Free Immaculate Heart by Camille Deangelis

you feel can’t ever be wrong.
    The girl is silent. He tries a different tack.
    Â 
    FATHER DOWD (CONT’D)
    Let Our Lady guide you. Always remember: that’s why she’s come to you in the first place. Hold to your faith, and you’ll always speak the truth.
    The girl takes a deep breath, and when she opens her mouth, she speaks shakily.
    Â 
    TERESA
    I don’t know that I can speak to anyone. Anyone apart from you, Father. I don’t know if I can.
    Â 
    FATHER DOWD
    Don’t worry yourself, Tess. You’re a good girl; it’s your very reluctance that speaks the world of you. I know you’ve nothing to hide.
    Â 
    TERESA
    It’s not that. I’m sorry, Father. I don’t know that I can speak about this any more today.
    That was the end of the first recording. For a few minutes, I just sat there—the old mattress springs digging into my ass—mulling over everything I’d heard. She’d put him off midway through her story, and yet that much-younger Tess had answered questions she hadn’t wanted me to ask.
    That day at the beach was coming into clearer focus now: the adults unpacking their picnic baskets and mold-speckled beach chairs, passing a thermos of tea down the line of white limbs and red noses; that strange woman walking alone down the length of the beach, who had spoken to me as if she’d mistaken me for someone she knew; Tess and Orla diving into the surf, Mallory and Síle laughing over their shoulders as if they’d been talking about me. I was outnumbered four to one, but it wasn’t long before Tess called after me, wanting to know how old I was and had I ever been to Disneyland.
    That I had known her once, years before any of this had happened to her—it gave me the willies.

 
    4
    NOVEMBER 8
    I was up too late listening to Tess’s interview tape, but I dragged myself out of bed for breakfast with Brona. Afterward I reached for Johnny’s cell phone. “Hello, am I speaking with Orla Madden?”
    A baby wailed in the background. “This is Orla.”
    I gave her my name and said I was in town for Johnny Donegan’s funeral. “I don’t know if you remember that day we went to the beach? When we were kids?” Reading the silence that followed, it was clear she didn’t. “Síle was quite good friends with my sister Mallory…?”
    â€œRight,” she said cautiously, drawing out the word like a piece of taffy.
    â€œSo I’m back for the next week, and Brona and some of the others have been telling me about the visitation you experienced. I’m a journalist for an American magazine, and I have to say, it’s one of the most compelling stories I’ve come across. I was wondering if you’d be willing to have a chat with me.”
    Orla cleared her throat. “I really don’t feel comfortable speaking to any members of the press about something that happened twenty years ago.”
    â€œI understand, and I’m sorry if I’ve intruded on your privacy. It’s just that I talked to Tess McGowan yesterday, and I guess it didn’t occur to me that you might feel differently about being interviewed.”
    Another silence on the line. Currency, to a different purpose. “You’ve spoken with Tess?”
    â€œYes, I have.”
    â€œAnd you’re a cousin of Brona Tuohy’s, is that right?”
    â€œI am, yes.”
    â€œWell…,” she murmured, and I knew she was going to agree, I knew it. Finally she said, “I suppose I could speak with you, for a little while.” I let the smile of satisfaction linger on my face for only a second, or else she’d hear it in my voice. “Ordinarily I’d suggest meeting you someplace in town,” she went on, “but given the subject, it might be best if you call round to the house.”
    I rubbed the last of the smile away with the back of my hand before I spoke.