Sinful Purity (Sinful Series Book 1)

By K.A. Standen

What do you do when the price of perfection is your freedom and everything you’ve ever believed in is a lie?

Mary Elizabeth has been a ward of Mary Immaculate Queen Orphanage since she was four. Not remembering anything of her life before her arrival, she dreams of her own identity. Being a willful child, she was punished more than she was praised. In an institution where perfection and conformity is the ultimate goal, Mary Elizabeth yearns to break free of her childhood prison and experience life outside the orphanage’s imposing iron gates. What she’s about to find out, however, is that life is never that simple and that even though we try to let go of our past, sometimes our past won’t let go of us.

Attending college for the first time, believing she is finally free Mary Elizabeth is at long last experiencing life and all it has to offer. Liz it seems was never meant to escape her stifling upbringing. Haunted by her past and hunted by shrouded figures bent on malevolence she fights to hold on to her new life and everything she now holds dear. Learning that freedom is nothing more than an elaborate illusion and everything comes with a price.

A taut coming-of-age mystery full of relentless tension. Sinful Purity becomes more foreboding with each passing page, attacking our deepest fears and frailties.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.A. Standen
• Release date: Oct 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310773747

K.A. Standen

Firmly ensconced in the business world, I have a Masters in Business Administration, and SPHR certification. The business world has been good to me, although my passions lie with the written word. I wrote poetry from a small age and dabbled with short stories. I always dreamed of writing a novel. With the idea for Sinful Purity thatdream became a reality.A native of Southern California I enjoy sunny days, and palm trees year around. I live with my husband and teenage son along with a very friendly Bloodhound and two mini Dachshund brothers. My son who has tried everything from the drums and guitar to football and drag racing can frequently be found written in to my books.I am an avid reader, sometimes reading several books a week. My kindle acts as my security blanket as I have been known to sleep with it. It goes everywhere with me just in case I can sneak in a quick read. When I'm writing my purse is usually crammed withnotebooks and scraps of paper with ideas and dialogue written all over them. Post-it notes overtake my house. I have been known to run out in the middle of a conversation when the muse strikes.I appreciate all your support and love hearing from fans. A fan myself I try to reply to all your comments and questions. Thanks for reading.

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Table of Contents

Prologue            Quiet Desperation

One                     Willful to a Fault

Two                  Best Friends Forever

Three                    Brotherly Love

Four                    Naughty Vs. Nice

Five                           Solitude

Six                         Empty Secrets

Seven                  Brave New World

Eight                    First Impressions

Nine                     New Experiences

Ten                        Innocence Lost

Eleven               Shadow Stalkers

Twelve                 Predicament

Thirteen            Vast Wilderness

Fourteen              Into the Dark

Fifteen                   Revelations

Sixteen                    Free Will

Epilogue             New Beginnings

Quiet Desperation

I walked in disbelief, shivering and shaken. The oppressive dark night engulfed me. It was the kind of dark that makes you question your reality, your very existence. After the night I’d just endured, I did not need any more questions, not now. The moon was out and nearly full. That alone should have been enough to cast some slivers of light. Light that suggested life would go on, that the world for the most part was unchanged regardless of my utter defeat and certainty that my own private world had not fared as well. But my surroundings were void of all light, as if my hopelessness and defeat had been given life. The thick, low-hanging clouds that had masked any hope of illumination were stifled even more by the dense fog that suffocated the sky. It was as though, like me, the very atmosphere had given up hope and the desire to go on.

As I stumbled through the night, a chill went through me. I hadn’t even noticed it was raining. But as I looked down I saw that I was drenched clear through. My scarlet blouse clung to me as if it were drowning. It was so very cold, my breath coming in frosty puffs, but I couldn’t feel it. Numb emotionally and physically, I was frozen in a state of shock and disbelief. It felt like the only attachment I had to my body was my eyes. Even then my eyesight was blurry, shaky as the wetness dripped down my eyelashes and into my eyes. My mouth suddenly came alive with the realization of moisture. The rain tasted salty, not like rain at all but like tears. My tears. At that moment I knew it was real, it was all real: every torture, every lie, everything. In a matter of days my whole life’s foundation had been uprooted beneath me. I forced my head around, terrified at what I might see behind me. When I looked back there were only small assemblages of water droplets staining the concrete sidewalk under the row of red-and-white shop awnings of First Street behind me. Appalling, the irony that only a handful of minute puddles hinted at the path this horrid, unforgettable night had taken me down. In reality I was gutted inside, wishing with every step that I would just die.

The dark night’s dampness seemed placid in comparison to my dripping wet exterior. Cold and frightened, I sat down on the small bench at the corner bus stop. Not really waiting for a bus at all, I was just too weak to go on. My leg began to burn like fire. Pain radiated through my body. From the knee down, my once-faded blue jeans were black with blood. My mind raced. Was it my blood? Was it his blood? There was just too much blood, too much trauma. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Only the unrelenting pain of the injury assured me it was mine.

The rain began to let up. Sitting under the canopy of the bus stop, it seemed eerily quiet. It could have almost been described as peaceful, if it hadn’t been for the churning turmoil inside me. My mind went blank; all the scrambled images that had been gyrating around ceased like a seized engine grinding to a halt. All that was left was the sky with its oppressive, matted knot of clouds glowering down upon me. The very same clouds that earlier in the day I viewed as mysterious, when I was still naïve and optimistic about the future. Earlier when there was still hope. Earlier when I wasn’t completely alone and broken. When I still had faith in goodness and love. But now it was all different; everything was gone. All I had left were these damned clouds that weren’t mysterious at all. I viewed them now with more experienced eyes. Eyes that told me these clouds had hung ominously foreboding, jeering at me my entire life, daring for me to discover the truth.

Looking out upon the horizon, I could see my university in the distance. To my left I fixed my gaze on St. Matthew Cathedral, a sight that had once given me great comfort and a sense of belonging. Now I was left with a hollow, desperate feeling. A mixed longing for the way things used to be before I knew the truth. My mind was consumed by only one persistent thought: How do you ever go on living after an ordeal like this?

The cold fall air and wetness had nearly frozen me solid. The numbness was of such an extent that I had stopped shaking almost entirely. It was at that moment of calm, quiet contemplation that my desolate desperation gave way. Almost in an instant I jumped to my feet, knowing that I must not give in to the weakness I felt. For I wasn’t living for just myself anymore, and everyone deserved to know the truth.

Willful to a Fault

On the South Side of Chicago lies the Mary Immaculate Queen Orphanage. The orphanage’s proximity is so close to St. Matthew Cathedral that at first glimpse you would think it connected. Most people just viewed it as one in the same. This was my home, for all intents and purposes, where I had spent nearly all my life. I had been a ward of the orphanage since I was four years old. It wasn’t the only home I had ever known, but it was the only home I remembered. I didn’t remember the day I arrived at MIQ, only the sense that from that day forward, I was to be just another face in the crowd. Mother Superior gave me the name Mary Elizabeth. I never cared for the name much. I always felt that I deserved a more unique name, one that was more suited to my personality. However, I am sure that if Mother Superior had the ability to change that as well, she would have jumped at the chance.

It is true I was a willful and stubborn child. Personally, I would have preferred to be described as full of life. That was never the case, though, and Mother Superior and the other nuns at the orphanage reminded me daily of my faults, all of them. I can still hear Father Brennigan exclaiming, That child, that child. She is willful to a fault. Must keep a close eye on her. Mother Superior chose other words, like defiant, insubordinate, and insolent, in her description of me. It would be an understatement to say we didn’t get along.

I do admit that I was more spirited than most of the other children. When I was very young, I could constantly be heard demanding, Just call me Elizabeth, I don’t like Mary. Everyone is named Mary.

Which, in my defense, was absolutely true. Every girl at Mary Immaculate Queen Orphanage was named Mary upon her arrival, and every boy Matthew, in honor of their patron saint, who had taken pity upon their unwanted souls, according to Mother Superior. At the orphanage the circumstances of each child’s arrival were strictly confidential. No one but Sister Christine, the Mother Superior, and Father Brennigan of St. Matthew’s was privy to the information. Upon each child’s arrival, he or she was given a new name and told that all children were equal in the eyes of God, regardless of their personal plight. Sister Christine always said that hiding the children’s past gave them an opportunity for a new start. While she may have had a point, the real reason was that the secrecy created equality. No child knew if he had been abandoned or if it was an unfortunate mishap by which he was orphaned. All the children were equal, and now it was God and God’s laws by which these children were parented. Frankly, I think it also made the nuns’ jobs easier. Never did they have to learn the children’s names, nor did they fear forgetting them. It was simply always Mary or Matthew.

In my heart, I always knew that I was more than just one of the many Marys. I was sure that my real family must have been lost or killed on some adventure. While the details were altogether absent, I knew that they must have been remarkable. I just felt it. I felt remarkable, and according to simple logic, my parents must have been remarkable too. There was also the matter of how I looked. I didn’t look like all the other Marys at the orphanage. I was tall for my age, slender, with long dark hair and big blue eyes. My skin was snowy white, which people said only made the contrast more striking. I remember visitors and volunteers complimenting me on my beauty. I adored compliments and felt comfortable receiving them, leading me to believe that I had received many before my time at MIQ and strengthening my belief that my first life before the orphanage must have been exceptional.

During my first few months at the orphanage, the nuns reminded me daily not to grow too fond of my beauty. Vanity is a sin, they’d warn. After nearly a year of being at MIQ, my vanity was almost completely lost. What remained was squelched after an unfortunate bubblegum incident that left my long, dark, beautiful hair misshapen, cut less than two inches below my ear. After that I felt more like a Mary and less like myself.

Mary Immaculate Queen was an excellent school scholastically. As the months passed I became more studious, more responsible. I was still prone to my willful acts, as they came to be called. Which was a kind way of saying bloodcurdling tantrums that left no one in a one-block radius unaware of my distaste for the matter at hand. To me these outbursts were the last of my true self that remained. A reminder that while I was dressed the same, looked the same, spoke the same, and was treated the same as everyone else, I was still me. Somewhere inside me, the heart of a unique individual still beat and waited for the chance to break free.

Being as willful as I was, I spent quite a bit of time in the Mother Superior’s office. Like the rest of the orphanage, her office was dark and understated, steeped in history and rich wood paneling. The waiting area consisted of two small wood chairs, one with a loose, wobbly leg. I always tried to avoid that one. The inner sanctum of her office screamed minimalist. In the middle sat one large wood desk that was so dark with age it appeared depthless, like an oil slick. If I had to guess, I would have said it was built at the same time as the building and assembled in place, since no one in their right mind would want to carry that behemoth up the three flights of stairs it would have required. Rolled up behind the desk was one of those legal-looking chairs, with its well-aged burgundy leather and metal studs that led up and around the arms. Two tall, narrow wooden filing cabinets flanked each side, like guards protecting their ruler’s throne. That left only a large wooden cross on the opposite wall and another small, wobbly chair for the soon-to-be disciplined. Once, Sister Christine was asked why she had the large crucifix hanging above the child’s chair and not over hers. She simply replied, The children know I work for God. They need to be reminded that they do too.

Sister Christine was my least favorite of all the nuns at MIQ. While many of the kids thought all the nuns were the same—ruler-snapping walking penguins who lived only to judge and extinguish hope before it could ignite and burn the whole institution to the ground—I knew that Sister Christine was worse. Her eyes had an intensity that made you believe she could sear the sin right out of you. Conformity was her agenda, and I was a nonconformist at heart. Therefore, I was a throbbing, oozing thorn in her side for the better part of the next decade and half. Her only hope was that she would be able to excise me before gangrene set in.

It was during one of these heart-to-heart visits when I was eight years old that I overheard Mother Superior and Father Brennigan talking about the Perkins girl and her incessant willfulness. Sarah was her name. When I heard those words they sounded right: Sarah Perkins. I thought I might be able to remember being Sarah Perkins once. Tears welled up in my eyes and a smile broke across my face. A small giggle escaped through the giddiness. I tried not to wiggle the chair with my excitement. I knew that if Sister Christine or Father Brennigan heard me listening, they would stop talking and I would never find out more about my family. It was at that moment Sister Christine’s phone rang and Father Brennigan excused himself. As he left the office I glanced up and he smiled, a gentle, friendly, knowing smile. His smile reassured me and I knew without a doubt I must be Sarah Perkins. It was a revelation to be sure, and for the first time in a long time I was unique again. Even when Sister Christine ended her phone call and called for me to enter, I didn’t fear my punishment. All I could think about was being Sarah Perkins. Mother Superior was so displeased with my lack of regret for my most recent escapade that she doubled the usual punishment from one week of extended bathroom and kitchen duty to two weeks. When I left her office as happy and gleeful as when I’d entered, she tacked on the waxing and polishing of the chapel’s pews for good measure. But I didn’t care. I had an identity, one that was all mine and not shared.

After I had learned my secret alias, I became calmer, more at peace, knowing that somewhere I had a place and a past. The orphanage itself no longer defined me. The sense that I was more than my surroundings was awe-inspiring. I knew all I had to do was wait, and one day my life would be mine again. I rarely demanded to be called Elizabeth anymore, although I still preferred it. Finally, after being at the orphanage for more than four years, dutifulness and piety became second nature to me. No more willful outbursts. I buckled down with my studies and became a model at Mary Immaculate Queen. I excelled academically and was often rewarded for my hard work and dedication.

As a reward, I was frequently invited to have dinner with Father Brennigan. Every day at MIQ was always the same, and these outings were my one escape. I loved seeing and experiencing new things, even if it was only on the other side of the orphanage’s iron gates. St. Matthew’s rectory dining hall seemed like an alternate universe to the orphanage. The hall had lavish decorations and served sophisticated meals. The tables were adorned with crimson linens with gold embroidery that twinkled under the light of the large chandelier. I thought the chandelier was pretty also, with its glistening crystals, but inside I was secretly terrified that it might fall and crush me during the meal. Father Brennigan would frequently catch me gazing up at the chandelier. He thought I loved it so much. Honestly, I was just amazed that the tiny chain that held the chandelier hadn’t already snapped, sending the giant illumination crashing to the floor. Sometimes I would quietly wonder when the fateful moment would be, since I knew it was inevitable.

My favorite items in the dining room were the candlesticks. There were big ones, small ones, pewter ones, and tall ones. It seemed more like a store and less like a place to dine. I loved the sheer variety and quantity of them. When they were all lit I would imagine the great desert sun and everything in the room melting from the immense heat of the candles. I had developed a grand imagination that I used quite frequently to get me through the long, repetitive days at the orphanage. Yet it was these dinners with Father Brennigan that gave me the sight and knowledge of things that amazed even my imagination. These dinners were the happiest part of my childhood. I loved Father Brennigan. He was kind and thoughtful, like I always hoped my own father would have been.

During dinner, I loved to count the silverware on the table: three forks, two spoons, and two knives. No matter how I tried, I could never understand why anyone needed to use that many forks and spoons. Sometimes I would drop a utensil just so that I could use another one, trying to use them all. I could tell that Father Brennigan enjoyed watching me. I imagine that I was as much of a diversion from his monotonous routine as he was from mine. Occasionally I would catch him quietly chuckling to himself, imagining, I’m sure, what was going through my little mind and secretly knowing that I would always be safe and obedient at Mary Immaculate Queen as long as he was there. I think back now, convinced that his mind held far more secrets and mysteries than mine ever could.

Father Brennigan was a portly little man with a large belly and even larger rosy cheeks. Many of the children thought he looked like Father Christmas but with less hair. He was always clean-shaven and had begun balding very early on. By the time I was ten, Father Brennigan was in his early forties and had only a thin ring of hair wrapping his head like a halo. During dinner I would watch the candlelight dance across his bald head. As a little girl, I thought Father Brennigan must be close to a hundred years old. I thought him wise enough and bald enough to be nearly ancient.

Our dinners together became almost a weekly routine, an occurrence that both he and I looked forward to very much. It wasn’t long before I became Father Brennigan’s favorite. It was because of this favoritism that on adoption days I was somehow previously occupied or deemed unavailable. I heard that many potential parents inquired about me but were told that adoption was not a viable option. I never concerned myself too much about being adopted because I knew that the Perkins family must have been planning to return for me. Why else would I be not adoptable? With this thought firmly embraced, I was always quite relieved when adoption day was over. Visitors always created so much extra work around the orphanage. Plus, all the nuns put on their most helpful, godly faces, which made me despise them even more. They were never that kind to us on a regular basis, and I saw them more as hypocrites than as women of the cloth.

Despite my personal feelings about adoption day, it was a huge deal to the orphanage and the community as a whole. The Mary Immaculate Queen Orphanage was the pride of Chicago. Would-be parents came from around the globe to adopt the perfect child. That’s what everyone referred to us as, perfect. MIQ had the most well-behaved, highly educated, and respected children. The sisters prided themselves on rearing exceptionally successful and productive citizens through hard work, discipline, an ingrained love of God, and a good dose of religion. MIQ was like the hall of fame for orphans. We had orphans who’d become Pulitzer Prize–winning authors, Ivy League professors, and foreign dignitaries. In fact, two governors, a Supreme Court justice, and a US president had all come from the modest beginnings that were MIQ.

Once every few years, the news media would drag out the stale story of possible abuse or brainwashing at the esteemed Mary Immaculate Queen Orphanage. The stories were always big sellers and rating boosters, because nowhere the world over could anyone believe that one institution had yielded so many substantial public figures.

St. Matthew Cathedral next door shared in MIQ’s good fortune and was heralded as having the most distinguished congregation in the United States. Globally, St. Matthew’s was second only to the Vatican in Rome. Never in the hundred-plus-year history of the orphanage had any of its charges, past or present, ever committed a crime or had any run-ins with the authorities. There was never anything more severe than a traffic ticket in the lives of all MIQ’s residents. Model citizens were what the orphanage produced and nothing less.

Another reason I detested adoption day was that it seemed that we were all paraded around on show. Like, come see the wonderfully perfect Stepford children. Come right on up and see if you can take your very own home today. I always viewed adoption day more like a used car sale. Like we were all just old jalopies, previously used and partially damaged, that had been buffed up to look pretty and supported by the prestigious MIQ lifetime warranty. Never would a potential buyer be disappointed with a brand new MIQ orphan, guaranteed one hundred percent perfectly ethical, perfectly well, perfect.

I would imagine one of those huge inflatable arm-waving wind socks that car dealerships use to attract attention, mounted right on the roof of the prestigious one-hundred-eighty-six-year-old MIQ Orphanage. I thought we should have been selling popcorn and cotton candy. After all, I already felt like a sideshow attraction.

I don’t know, maybe I was just bitter. Deep down I didn’t really want a new family and I was always relieved that I didn’t have to participate fully in the spectacle that was adoption day. I guess I just hated being one of them, those perfect kids. Partly, I was just irritated that the Perkinses were taking so long to come get me.

Best Friends Forever

I never made many friends at MIQ. I have my many colorful childhood paroxysms to thank for that. Even years after my last episode, I was still the black sheep of the orphanage. It was as though everyone was just waiting around for me to wig out again, making sure that when that day came they would be nowhere around. So I had a lot of time to myself, time that I mostly filled with reading. I loved books, and MIQ had a very impressive library, albeit a characterless one. Reference and theology books abounded on every subject under heaven, more than you could ever desire. It was the fiction section that was pitifully weak. You would never find the likes of the irreverent Holden Caulfield or the willful Elizabeth Bennet amongst these hallowed shelves. Even the pious yet passionate Jane Eyre was doomed to be ostracized by the discerning eyes of the ever-watchful sisters.

Just when I had accepted that I would be sentenced to years of solitude and quiet contemplation, Kelly arrived at the orphanage. She was older than most of the new wards. Most arrived as infants or toddlers, but nearly all came to MIQ before they had reached school age. Like me, Kelly had just turned twelve, and upon her arrival she too was named Mary. Due to her age, she was permitted to be named Mary Kelly rather than the standard Mary-plus-some-other-female-name-from-the-Bible. From the very beginning, I could tell I liked Mary Kelly. I even liked her name—it was unique, and I liked unique. Unlike the rest of the kids, Kelly didn’t shy away from me. She had moxie, along with a lot of red curly hair and freckles. Shorter in stature and fuller figured than I, Kelly had been touched by the outside world and I loved it.

Kelly wasn’t actually an orphan; it was through special circumstances that she had come to MIQ. Her parents had died in a car accident, that was true, but she had a brother, Brett. Unfortunately, he wasn’t old enough yet to be her legal guardian. So it was that Mary Kelly would be gracing the sisters and livening up my life for the next four and a half years until Brett turned nineteen. Even though the legal age of adulthood is eighteen their parents’ will contained stipulations for guardianship. It required that Brett graduate from high school, be enrolled full-time in college and have a suitable place for Kelly to live before guardianship was granted.

Kelly was definitely a shining star in my previously dim and stagnant life. For the first time I had a friend and a confidant. Another perk was that Kelly’s brother sent her weekly care packages. They always contained marvelous, forbidden items like band t-shirts, hunky teen heartthrob posters, gossip mags, and music that was actually played on the radio—I am not talking about the gospel channel, either. Sometimes he’d even throw in a book or two. They were always wonderfully provocative books that had not been prescreened by the sisterly censors. Life was good.

Kelly called me String Bean, which wasn’t original at all, but because of my height it was fitting. I was going through that gangly stage. You know, the one where you’re all legs and knees and nothing else. My early teen years were not becoming on me. I was way too tall and lanky and painfully thin, not because they didn’t feed me or anything, but just because it was my curse to be awkward. I wasn’t even talented or coordinated enough to play on the basketball team, where I might have fit in. Kelly frequently alternated between teasing me unmercifully and assuring me that with my height and svelte frame, I would make a supremely perfect willowy supermodel.

Kelly would say, Promise me that when you’re out of this concentration camp and are a gorgeous, rich model living in New York or Paris, you’ll make me your assistant. So I can go to all the fabulous parties and meet exotic sexy guys.

Keebler, you’re insane, I’d squeal, secretly hoping that one day my life would live up to Kelly’s fantasies. Kelly hated being called Keebler, but I felt it was only fair after all the taunting I had endured. Besides, I thought it was more creative than her pet name for me. Kelly’s wild red hair and short stature reminded me of an elf—one of those shoe-cobbling elves, not the beautiful, mystical, woodland fairy–type elves. So it was that Keebler stuck, at least as long as she insisted on calling me String Bean.

Kelly was always planning our new lives together, far from Mary Immaculate Queen. The dreams were always formulaic: we were beautiful, wealthy, and adventurous women. Highly sought-after commodities, she’d say.

We’ll spend our days unearthing lost cities, starring in rock videos, and posing for the covers of magazines, and we’ll spend our nights fighting off men, she’d laugh.

I knew how much Kelly loved guys. I imagined that I intended on doing a lot more fighting off than she did.

Regardless of Kelly’s more zealous nature, we were a perfect match, and except for Brett’s occasional visits, we were all each other had. Kelly said that in a couple of years when she left, she wanted me to come with her. I told Kelly all about the Perkinses and their intent to come for me someday. I could tell she didn’t hold out as much hope as I did for the matter.

If the Perkinses want you so damn bad, then why haven’t they come and broken you out of this detention center?

I don’t know all the details. Maybe they’re away on business, I hissed.

Business that was so important it has taken almost ten years?

Maybe they had an accident and are in a hospital overseas with extensive injuries.

More like amnesia, Kelly retorted.

Look, I don’t know the circumstances. But I know that my family had one hell of a reason to leave me here. Maybe it was for my own protection, to keep me safe.

Well, String Bean, last time I checked, the witness protection program lets you not only take your whole family but even your pet. So unless your family decided that Bowser was more important than their daughter…

Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Kelly, I threatened.

Or what, your precious fictional family won’t let me talk to you anymore?

At that moment I lost it. I lunged at her with all my force, knocking her to the ground. I tore at her hair, hit her in the face, kicking and screaming while I sobbed uncontrollably. Two of the sisters pulled me off her. Another helped her to her feet. I could see the terror and anger though her scratched, bloodied face. But I didn’t care.

My unnatural wailing continued for two more days broken only by the uncontrollable sobs. Kelly and I didn’t speak again for several days.

One of the boys at the orphanage, Peter, goaded me. We knew it was only a matter of time before you…snapped. He followed me around the school, always just a few paces behind. Mary Elizabeth, Mary Elizabeth, Lizzie. That’s right, Lizzie. Lizzie took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done she gave her father forty-one. You know that’s why you’re here, right, Lizzie? Tell everyone, Lizzie. Tell them you’re a psycho. Peter then broke into the theme from Psycho—Eee! Eee! Eee!, waving his arm in a stabbing motion as if he held an invisible knife. Undoubtedly his take on the whole Alfred Hitchcock Psycho thing.

Peter, leave her alone. We all know you’re just a dick, I heard the voice behind me exclaim. When I turned around, I saw Kelly with a smile on her face just below the remnants of a black eye.

I’m so sorry, String Bean. I never should have...

I ran toward Kelly with my arms stretched wide, and before she could even finish her sentence, our fight was over.

I have been so lonely without you, Keebler, I cried.

Me too. Me too. Come on, get off me before we give these freaks anything more to talk about. She glanced sideways at Peter. You know he’s just hot for you, she remarked loudly as we walked off.

What? I said weakly.

That’s why he’s such a jerk to you, Kelly replied.

It was never any secret that Kelly loathed the orphanage and its religious foundations. Kelly and Brett’s parents were cradle Catholics. Their parents had been baptized as babies. They had made their First Communion. Even their Confirmation and marriage were all dutifully overseen by the Catholic Church. As a family they had always attended Mass every Easter and Christmas. Once in a while they would even throw in a random Sunday for good measure. But neither Kelly nor Brett had ever developed a taste for the devotion it took to be a really good Catholic. Living at MIQ was what you could call a culture shock for her.

At St. Matthew’s, Sunday Masses were reserved for the who’s who of the congregation. Reporters and news crews could frequently be seen waiting for church to let out so they could snap pictures and get comments from the political phenoms and reclusive geniuses who could be found amongst the rich and famous parishioners. Friday and Saturday Masses were for the regular upper and middle class families who dappled the nearby community. Thursday Masses were the working slobs, the poor folks who trudged on in their daily lives unaware of all the secret, closed-door deals that held their fates precariously in the hands of the more powerful and elite. The earlier in the week that you attended Mass, the more insignificant you were to the whole worldly picture. Of course, these arrangements were unspoken and rarely even hinted at. No one ever tried to improve their station in life by trying to hobnob at St. Matthew’s on their undesignated day, although secretly I always wondered what would happen if someone were ever so brash. In the grand scheme of things, us orphans were at the bottom of the heap, at least until we were adopted into the upper crust. We went to Mass every Wednesday. The only souls even more unfortunate than us were the old people, the geriatrics who had either outlived or been abandoned by their families to live alone and in poverty. They had the Monday/Tuesday slot.

Every Wednesday Kelly, me, and the other sixty-plus charges of MIQ would wake early, dress in our usual bland, conservative blue-and-gray parochial uniforms, hurry through an even blander yet nourishing breakfast, and then wait. We’d