” She went and fetched

her pocketbook, the good patent leather one with the brass clasp. She was dressed to the nines, in her slingback heels and

cloth dress coat from Hengerer’s. “It’s time to go,” she said, and headed out to the driveway.

“Go where?” Mairin demanded, following her toward the door. “I need to get to school, Mam. I can’t miss the first day of school.

That’s when we sign up for teams and clubs, and the cheer squad for St. Joe’s, and—”

“Get in the car,” Colm ordered, jerking the door open and glaring at her pointedly.

“Go where?” she repeated.

“In, missy,” he said, “or I’ll shove you in myself.”

“Try it,” she taunted, her heart racing. Her fists clenched and unclenched as she stared up at him. Her mind raced, reviewing

the things Liam had taught her about fighting off an attack. Go for the vulnerable spots—eyes and crotch. A fist-claw to the

throat. Could she even? But this wasn’t an attack. It was... she didn’t know what it was. Some kind of ambush. “Mam,” she

said, turning to search her mother’s face for some sign of reassurance.

“In the car, Mairin,” Mam said, her gaze darting nervously to Colm. “Right this minute. We’ll not be late on your first day.”

Mairin flung herself into the backseat, her mind whirling with confusion. What in the world were they up to? She was no fan

of school, but everyone had to go to school. “First day of what?” she demanded. There was no answer, so she glared out the

window, slathering a layer of resentment over her fear.

In the car, Mam and Colm commented on the morning traffic and quarreled about the election as if it were any other day. Mam

had reluctantly settled on Humphrey on account of him being a Democrat like Kennedy, but Colm said she was a damn fool if

she didn’t vote for Nixon.

Mairin sat with her arms folded, seething. She felt utterly abandoned, with Liam gone off to training camp and Fiona sent

to live with her aunt.

Thanks to her driving lessons with Liam, she recognized High Street and a few blocks later, North Street, and then they were

headed for the expressway. But instead of getting on the big thoroughfare, Colm trolled along Best Street and then turned

into a driveway spanned by a tall iron gate. This was flanked by a brick wall topped by coils of barbed wire.

“This is—What is this place?” Mairin asked, her voice a strained whisper. But she knew. Everyone in the Fruit Belt knew.

The gate rolled open and Colm drove into a parking area surrounded by some kind of yard where the grass had been burned to

yellow by the summer sun. Ahead of them loomed a forbidding, stone-built Gothic structure, its somber shadow falling over

the landscape like a dark secret. Weathered carvings crouched above downspouts, and intricately figured archways framed thick

wooden doors studded with iron hardware. There were more buildings with rows of tall shuttered windows inside the complex.