Page 46

Although it was a warm summer evening, Mairin shivered as she slipped into the phone booth on the street corner. Under the

glow of the pink neon light in the bakery window, she took the Mercury dime from her shoe and dropped it into the coin slot.

She paused, weighing her options, wondering who to call. She had one dime. One shot. She didn’t want to make a wrong move.

Her first impulse was to phone home. But no. Her mother would drag her back to the Good Shepherd. Besides, Mairin didn’t want

to be anywhere close to Colm ever again. Fiona, then. No, thought Mairin. Bad idea. Fiona might not have come back from her

aunt’s in Bradford. And if someone other than Fiona answered the phone, Mairin would have to hang up and the call would be

wasted. If Mr. or Mrs. Gallagher picked up, they’d probably feel obliged to tell Mairin’s mom.

Mairin shut her eyes, opened them, and then with determined finger strokes, she dialed the number on Flynn’s truck. FR2–3858.

It rang four times. Five times. Six. She feared he might have left for the day. She was about to give up and press the coin

return when he picked up.

“Gallagher’s.”

The sound of his voice made her melt with relief. “Um... Flynn. It’s—it’s me.” Mairin sobbed, barely able to choke out

her own name. “M-mairin.”

“Hey, hey, hey now,” Flynn said. “Is that Mairin? Mairin O’Hara?”

“Y-yes. I... I...” Her breath came in sobbing gasps.

“Whoa, take a breath, girl. What’s going on?”

“I need help, Flynn. I didn’t know who else to call. And you s-said I c-could call you anytime—”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“No. But... yes.” She sounded like a crazy person. She struggled to control her voice. “Oh, Flynn. I need help. I’m, uh,

I’m lost in the city.”

“Lost? You want me to call your mom?”

“ No! ” she burst out with sharp urgency. “Please don’t tell her. Please. She sent me to the Good Shepherd, and it’s terrible there, and I can’t stay there anymore. I just can’t.”

A beat of hesitation. “Where are you?”

“I... um, oh gosh, Flynn. I don’t know. There’s a bakery called McGavin’s with two three four seven over the door.” She

clutched the phone and tried to lean out of the booth to read a street sign, but she couldn’t find one. The flurry of panic

inside her intensified. “I don’t know what street this is.”

“Hey. McGavin’s Bakery. I’ll find it. Sit tight and wait for me.”

The wait felt like hours, with hunger gnawing at her stomach and fear gnawing at her chest. She paced back and forth on the

sidewalk, flinching at each approaching car, wincing when a passerby glanced her way. She picked up a yellowing copy of Time magazine from a bus stop bench. The cover showed an astronaut and the headline “Man on the Moon.”

Mairin gasped. Really? Was there really a man on the moon? She’d been gone a year, and the whole world had changed. She skimmed

the article, and yes, it seemed that the moon landing was real. She paged through the rest of the magazine, suddenly hungry

for news of Liam. Was he in Vietnam now? Was he staying safe? She grimaced at a picture of weary-looking soldiers on the march.

Please be okay, she thought, and started to pace again.

Her breath coming in anxious gasps, she waited forever. She waited a lifetime. Two lifetimes. The distant yip of a siren nearly sent her back into hiding, but she didn’t want to miss Flynn. Finally, a tall, boxy produce truck lumbered

toward her and swung over to the curb.

“Get in, kiddo,” said Flynn, motioning to her through the side opening of the step van. In his denim work shirt with the sleeves rolled back, his hair curling over the collar, and his expression gentle and welcoming, he was like a dream come true.

Mairin leaped.

“Aquarius” by the 5th Dimension streamed from the radio. Flynn turned down the volume. “Now,” he said, “what’s going on?”

Mairin clutched the sides of the passenger seat, and for the first time in nearly a year, she felt safe. Safe. Then the story rushed out of her in a jumble of words and tears. She didn’t give him details of how she’d managed to get

away, and she didn’t mention the other girls. She certainly didn’t mention the money. The less he knew, the better.

The same was true for Mairin herself. She was desperate to learn what had become of the others when they’d scattered. She

prayed they had all managed to get away and find help, but it was probably better not to know. That way, if she was ever questioned,

she could answer honestly. In all likelihood, she would never see any of the girls from the Good Shepherd again.

Maybe it was a good idea to let go of reminders of the grinding labor and discipline meted out by the Sisters of Charity.

Maybe a fresh start would open the door for all of them to move ahead with their lives, putting the nightmare of the Good

Shepherd behind them.

“Whoa,” Flynn said, flicking a glance at her after she got the story out. “So you’re telling me you were in some kind of prison?

And you escaped?”

“You have to believe me,” she said, noting his doubtful tone. “Because if you don’t, I’m getting out of this truck right now

and you’ll never see me again. And—”

“Hey, I never said—”

“You think I’m making this up?” She thrust her arm at him, displaying a livid bruise. “And what about this?” She pulled the

collar of her shirt aside to show him the spot on her shoulder where she’d been strapped so hard that the fabric of her smock

had made an impression in her flesh.

“You didn’t let me finish,” he said, his voice quieter now.

“I never said I didn’t believe you.” He eyed her oversized bowling shirt and thin-soled shoes.

“I’m real sorry that happened, Mairin. I didn’t realize you’d been sent away.

But I don’t know how to help you. Should we report this to.

.. I don’t know, the police or the county? ”

“No,” she said instantly. “The county social services and the juvenile courts send girls to the Good Shepherd. The nuns have everyone convinced that they’re actually helping.” She shuddered, reliving the torments,

suddenly fearful that the nuns would be able to find her anywhere. They could walk through walls. They might show up on any

given street corner.

“Well, you can’t be on your own,” he said. “A young kid like you.”

“I’m not young,” Mairin snapped. “Not after that. I’ll never be young again.” The truck smelled of fresh apples and herbs.

She looked back at the cargo area, stacked with fruit crates and bins of fresh vegetables. “Can I have something to eat? Please?”

His gaze softened. “When was the last time you ate?”

“Breakfast.”

He nodded. “Help yourself to something from the back. Anything you want.”

She nearly swooned from the aroma, longing to devour everything at once. She gorged herself on ripe raspberries and blueberries

and a fresh, crisp apple. How delicious it all tasted after the bland food at the Good Shepherd.

“I’m desperate to see Fiona,” she told Flynn between bites. “Did she come home from Pennsylvania? Is she all right, then?”

“Back at school, same as always.”

Mairin wondered if a girl who had been sent away to have a baby and place it for adoption could ever be “same as always.”

Angela Denny had been forever changed; that much Mairin knew. But she didn’t press Flynn for details about his sister. There

was no way a boy could know what it was like for a girl to have a baby and be forced to give it away.

“So what’s next?” Flynn asked her. “You need to go somewhere safe. Do you have a grandma or an aunt, or...?”

In a family like the Gallaghers, there were relatives in abundance. But Mairin’s family was smaller. Her mother’s people were

in Ireland, and she never spoke of them. Her dad had been an only child, and his folks had retired down in Florida. They didn’t

like visiting because of Colm.

“Heyday Farm,” she said. “The one out past Gardenville.”

“Yeah, I know the place. It’s on my pickup route because they have a pretty good orchard,” he said. “There’s this girl I know—Haley—she lives out at Heyday. It’s a... I guess kind of a hippie commune.”

“Haley Moore. I remember her. Your girlfriend.”

He offered a noncommittal shrug.

“They gave out flyers at Niagara Falls saying they’re looking for help.” She took it out of her pocket and showed him. In

her other pocket, she had the photo strips from the Fourth of July. Angela and Helen, Janice and Kay, Denise... Where were

they tonight? Were they safe?

“So you want to go to this farm.” Flynn studied the flyer. “Look, it might not be the best—”

“I want to go anywhere but back to that prison. Anything but the nuns.”

“Oh, you won’t find nuns there,” he assured her. He turned in the driver’s seat and studied her in the yellowish light of

a street lamp. “I feel so bad that you had to go to a place like that,” he said.

She knew what he was asking without hearing him ask it. “I wasn’t in trouble, Flynn. I swear. It was nothing like that. I

didn’t have a baby. I didn’t break any law. It was all because of Colm. My mother’s husband. My stepdad. He’s... well,

he’s not very nice to me.”

Flynn gave her a look that reminded her sharply of Liam’s expression when he’d caught Colm in her room. Shock and just plain

anger. She knew then that she didn’t have to explain any further.

They drove out past Gardenville. Watching the colors of the sunset streak across the rolling landscape, Mairin felt an ache

in her chest. It had been so long since she’d seen beauty like this, so long since she’d eaten an entire pint of berries,

so long since she’d had a conversation without being shushed. Moment by moment, she was shaking off the horror of the Good

Shepherd.

The farm consisted of a big house and a bigger barn, surrounded by a collection of lean-tos and dilapidated buildings and

acres of fields surrounding a tree-lined pond. A row of derelict bunkhouses lined an old orchard. A woman in a flowing caftan