“You take one, I take one,” Ben replied.
The urns were pearlized white and identical, except for names and dates, and pristine, having been inside their individual protective vaults. The boys stood, paralyzed and awkward, as though they were at a school dance and faced with deciding which of the girls to dance with. Kyle cleared his throat and took charge, like he would at a school dance, being oldest and knowing both probably wanted to dance with him. He lifted the first urn and squinted. Earlier, they’d weighed a ton, but now they seemed lighter. Ben was unfazed by the discrepancy. He’d expected the quarry’s sense-warping magic to be at work on this night. The screw top was silver, with imprinted flowerwork and the words Loving Daughter, Mira M. Cillo.
Kyle looked to Ben, who nodded and accepted the urn in his arms, then rested it at his feet. The second one Kyle pulled up read: Loving Daughter, Francesca M. Cillo.
“You ready?” Ben murmured. He had been thinking about blond waves and thighs, bone shards and dust. His eyes stayed dry, but he could feel the familiar sag that had come to his face this last year, a frown weighting his cheeks.
Kyle set Francesca’s urn aside and took a deep breath. He looked into Ben’s eyes, unflinching, the way no one had in a long time. “We’re doing the right thing, Ben.”
“What if we’re not?”
Kyle hefted Francesca’s urn to his chest, his arms wrapped around it. “She wanted someone to believe in her gift. We’re those people.” He turned the urn over and shined his flashlight on the bottom and a round, threaded plug. “And there she is.”
Ben handed him the screwdriver and looked away. “I’m not sure I can watch. What if it breaks?”
“It’s not”—Kyle grunted—“gonna”—he grunted again—“break.” The seal popped off with a suction noise.
Ben reached around his neck and pulled from his shirt a small leather bag on a cord. At the same time, Kyle stuck his hand inside the urn and lifted out a plastic bag of ash. Ben held the leather pouch away from his chest and Kyle poured some of Francesca’s ashes inside. Ben closed it quickly and tucked the bag into his shirt. The pouch hung next to his heart. Ben supposed he had imagined it, but he felt the bag pulse.
“What about you?” Ben asked, looking down, chin to chest.
“I’m not greedy. She helped me already: I can’t ask for more,” Kyle said. “I hope she helps you get over what that bastard did. You deserve it, man.” Kyle replaced the bag and fitted the plug into the urn. “The sun’s coming up, and we gotta hit the road. We wanna be on the highway by five thirty if we’re gonna get to New York by noon. It’s time to say goodbye.”
“They deserve to rest in peace,” Ben said stiffly, fighting tears.
Kyle sniffed hard. “It’s what they would have wanted.” He carried Francesca to the fingertip of the ledge. When Ben didn’t move, Kyle lifted Mira. When Ben finally raised his eyes, he saw the urns standing side by side on the edge, glowing amphorae from another age.
“Are you ready?” Kyle said.
Ben looked at Kyle’s hand, dangling at his side. “This might be your last chance at fixing your hand.”
Kyle considered his crooked hand in the moonlight. “Nah. I told you, dude. This isn’t about me.”
Ben nodded. In that moment, he knew that even if he was like the others, Kyle was not.
Kyle moved forward and lifted Francesca’s urn. He crouched, brushing his lips lightly over the silver tracings, and murmured thanks. He stood and held her aloft for a moment before letting go.
Ben waited for the splash. He lifted Mira’s urn and held it high, and did not trace the words with his fingertips, or press it to his cheek, or kiss its smooth face. He did none of these things: he only let it go. A whoosh of air, and the urn became small until it was enveloped by the platinum mist that hung above the water, then a fast, neat plop.
Kyle stepped back and rested his hands on his hips. “Now there’s nothing to look at.”
The sun broke over the horizon. Kyle gazed toward the city, and farther, then up at the sky, his throat bare to the heavens, where two glittering emerald birds circled, one following the other, swirling up and out of the quarry.
Ben checked the still water below. Not a ripple, no evidence of a break. The quarry had absorbed the girls, delivering them to a place where they would remain untouched by hands, and unbroken by hearts.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My novels begin with my own moments of sudden discovery. Beautiful Broken Girls is inspired by the work of Virginia Woolf, who gave my teenage self the words, finally, to describe the male gaze.
Speaking of the teenage self, thanks are owed to Gary, for everything, but especially for his younger years, which I mined shamelessly for this novel. Also, I used the boys I have known who are now men, and will never recognize themselves here. Thanks also to the members of The Circle of Silence, in particular, Chrissy Byrnes Conley, who would say, “This is going in your novel someday.” It all did.
Thanks to Sal Caraviello, Saint Mary’s spiritual director and all-round marvelous person, on whom Nick Falso is not based.
I am grateful to my agent, Sara Crowe, for her early guidance. You can, in fact, have too many sisters. This is largely a novel about a town, and it is better for the excellent eye and sharp mind of Larisa Dodge, who owns the strongest sense of place of any writer I know.
Thanks to my personal saints at Macmillan, Morgan Dubin and Kallam McKay, who champion my work early and often. And to Candace Gatti, who wields her PR wizardry and local connections on my behalf, unasked, every single time.
Thanks to Elizabeth H. Clark for her breathtaking cover design. I didn’t think you could top After the Woods. I was wrong.
Thanks to Janine O’Malley. You are, as Eddie would say, “one of the good ones.” Your editing of this unusual novel was so respectful and smart. I would not have entrusted it to anyone else’s hands.
Finally, Dad, thank you for a lifetime of changing my casino chips into cash. I am rich for being your daughter.