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grandmother because she’s sick. They were meant to stay for two weeks, and the nuns here said they’d take care of me while

they’re away. Mom and Dad didn’t know what this place really is. It was recommended to them by someone at my school. I went

to Archbishop Walsh.”

Mairin knew the school—a sports rival located in a fancy neighborhood near the University at Buffalo. “So are your two weeks

up soon?” she asked.

Helen shook her head and looked at the ground. “After they were gone for a month, Sister Gerard had a telegram that said they’re

being detained on state security charges, and they’re under an exit ban.”

“What does that mean?” It didn’t sound good.

“Means she’s totally screwed.” Denise had returned with her cart.

“Oh, go chase yourself,” Angela said. “Her dad’s a professor at the U. He’s kind of famous for the books he’s published.”

“Not famous enough to get home from China,” Denise pointed out.

Mairin ignored her. “Whoa, you must be really smart,” she said to Helen.

“That doesn’t make me smart,” Helen said.

“She is,” Angela said. “She speaks Chinese.”

Helen looked at the stone wall at the end of the clothesline yard. “Mandarin,” she clarified. “So anyway. I’ve been here forever,

and there’s no end in sight.”

“Wow, that’s awful,” Mairin said. “How will you ever—”

“ Silence!” A portly nun clapped her hands at them. “You know the rules. One more outburst and you’ll be kneeling on corn at suppertime.”

Mairin tried not to let fear and confusion consume her as they worked all day, washing and drying and pressing tablecloths,

napkins, towels, sheets, and pillow slips. Each piece was marked with an indelible stamp—St. Francis Hospital, the Hotel Lafayette,

the Niagara Institute, and several large restaurants and resorts.

With grinding monotony, they gathered the dry items and brought them in rolling carts to the calendar room for pressing. Once

folded on the long tables, the laundry was precisely stacked. If it was off even a little bit, one of the nuns or supervisors

would force them to redo the stack and make them count it again, because they were paid by the piece, not by the pound.

“That laywoman said ‘we’re paid.’ Are we being paid, then?” Mairin asked Denise, who was working nearby.

“Not hardly. The clients pay the nuns, you dope.”

“The clients. You mean like hospitals and hotels and such.”

“We service all the fanciest places,” said Angela, striking a pose.

Mairin wondered if these businesses knew who was washing their dirty laundry. She wondered if they’d be troubled if they knew

it was being done by girls who were being held against their will, girls who should be in school.

According to Helen, the clients were led to believe that the Good Shepherd provided moral education and job training for wayward

girls, a worthy service to the community.

“Why doesn’t someone tell them what’s really happening here?” Mairin wondered. She was quickly learning to whisper through

her teeth without looking up.

“Who are they going to believe, a girl arrested for some petty crime, or a nun?” Helen replied archly.

“I didn’t commit a crime,” Mairin said.

“What, then?”

She felt the burn of a blush. “My stepfather—” She stopped herself. These girls were strangers.

“Creeped on you, didn’t he?” Denise passed behind her, wheeling a cart.

Mairin pretended she hadn’t heard. “We don’t get along,” she mumbled, feeling the fire of humiliation in her cheeks, all the

way to the tips of her ears. For some reason, every instinct she possessed urged her to keep the incident with Colm a secret.

She kept working until all the neat stacks were wrapped and labeled. She noticed that Helen kept the ends of the wrapping

paper rolls and the priest collar tabs, carefully slipping them into her apron pocket.

“Are you going to get in trouble for that?” Mairin whispered.

“Not if they don’t see,” Helen said simply.

The finished bundles went into enormous Pullman bags that were wheeled to a loading dock behind the main building. Burly teamsters

backed their delivery trucks up to the dock and opened the loading doors.

“Out for delivery,” Odessa remarked, her gaze soft with wistful yearning. She stood next to Mairin in the chain of girls who

were moving the parcels toward the trucks.

“Do you ever think about jumping on board and getting away from this place?” Mairin asked. Her heart sped up at the mere thought.

“Every damn day.”

“So why haven’t you—”

“You get caught trying that, and it’d be the closet for you,” Odessa said.

“What’s the closet?”

“Like solitary confinement.” Angela shuddered. “It’s by Mother Superior’s office, and if you make a noise, they make you stay

in there longer.”

“In a closet?” Mairin asked. “That’s nuts.”

“Girls who’ve been there say there’s barely enough room to stand or turn around, and it’s completely dark.”

This sounded like a nightmare to Mairin. She’d never liked dark, enclosed spaces. “Then if I did try,” she said, “I’d make sure I didn’t get caught.”

“You won’t give them the slip,” Odessa said, indicating the nun and the lay supervisor who scanned the area as if they were

armed guards. “Besides, where you gonna go once you’re out? Social services’ll send you right back.”

Mairin eyed the nearly full truck. She pictured herself jumping on board, then waiting for the opportunity to slip away and...

and then what? She would probably go back home, beg her mother for another chance. Maybe if Mam knew exactly what it was like

here, she’d take pity and let Mairin stay home where she belonged.

She might not, though. Mam seemed all too ready to believe Colm, not Mairin.

A nun and a lay worker supervised the loading, pacing up and down the dock. Mairin’s pulse raced as her desperation grew.

Her thoughts were a runaway train. She had to get out of here.

There was a loud whistle, and the first truck pulled away. Another, larger one backed into its place. The driver was on the

young side, slim and muscular in his delivery uniform and cap. He came around to the dock with a swagger and lit up a smoke.

His gaze seemed drawn to Angela. Even in her work clothes, she was lavishly pretty, as tall and shapely as a model in Seventeen magazine.

He offered a smoke to the nun and the laywoman, producing a Zippo lighter with a flourish. Mairin saw her chance. Quick as

a flash, she stepped onto the truck and wedged herself between two tall stacks of parcels. She heard a gasp from Odessa, but

sent the girl a pleading look. Odessa’s face went blank, and she continued working as if she’d seen nothing.

“Hey, what’s she doin’?” asked another girl. Janice. Janice the snitch. “Ow!” Janice said. “Quit poking me!”

A few minutes later, the cargo door rolled shut and Mairin found herself in darkness. A whistle sounded, and the truck lumbered

forward.

This was actually going to work, Mairin thought, feeling giddy with relief and anticipation.

No one here knew who she was. No one would miss her.

All she had to do was slip out of the truck when no one was looking.

The scent of detergent and the rhythmic hum of the engine smelled and sounded like freedom to her after the suffocating atmosphere of the laundry.

She had no idea where she was headed. Away was good enough for her.

The truck seemed to move at a crawl. The bales of laundry rocked with the motion, some of them toppling over. Mairin crouched

lower, trying not to panic as she planned her next steps. She was trapped in here, but the door would open at some point.

Wouldn’t it? She could make a break for it, just run, but what if someone chased her down? Maybe she should wait and sneak

out. And then... then what?

She curled her toes around Flynn Gallagher’s dime, still hidden in her shoe. Yes. She could find a phone booth and call Flynn

and beg him to come and get her. She could—

A sharp whistle sounded, and the truck rolled to a halt with a gnashing of brakes.

So soon? They were barely underway. She heard voices— Gimme a hand, willya? —and the iron creak of a gate. Then the back door of the truck lifted.

Now what now what now what? Mairin’s heart hammered so loudly, she was sure someone would hear it. She tried to force herself to calm down, praying no

one was looking at the truck. Traffic sounds on a road somewhere. A train whistle in the distance.

A glimmer of hope ignited inside Mairin. She took a deep breath, craning her neck to peek outside, but she could see only

a glimpse of the sky.

Freedom.

All she had to do was figure out where she was, and then find her way home. Except home was no longer a place where she was welcome. Maybe she’d run away to the painted-bus commune, smoke dope, and become a hippie.

“Start here,” a clipped female voice ordered.

A finger of ice touched Mairin’s spine. She held her breath as the truck jostled with someone’s weight.

The parcels were moved, one by one, and she realized that her refuge was being methodically dismantled.

Somehow, the truck had left, then circled back, and had returned to the Good Shepherd.

She crouched into a ball of nerves, wishing she could make herself disappear.

She held tight to the parcel in front of her, digging her work-chapped fingers into the paper wrapping.

Then, inevitably, a pair of scuffed work boots planted themselves in front of her and the parcel was wrested from her grip.

The sound of shattering hope filled her ears as she tilted her head and looked up, up, up at the man towering above her. It

was the young driver, the one who smoked and stared at Angela as if she were dessert.

Mairin was so scared that she couldn’t move. “Please,” she said to the man, her voice shaking and hoarse. “I don’t belong

here. There’s been a mistake. I’m just trying to get home. Please, I’m begging you. I swear, I—”

“Out with you,” the guy said, his eyes hard and mean. “Or I’ll haul you out myself.”

Mairin shot up then, wincing as her knees yelped with pain from all the crouching. Her fear crystallized into fury as she

glared at him. The silence was filled with the weight of impending punishment. “I won’t forget this,” she said, noting the

name stitched on the shirt of his uniform. Clem.

“Get the hell outta my truck,” he said. “C’mon, you’re makin’ me late.”

She ducked her head and lunged for the open bay door, intent on somehow rushing through the gate.

An arm shot out and hauled her back. “No funny stuff.”

Mairin wrenched herself from his grip and dropped to the ground, the thin soles of her shoes slapping the pavement. Scanning

the area, she saw that the iron gate was closed, so she abandoned the idea of escaping that way. She hadn’t even made it out

of the parking lot.

“Come with me,” said the waiting nun, the breeze causing her habit to billow like the wings of a crow. She turned and marched

toward the loading dock. The truck left in a blast of exhaust. The nun stopped and waited, her disapproving eyes fixated on

Mairin.

It was a stupid move, Mairin admitted to herself as she trudged back across the compound. She’d let sheer panic cloud her

thinking, and she’d acted out of pure impulse. She absolutely did need to find a way to escape this place, but she would have

to make a better plan.

Mairin felt a seething defiance. She would not let this place break her.

She followed the nun back to the loading dock area.

All the girls were lined up on their knees on the bare pavement, their hands folded and their heads bowed as if in prayer.

A few of them were shaking with discomfort.

The nun must have recognized the shock on Mairin’s face, because she pulled her lips into a sour pucker and gave a sniff.

“All the girls had to wait here on their knees until your return.”

Mairin’s eyes narrowed. “That’s ridiculous. They had nothing to do with—”

The nun struck fast and hard. A fist connected with her ear, causing her head to ring and her vision to blur. Mairin gasped,

her hand flying to her burning ear. Tears welled up in her eyes, not just from the blow but from the realization that she

was now a resident of this place. The nun’s cold, unyielding gaze bore into her, and Mairin swallowed hard, the taste of fear

bitter on her tongue.

“Girls, Ruth has decided to come back and join us,” the nun announced. “You may stand up now and get back to work.”

The girls got to their feet, some of them groaning with pain. Several of them shot daggers of fury at Mairin.

“It’ll be nothing but bread and water for supper, and you can thank your new friend Ruth for that,” the nun added.

Mairin was horrified. “There’s no one to blame but me,” she said. “It’s not fair to punish the others because of what I did.”

“When one transgresses, all must suffer. You’d do well to remember that. Come along now.” She motioned toward a side door.

“Where are we going?”

“To see Sister Rotrude. She’ll be the one to decide what’s to be done about you.”