I was seventeen the first time I really noticed Milo. I could see his back and one shoulder, his tanned neck, the side of his head, sandy hair falling into his eyes. The collar of his shirt was frayed, but clean. His hair was long on the top and short at the back. I’d seen him around school, but this was the first time I saw him in our church. He was part of the congregation, and I was two rows behind him. Dad said we should show humility by not taking the front pews. Mom and Ruby and I always hovered around the back. I think folks appreciated that. It made them trust Dad more. He wasn’t going to show favour to his own family, but after the service we were expected to stand near him at the exit so that he could introduce us to his flock if required as they left.
Everyone poured out when the service was over, and the boy disappeared into the crowd. Mom had got talking to Marcia Little’s mother and, by the time we got outside, he was gone. He was with an older lady. I guessed she was his mom.
The following week they were there again with a girl, older than him but with the same-shaped face as her mom – a sister, I assumed. She had black nail varnish on, and I thought that was kind of inappropriate for church. I rushed out at the end, but the three of them didn’t stop. The mother muttered, ‘Thank you, Pastor Cooper,’ as she passed my dad. I looked at the boy’s face then. He must have been older than me because we weren’t inany of the same classes. Freckles crossed his nose and cheeks. He was good-looking in an old-fashioned way. His floppy hairstyle was out of date, but I liked that he didn’t try to look like everyone else. For the next few weeks, I watched out for him at school. I saw him twice, once leaving the schoolyard and another time leaving Principal Bermingham’s office with a grin on his face.
Dad’s congregation came from all over Boston. He was not a snob. The marquee sign outside said GOD IS FOR EVERYBODY, and we had all ethnicities, all colours, rich and poor. Dad did his best to preach the word of Jesus in the way of Jesus. When we were planning church picnics or Bible Camp, everyone put unlabelled envelopes containing what they could afford in the donation box. Sometimes there would be envelopes containing a thousand dollars, and some would contain pieces of newspaper cut into the shape of dollar bills. Dad said that people would do that because they wanted to be seen to put an envelope in the box and we mustn’t judge them. Ruby and I were allowed to open the envelopes and count the money with calculators by our side. I guessed that the sandy-haired boy was not wealthy. The jacket he wore was a bit too small, and shiny at the elbows. I asked Dad about the family, but he didn’t know who I was talking about.
‘The boy and his mom have come every Sunday for the last four weeks and sometimes the sister comes too. You should say hello, Dad,’ I told him.
‘Maureen, have you noticed them?’ he said to Mom and she nodded enthusiastically.
The following week, I nudged Dad as they approached at the end of the service. The mom tried to scurry by, but Dad reached for her hand and said, ‘You are welcome to the Holy Divine Church. I don’t believe we have met?’
She looked up at him, startled, and quickly composed herself. ‘Pastor Cooper, it is a pleasure to meet you. I’m Elaine Kellyand this here is my boy, Michael – we call him Milo – and my daughter, Margaret.’
The girl interrupted. ‘Margie,’ she said.
Dad said, ‘We’re all friends in this community, call me Douglas or Doug,’ and he laughed and introduced all of us then. We shook hands and exchanged greetings, but I failed to make eye contact with Milo. ‘What brings you to our church?’ Dad asked.
‘Well, we were all baptized in the Catholic Church, but I wanted somewhere …’ She struggled for words.
‘Less strait-laced?’ said Dad.
‘Yes.’ Her face brightened, and Milo and Margie looked at the ground.
On this first encounter, I smiled at Milo as they were leaving, and as he moved away, he turned and smiled back. His blue eyes sparkled, and I saw his crooked nose. It made him more attractive to me. His mother pulled him closer to her.
Milo later told me that the priest in their Catholic parish had been moved to another parish for molesting some children. He and Margie had not been targeted but Mrs Kelly was furious that nobody had called the cops. She wanted her children to have a strong Christian faith like she had, but she no longer trusted the Catholic Church to protect children. I was vaguely aware of abuse stories coming out of the Catholic Church in Ireland where Grandma lived. She was upset about it all, but I hadn’t heard of anything like that happening in our own city.
The Kellys had tried seven churches before they settled on ours, Mrs Kelly said. They liked Dad, he told Bible stories and then made them relatable to things that happened here and now, locally. He was liberal, much more so than your average preacher. He was not a fire-and-brimstone kind of guy. He was accepting of divorce, interracial marriage, contraception and homosexuality, but he preached chastity for boys and girls up to the age of twenty-one.
In Dad’s other role, as an investment broker, he did well. The churches in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire were self-sufficient and supplied him with wealthy investment clients. Dad was a straight shooter. Everybody trusted him. He was away a lot, but always at home at least three Sundays each month for ‘church and family, the two things that mean more to me than anything else in the world’. The fourth Sunday, he would be the star attraction at one of his other churches in the other states.
Mom was delighted to meet some Boston Irish; she missed Ireland so much. She was disappointed to hear that Mrs Kelly had never been to Ireland. Mrs Kelly’s grandparents had come over in the early 1900s. Mom grasped on to every Irish thing she could. Even though Mrs Kelly was third-generation American, she knew her ancestors were from Donegal and Mom was able to tell her how beautiful her home place was.
Mom was very defensive about Ireland. She was the most elegant woman I ever saw and would say that Ireland had culture and tradition, and people did not live with pigs in the parlour like the old cartoon images. Dad knew this, of course, because he had visited Ireland with Mom to see Grandma. But him mocking the old country annoyed Mom intensely and she always reminded him that on their wedding day he had promised her they could retire to Ireland. He would say that was at least twenty years away and maybe by then you might be able to get a decent cup of coffee in Dublin, but they never stayed mad with each other for long and soon they would be hooting with laughter over some shared joke.
I made sure to talk to Milo every time after that first occasion. Church was now the highlight of my week, rather than hanging out at Filene’s or the mall with Ginnie or Saima. They saw himtoo at church and agreed that he was dreamy. I discovered later that he had won a scholarship to our school, Altman High. You could tell his mom was proud of him, the way she looked at him. His uncle ran Billy’s Diner downtown and Milo picked up shifts before and after school and most Saturdays. Sundays, he attended church and occasionally a Red Sox game at Fenway Park.
He was in his senior year. He told me that when he was a kid, his father was sick a lot and then died of heart failure, and he used to fantasize about being a doctor who could cure his father. He was hoping to get into Boston College.
Milo’s sister, Margie, did not like that I was friendly with him. One Sunday, she warned me, ‘My little brother isn’t your type. I can see he’s sweet on you, but there’s no sense in pulling him into places where he doesn’t belong.’ I didn’t know what she meant. I think she was jealous of her brother. As she sauntered away, hands deep in her pockets, my heart soared. Milo was sweet on me.
In Altman High, I knew that I wasn’t the only girl who noticed Milo. Any time his name was mentioned, all the girls commented on how handsome he was. He stood out a little and it was plain as day that he cut his own hair. Some of the school jocks ribbed him about it, but it turned out that Milo had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Red Sox and every penny he earned at his uncle’s diner on evenings and weekends went towards days out at Fenway Park, after he’d given his mom half. Even though he wasn’t a great player, the jocks adopted him, almost as their mascot. It could have been patronizing in different circumstances, but they genuinely liked him. He made friends easily and my girlfriends were flirting with him on the daily.
Milo told me that he lived in a triple-decker house. He and his mom and Margie lived on the top floor, and his uncle Billy and uncle Pat lived with their families on the floors below. Hisdad had been a delivery truck driver but, when he died, he left behind some debts. Margie and his mom worked full-time in a florist at Boston South Station; they all contributed to the household. Southie was up and coming then, and there were cranes all over the place – it was being developed. Milo was relieved that his uncle owned the building.
Dad’s church downtown had opened Milo’s eyes to new possibilities. He told me that when they first started coming, his mom had expected to be ignored or patronized at best and was delighted when Dad went out of his way to welcome them. Milo loved our church, although he never could take part in Bible Camp or the summer barbecues because he was always working.
I told him he was welcome to come and study at our house any time he wanted. We lived a short walk away from the school on his route to the T Station. I told Mom and Dad I’d made this offer, and they were pleased that I was encouraging him, though I don’t think they understood why. Well, maybe Mom did.
The first time Milo came to our house, he said, ‘Wow, this place is awesome.’ Mom did her best to make him feel comfortable: ‘I used to think like that too, but you should have seen the little house that I grew up in. There wasn’t room to swing a cat.’ Mom was flirting with Milo more than I was. She was embarrassing.
Ruby was shy around him. Ruby was two years younger than me, but she was in a real hurry to grow up. She would stuff her bra with tissues and the posters of the pop idols in her room were covered in lipstick smooches. Dad’s church was big on virginity and Ruby and her friends were particularly prudish and immature. Contradictorily, they could not wait until their wedding night.
Ruby was funny and would often sing and dance for us on Saturday night or do impersonations of people on TV. She took her drama classes seriously. We were close, growing up. I oftenfound her in my room trying on my clothes. I didn’t mind. She always preferred to get my hand-me-downs to new clothes for herself. That was cute.
The first time that Milo came into the house, Ruby stared at him. It was damn rude. I kicked her under the table. I could sense that Milo was uncomfortable. He said ‘Hi’, but she didn’t say anything. When he became a regular visitor to the house, I think she got more used to him, until a year later when she said he raped her.
