Sins of the Mother Read online

  Sex is my gift from the Spirit.

  I am good at pleasing others. Not just good, I am a pro. Even now, at forty, I can make men and women see the light of life, feel the joy of God’s creation.

  “The horrible things that happened gave you empathy,” Daya told me. “The ability to read lovers, to see where they hold their anxiety and to release them.”

  For years, I did so without enjoying it.

  Not tonight.

  Tonight I joined with Desmond and Daya.

  No cameras.

  No money.

  No shame.

  Just the three of us.

  I’ve been fucking since I was twelve.

  This was the first time I knew love.

  * * *

  “Gross,” Caitlin said, shaking her head.

  Not that she begrudged the woman a threesome. She’d made peace with her mother’s lifestyle back in college, and sex was Caitlin’s third favorite part of being a human being, right after french fries and pizza. But Mama Maya hadn’t mentioned a shower or a bath since her initial foot wash, so a month of hot yoga in the woods meant no one in the sex party smelled like roses.

  She flipped through the rest of the journal’s pages and tried to estimate how long it’d take to finish. Longer than another joint and a pizza. A man had shown up at her door this morning, ready to kill. Last night, a woman had watched her from the edge of a parking lot. Somewhere in between was the story of a sheriff who didn’t want to get involved, a missing teenager, and the Five, whatever or whoever they were. Tomorrow morning could go any number of directions, and she needed as much information as possible. Information, not the baggage she’d been dragging around for forty years. She needed someone to sift the data, not cry over past offenses, let alone read between the lines for references to a daughter named Caitlin. She hated to think it, or even say it out loud, but the words came out. “I need help.”

  She laughed, grabbed her phone, and found Scott Canton’s number, but stopped. Her task would require the use of file-based research, and her warrior-poet therapist eschewed all things digital. Still, his voice appeared with a candidate as clearly as if she’d called. Lakshmi—if you’d let her get close.

  Caitlin gritted her teeth until her cheek muscles hurt. She’d done her best to distance herself from Lakshmi’s enthusiastic forays into friendship, insulating her personal life with a wall of professionalism. Having the girl read her dead mother’s diary would knock that wall to pieces with a wrecking ball. Still, it needed to be done, and Lakshmi would jump at the chance.

  What was the mantra Maya had written in her journal?

  My fears were only protecting me from my possibilities.

  Caitlin dialed her phone and got Lakshmi on the second ring. “Hey, kid, want to throw a hundred pages of extra reading on top of your research?”

  Lakshmi laughed over the sounds of an active laundry room. “Yes, of course. I’ve found some general stuff about the group’s formation so far, but nothing firsthand.”

  Caitlin fed her the limited names she’d found in the journal while uploading the contents of the thumb drive.

  “My problem,” she admitted, to both Lakshmi and herself, “is I’m basically skimming the pages looking for my name. Want to read about the adventures of my bisexual mom?”

  Caitlin opened the door to room service and its warm box of cheesy self-satisfaction as Lakshmi happily agreed. Fifteen minutes later and three slices in, she returned to the journal, confident that Lakshmi would have the whole thing summarized in the next two days.

  Giving herself permission to flip past the next few entries—Maya worked a farm, Maya and the others hiked Mount Baldy, Maya dewormed a goat—Caitlin stopped at an entry titled My Real Name.

  * * *

  June 6, 1993

  My Real Name

  I found out why I’m here tonight, or at least, how I was called to God’s Hill.

  It’s my birthday. Not the day I came out of my mother, but my life-has-just-begun-to-make-sense birthday.

  When did this start? February. Now it’s June. Not everyone gets their birthday. Bev hasn’t had one yet. But I did, and now I have a new name.

  Magda.

  I grew up Jewish, so Christ was the guy from Christmas and I’d never heard of Mary Magdalene, which is fine. Desmond says that all of the world’s churches are right, in a way, though the emphasis on profit and real estate take them away from perfection. That’s why we say both God and the Spirit.

  Anyway, after today’s morning song, Daya pulled me aside and told me I’d be given Desmond’s word. It’s been months since he’s spoken to me. We’ve been together for sex many times, but Desmond hasn’t given me any messages other than what I received when I first got to God’s Hill.

  I was nervous, nearly pissing my pants. That experience, that closeness to God, was stronger than any drug I’d ever tried, and I’ve tried most. I assumed I’d meet Desmond in his cabin, but Daya said no, I was supposed to follow the path to the top of the mountain by myself.

  It was in the eighties, so by the time I got to the peak, I had a good sweat going.

  Desmond sat on top of the Big Bounce, a twenty-foot trampoline some of the men had stretched between the trees, ten feet off the ground. He wasn’t bouncing today. He sat facing the large, sweeping valley below the mountain with his eyes closed.

  He looked so peaceful I almost turned back, but watching him rest, I realized I yearned to have that kind of peace, so I called out, “Teacher, may I approach?”

  He opened his eyes, smiled, and nodded.

  I climbed up and joined him on the Big Bounce, sitting as cross-legged as my hips allow, doing my best to match his posture.

  Four months ago I would have started talking. Not this time. I inhaled the fresh air and waited.

  “Linda’s had a new vision,” he said, still looking into the valley.

  I hadn’t seen Linda much over the last two weeks, but everyone said she’d been painting to the point of exhaustion.

  “A migration,” Desmond continued. “We’re going to leave God’s Hill.”

  My heart raced. I had no idea if that was a good or bad thing. “Is it the farmer?”

  Some of the men had gotten into it with the local landowner. I didn’t know why, but I’d heard the police were called, and I knew we weren’t sending workers his way anymore.

  “Oh no. This is a good migration, a growth, an expansion.” He smiled at me. “And you’re going to be an important part.”

  “Me?”

  He put his hand on my knee. “I still remember the moment Beverly introduced us. You were everything she’d described.”

  I had to fight back a blush. “Why? I wasn’t anything special, especially then. I mean, hot chicks in Hollywood are a dime a dozen, and I had really let myself go.”

  He smiled. “I don’t mean your physical description. I mean how she’d described the woman in her dreams.”

  We’d been warned about interrupting Desmond when he was teaching, but I couldn’t help myself. “I thought—”

  He didn’t look angry. “Yes?”

  “When I first came to camp, when you showed me”—I paused, nervous to put it into words—“God’s face, you said that Daya had been the one who’d had a vision of me.”

  Again, he smiled. “That’s correct. Daya had told us of a vision she’d had of a strong, sexual woman who would help us reach God’s Hill. She asked all of those present if they knew anyone who matched the description. No one had an answer, but the next morning, Beverly came forward and told me she’d had a dream. In her dream, you and she were together—”

  Desmond never said fucking, but that’s what he meant by together.

  “—and people were watching, men and women, but they were ashamed, both of you and themselves. Instead of being scared, much as Beverly had felt, you went to each witness, putting everyone at ease, until all present had joined in. Out of nowhere, an explosion set the building on fire. Everyone panicked,
but you grabbed Beverly, and she grabbed the others, and arm in arm, you led them naked through a wall of flame.”

  “Holy shit,” I said, then quickly put my hand over my mouth.

  Desmond laughed. “Indeed. On the other side of the flames, Linda, Daya, and I watched you all come to us, unscathed.”

  “Beverly dreamt all that?”

  Desmond nodded. “Then you came to Linda’s house, then here to us. Do you know the story of Mary Magdalene?”

  I didn’t. He explained how men throughout history had twisted the image of Mary Magdalene, possibly Jesus of Nazareth’s thirteenth apostle, retelling her story as that of a prostitute who Jesus forgave and allowed to associate with his followers, a symbol of God’s nonjudgmental love. But the church, being run by greedy men, had bastardized Mary’s true story, hiding that she was just as trusted as the other apostles, and that she may have even been Jesus’s wife on earth.

  “Okay,” I said, still not really following where he was going with this.

  “In Daya’s vision, this strong, sexual woman was known as Magda.”

  “Okay,” I repeated.

  Desmond put his arm around me.

  “Don’t be scared, Magda.”

  “I’m not Magda—”

  “You are,” he said, squeezing my shoulder, “if you let yourself be.”

  “What does that mean? What do I do as Magda?”

  “First things first. You must say good-bye to Maya.”

  I asked how.

  “You must tell me everything,” he said. “The good and the bad, the best and the worst, so that we may celebrate Maya’s passing.”

  “I’ll be dead?”

  “Oh no, you’ll finally start to live.”

  Finally start to live.

  Those words unlocked something in me, so I started with what I could remember. My father, and the way he hit my mother, then later me, then when Mom died, how his hits turned to softer hands that lingered instead of jabbed, though still just as painful. And I told him about the first time I stole, a box of candles from temple, how I tried pot in middle school, the first boy I kissed, then the first girl, and sex, and skipping school, and blowing my math teacher so I wouldn’t fail, and prom, then how I ran away, then stripping, then coke and crystal, then porn. Each day was a constant search for new ways to get high, or at least to make my father’s hands mean less.

  Then, and I almost stopped there, but the words wanted to get out, I told Desmond about getting pregnant, the baby’s father, and how I would have left it all to be with him, if only he’d wanted me, and about how hard I’d cried the day my daughter came, not from the pain, but because I’d seen her perfect, furious eyes, and I gave that child away. Then I told Desmond about how I’d thrown myself at men who passed me around, the diseases, the leases broken, the cars stolen, the time in jail for DUI, the times I should have gotten DUIs. I told him every single thing I could remember.

  Finally, when the words ran out, he wiped my tears away, kissed my lips, and held me.

  “Good-bye, Maya,” he said. “You survived as well as you could. Magda has you now, and Magda will walk you through the flames.”

  I looked up at that beautiful man and felt so powerful, so full of joy.

  “Unscathed,” I said.

  “That’s right, Magda. The pure don’t burn.”

  We stayed up there for another hour talking about the upcoming migration. He even asked for my thoughts on how we might recruit more members.

  Maya was never asked for her opinion.

  Magda has all kinds of ideas.

  * * *

  Caitlin sat up quickly.

  Just like at home, her head banged against the wall above the bed’s wooden headboard.

  “Shit.” She rubbed the tender spot.

  Mama Maya, aka Magda, had unloaded a great deal in the last few pages, but only one thought circled in Caitlin’s head.

  Desmond knows the name of my real father—and according to the lawyer in red, Desmond wants me to come see him whenever I feel ready.

  CHAPTER

  23

  “THAT’S RIGHT, SCOTT,” Caitlin said into her phone, keeping eye contact with the driver, Lily-call-her-Eve. “I’ll be back in town tomorrow. Or, you know”—she waved toward the rearview from where she sat alone in the back of the town car—“call Sheriff Boswell Martin of the Coos County Sheriff’s Department.”

  They said their good-byes, then hung up.

  Eve looked back. “There’s really nothing to worry about—”

  Caitlin held up a finger and dialed Lakshmi. “Just a few more calls.”

  Twenty minutes later, she’d left her whereabouts with enough people that she felt 99 percent sure she wouldn’t disappear on her way to the Dayan compound.

  She checked the passing scenery. Like the route to Larsen Timber, the road wound through a deep forest of Douglas fir, hemlock, and red alder trees. Five minutes later, she realized they hadn’t passed a single car headed the opposite direction. She knocked 10 percent off her return-unharmed estimate.

  “Where exactly is your compound?” Caitlin said, finally. She’d called Gwendolyn Sunrise and agreed to meet Desmond first thing in the morning, and they’d sent the car. In her excitement, she’d neglected to fill in the details.

  Eve’s eyes returned to the rearview. “We’ll be at God’s Hill in twenty minutes.”

  “I thought that was in Los Angeles.”

  “It’s wherever the Daughters gather,” the young woman answered with a smile, “but you’re right. We started in Los Angeles. How did you know?”

  “I’m from there.” Caitlin leaned forward, putting an arm between the driver’s and passenger’s seats. “Since we have some time, mind if I ask how you became a Daughter in the first place?”

  “Some friends and I stopped into one of the wellness welcomes, and I got to talking with one of the messengers. They were there for me when no one else was.”

  Wellness welcomes and messengers.

  Enough of the back-seat nonsense. Caitlin climbed up into the passenger seat.

  “What’s a wellness welcome? Do you mean the shop in town, Daya’s Gifts?”

  Eve flinched at the motion, but her smile returned when Caitlin settled in and clicked her seat belt. “That’s the one in Coos Bay. There’s Linda’s Mountain in Coquille, Desmond’s Dive in North Bend, Hope’s Meadows in Dew Valley, and Magda’s Treasure Chest in Bandon. They sell our craftwork, but really they’re safe places where women in trouble can go.”

  Two things caught Caitlin’s attention: that one of the shops was named after Magda, the name Maya Aronson had adopted, and that there were five shops total, as in, Find the Five.

  She wanted to address both without appearing eager. “Is that what you were, Lily? In trouble?”

  Caitlin saw the girl’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry. It’s Eve, right?”

  “My mother drinks,” the young woman said. “Sometimes she drives drunk. She killed my brother. He was eleven. Since she works for the county, they called it a car accident, but no one bothered giving her a Breathalyzer. Maybe if they would have, she’d have seen how lost she was. I wasn’t going to wait around to see what happened to me.”

  Caitlin nodded. “And how old were you? Fifteen, sixteen?”

  “No way. The Daughters won’t accept any voyagers under the age of eighteen. Desmond says they’re not ready to hear the message until then. I’m the youngest one on God’s Hill.”

  That made a third thread Caitlin wanted to follow. According to Johnny Larsen, his missing daughter was only thirteen. If the Dayans really lived by their rules, or at least the federal age of consent, the last thing they’d want around was a minor.

  Eve seemed willing to talk. Maybe she’d talk about the Five. Caitlin had to be subtle. “So, five shops?”

  “Wellness welcomes.”

  “Right. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try to visit the other four, make a game of it.”

  Eve glanc
ed over like Caitlin was the crazy one. “Sounds like a lot of driving.”

  Time to see if the words had meaning for all of the Dayans or just Mama Maya.

  “Well, I’d be able to tell people I ‘found the five.’ ”

  That prompted a double take. “Why did you say it like that?”

  A yellow arrow sign indicated a sharp turn up ahead, maybe five hundred feet.

  Caitlin continued to play dumb. “Like what? ‘Find the five’?”

  “Do you”—Eve’s voice lowered—“do you have a message for me?”

  Caitlin pointed up ahead. “There’s a turn coming.”

  The young woman didn’t falter. “Something you’re supposed to tell me?”

  Caitlin tapped Eve’s hand. “Look forward.”

  Eve glanced back, then hit the brakes, pulling the town car to a stop a safe hundred feet from the corner.

  “Do you?”

  “Do I what?” Caitlin said.

  Eve smiled, then shook her head. “Sorry. You couldn’t know what you were saying. Could you please get in the back seat? I don’t want to get distracted again.”

  “Sure.” Caitlin opened the door and walked around this time.

  She’d hit on something, but she didn’t think it was the number of shops. The Five loomed large in Dayan legend, but not enough for Eve to tell a stranger. She was open to a message, however—one that the messenger might not even know they were carrying. Caitlin thought back to her mother’s journal and how Linda, Daya, and Desmond had waited for Maya to tell them something special. Was it a shared set of codewords, an openness to unseen meaning in the universe, or simply an interview technique designed to make the unassuming feel like they alone had a special power—similar to how Caitlin had asked Eve about the Five?

  Once Caitlin had returned to her spot in the back, Eve got them going again. They rode in silence for the next ten minutes. Caitlin tried to check her email, but her phone’s signal went in and out. She was about to broach the subject of the Five again when they pulled up to a gate.

  “We’re home,” Eve said, pressing a remote control.