In This Small Spot (23 page)

At five that morning, Sister Regina found
her on the cot with three of the barn cats curled up around her,
her cloak sliding off her shoulders. The letter lay on the floor
where it had fallen from her hand. Sister Regina folded the letter
and placed it on the cot next to Mickey, and then covered her again
with her cloak. Quietly, she fed the cows and began milking,
humming Christmas carols. If a stable was good enough for Jesus,
she saw no reason why it shouldn’t be just fine for one of
them.

Chapter 28

“I don’t want it,” Alice protested. “It’ll
just make me sleep, and I don’t want to sleep the days away.”

“I know you don’t,” Mickey assured her.
“We’ll try to find the minimal dosage to take the edge off,
okay?”

Even Alice could no longer hide the pain she
was in, and Mickey gently insisted on adequate pain control. By the
time they returned from Maine, Alice was getting weak. Jennifer
stayed with them and helped look after Alice so Mickey could do
things like the grocery shopping. “I want to take care of her
myself,” she said when hospice called. Friends stepped in to bring
meals – “they know how pathetic you are in the kitchen,” Alice
joked weakly.

Christopher came by often, bringing Alice
Communion and bags of letters and cards from the youth group and
other parish members. When she asked, he heard her confession, and
blessed her, dipping his thumb into the container of holy oil and
anointing her forehead with a cross “in the name of the Creator,
and of the Redeemer, and of the Consoler.”

Mickey called Edna and Charles to tell them
it was time. Alice died with her family gathered around her, held
propped against Mickey as she took her last ragged breaths. The
next days were a blur of activity. Mickey was overwhelmed by the
number of people who came to the funeral home and then the funeral.
St. Matthew’s was packed with many of the parishioners as well as
teachers and administrators, parents of Alice’s students past and
present, several former students, most of whom were now parents
themselves, plus Alice and Mickey’s wide circle of friends. And
then there were Mickey’s colleagues and students, even patients who
had heard or read about Alice’s passing. It was ironic that, not
until then, had Mickey realized how wide Alice’s circle of
influence had been. More than one young adult told Mickey that he
or she had become a teacher because of Alice’s example.

Jennifer, Edna and Charles were the last
ones to leave a couple of weeks later. They helped Mickey write
thank you notes to everyone who sent cards. Together, they went
through Alice’s closet and dressers – “Are you sure you’re ready to
do this now?” Edna asked, but “I have to,” Mickey said. She had
encouraged Alice’s family to let her know if there were specific
items they wanted – jewelry, clothing, whatever. The rest would be
distributed among the church’s thrift shop and women’s
shelters.

“You will be with us for Thanksgiving,” Edna
ordered as she gave Mickey a hug.

“I’ll be there,” Mickey smiled. She waved
them off, and went back inside the house. Standing with her back
against the door, she suddenly felt suffocated by the emptiness, as
if the house had become a vacuum. Clutching at her chest, she tried
to slow her breathing and stop the tears that threatened to drown
her. When she could breathe, she stood in the living room, looking
around.

“Now what?”

Chapter 29

Mickey woke, drenched in a cold sweat.
Gasping, she sat up, clutching the edge of her thin mattress. These
dreams were becoming unbearable – such realistic, erotic dreams
involving bizarre mixes of Alice and Sister Anselma. They made her
dread going to sleep so much that she wasn’t sleeping most nights,
choosing instead to spend many of those long, night-time hours in
her choir stall, praying, begging for release.

She was surprised at how many people came to
the Chapel through those dark hours – several nuns each night,
slipping quietly into their stalls to spend thirty minutes or an
hour, even Mother who went to an ordinary stall, not hers at the
head of the choir – “I miss being out here, in my old stall,” she
would say long after when Mickey asked her. If they noticed her
there, night after night, at all hours, they said nothing, leaving
to her to battle her demons – “The way we all must,” the nuns could
have told her. “Nights are always the worst. The devils come out
then.” The doubts, the physical urges, the bottomless melancholy –
all were worse in the dark, when it seemed morning would never
come. “Not like this,” Mickey would have said, but “you’d be
surprised,” they would have replied sagely.

Alice’s letter, five years late, had dredged
Mickey’s grief to the surface, making the loss feel brand new. She
was constantly on the verge of tears, and could only maintain
control by keeping everyone at a distance.

“Was that really necessary?” Sister
Josephine rebuked her sharply one afternoon when Mickey’s sarcasm
had caused Sister Alison to stomp off angrily.

Only Jessica was brave enough to attempt
penetrating Mickey’s caustic defenses, but when she approached,
asking what was wrong, Mickey could feel herself choking up. “I
can’t,” she mumbled before walking away. There was only one person
she could have talked to about all that she was feeling, but Sister
Anselma was maintaining a careful distance. Sometimes, when Mickey
looked across the aisle in choir, she thought she saw Sister
Anselma’s eyes leaving her, but she couldn’t be sure.

In January, Mickey and Jessica had been
required to do another inventory of possessions, but “this one must
include not just what you brought with you to St. Bridget’s,”
explained Sister Bernice, the abbey’s cellarer, “but everything you
own in the world. Once you take your vows in April, you cannot own
any physical property, no investments, no animals or cars if
someone was keeping them for you, nothing.”

Nothing.

Mickey’s list included, presumably for the
last time, a house and a storage facility of furniture and other
items which would all have to be sold if she were to take vows.
Nearly every night, she sat at her desk, staring at the list,
knowing she should have contacted a realtor long ago if she
intended to stay. She wasn’t required to give the money to St.
Bridget’s, but “any money you do offer will be kept in an escrow
account, not to be touched, until you take your solemn vows,”
Sister Bernice told them.

All around Mickey, the life of the abbey
continued, like a river whose waters are briefly churned by one
boulder causing turbulence, then calming again downstream from the
disturbance, but “just because we go on, doesn’t mean we don’t
notice.”

Up in the infirmary, “Are you ill?” Sister
Angelica asked one day as Mickey bathed her and changed her
nightgown. “I may be old, but I can see that something is troubling
you, dear.”

Behind her, Mickey could tell Sister Mary
David and Jessica had become still. Unwilling to lie, Mickey said,
“I’m not ill, Sister.”

“But something is troubling you.”

Mickey looked into her concerned eyes,
remembering that she had been the healer here for decades. “Yes,”
she said simply.

Sister Angelica nodded. “I’ll pray for you,”
she said, patting Mickey’s arm.

Mickey’s throat tightened. “Thank you.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked
herself one bitterly cold night when she had abandoned her choir
stall to pace the paths of the enclosure, her heavy winter cloak
drawn tightly under her chin. “Why can you not just make a decision
and live with it?”

As she came back around to the door into the
cloister corridor, Sister Anselma was standing there. Startled,
Mickey stopped and stared at her.

What was she doing here? They weren’t
supposed to break Silence.

“Come,” was all Sister Anselma said. She led
Mickey to the same study they had used on previous occasions. “Sit
down,” she said as she turned on a lamp and closed the door. Mickey
took off her cloak and sat tensely on the edge of a chair, staring
at the floor.

Sister Anselma sat also. “Michele, I don’t
mean to invade your privacy or presume that you would want to talk
to me, but… I don’t think we can go on like this.” Mickey forced
herself to meet Sister Anselma’s gaze. “You have seemed so unhappy
lately, and I can’t help but feel at least partially responsible
for that.” Sister Anselma could no longer look Mickey in the eye.
“I must apologize for the things I said when I was in the infirmary
–”

“No,” Mickey cut in. “It’s not that. It’s
not your fault. I… read this.” She pulled Alice’s letter from the
pocket where she kept it most of the time lately. As she read,
Sister Anselma’s pale cheeks burned scarlet and she had to wipe her
eyes.

Mickey began pacing again, and her voice
when she spoke quavered. “I got that letter at Christmas. It had
been tucked away and just recently found. I feel like I’ve lost her
all over again.” She clasped her hands together inside her sleeves
to stop their trembling. “I don’t know what to do about vows, but I
can’t imagine leaving this place I’ve come to love so much.” She
paused and turned to look at Sister Anselma with tortured eyes,
knowing if she spoke now, there was no turning back. “And I don’t
know what to do about how very much I love you.” She put her hands
over her face. “I feel like I’m losing my mind,” she choked as her
shoulders shook.

Sister Anselma came to her and held her
tightly. Mickey wrapped her arms around Sister Anselma in return,
clutching at the fabric of her habit. They stood like that for a
long time, then Sister Anselma led Mickey to the sofa where they
sat side by side.

“There are some things you must understand,”
Sister Anselma said in a very quiet voice. “I told you before that
my family was dysfunctional. I had never truly loved anyone in my
life – not my family, not people I went to school with, no one –
not until I met Mother Theodora. My love for her is a love born of
respect and gratitude for all she’s done for me. But I have lived
my life here coldly, in isolation. The solitude of monastic life
has never been a problem for me. Mother told me when I was newly
professed that I should expect religious life to become difficult
at some point, but it never has – until now.”

She looked so frightened at that admission
that Mickey asked, “Have I done anything – or said anything to
–?”

“No,” Sister Anselma insisted, looking
helplessly at Mickey. “You haven’t done anything – except to be
you. Alice was right. I can’t help but be drawn to you, for so many
reasons. You were so trusting of me during your retreat; I’ve
watched the joy and laughter that follow you, with Sister Linus and
Jessica; at the hospital, you were so sure, and so kind and so
gentle as you cared for Mother, and then in the infirmary... Every
time I turn around, you’ve broken through my defenses. You touch me
in ways no one ever has before – and I find I don’t want to push
you away.” She looked down at her hands. “I know loving you is
wrong, at least within these walls, but loving you has made me a
better person, a better nun. How ironic is that?”

Mickey pulled some tissues from the box on
the end table. “Vows are coming up in a couple of months,” she
reminded both of them again as she blew her nose.

“If not for this,” Sister Anselma asked,
“would you be questioning your vows? Would you be happy here?”

“I still have a house and all my furniture
to sell, and I have to admit that’s a scary leap to make, but yes,
I would do it if not for this.”

Sister Anselma turned to face her. “I know
it’s selfish, but I don’t want you to go. We’ve acknowledged our
feelings; there’s nothing we can do about the fact that we feel
this way, but we can control what we do about it. The feelings may
pass in time.”

Mickey looked at her dubiously. “Can you be
content, living with me here and being faithful to our vows?
Because we cannot betray Mother’s trust in us.”

“You forget who you’re talking to,” Sister
Anselma replied as her face hardened into the mask it so often
wore. “I’m the ice queen, remember?”

Mickey smiled tenderly. In the only physical
expression of her feelings she would permit herself, she gently
laid her hand on Sister Anselma’s cheek. “You have never been that
to me,” she murmured. She picked up her cloak and Alice’s letter
and left without looking back.

╬ ╬ ╬

That night with Sister Anselma felt a bit
like an exorcism for Mickey. Having finally been able to admit her
feelings, they seemed easier to control. She was able to sleep most
nights, and felt like she was back on solid ground emotionally. She
wrote to Carol Barnes, her realtor in Baltimore, asking her to put
the house on the market. When she mentioned all of this to Jamie,
he surprised her by asking her to hold off selling her furniture.
“I always liked the way you and Alice furnished the house. I might
be interested in buying it,” he said vaguely.

Mickey and Sister Anselma both exercised
stringent self-control and discipline, refusing to seek each other
out at Recreation or to glance in each other’s direction in choir.
Sister Josephine had told the novices about the old custom of
“custody of the eyes,” used by monks and nuns to avoid eye contact
with one another in an age of strict discipline. It seemed so
extreme, the novices had laughed at it, but “I’m not laughing now,”
Mickey said to herself.

A heavy snow fell across the region in early
February. The juniors were asked to shovel the paths throughout the
enclosure. Mickey shoveled the snow from around the enclosure gate
and opened it to find Father Andrew shoveling the porch and walk of
his residence. Together, they cleared the walk, their breath
hanging in vapory clouds as they puffed with their exertions. When
their shoveled paths met in the middle, they paused, catching their
breath.