In This Small Spot (6 page)

Turning, she saw another nun entering the
courtyard. Sheepishly, she held the snowball while the other nun
approached. As she drew near, Mickey recognized Sister Anselma in
the dim grey light. Sister Anselma stood with her hands tucked into
her sleeves, her long, black veil and cloak giving her a very
dignified air. Mickey was suddenly aware of how ridiculous she must
look. Her short veil had slipped, and the snowball was melting into
her frozen fingers. She opened her mouth to speak, but remembered
she couldn’t break Silence. Finally, she closed her mouth, tossed
the snowball over her shoulder and walked back inside shaking her
head.

Sister Anselma watched her go with a bemused
expression.

By the time the nuns were assembled in their
stalls, the public pews had filled nearly to capacity. As the bell
rang to signal the start of Mass, there was no sign of Father
Andrew. The peals of the bell faded away and still no priest. A
very faint rustle of unrest had begun to move through the community
when, suddenly, he appeared in the door of the sacristy,
straightening his chasuble as he walked to the altar. Mickey tried
to keep her eyes on her prayer book, but there was an audible
tremor in his voice as he began the Introit. She stole a glance
toward the altar and was shocked at the dark circles visible under
his eyes, even from a distance. As the nuns sang their responses,
there were slight lapses where Father Andrew seemed to struggle to
find his place. Mother Theodora subtly altered the tempo of the
responses to give him more time, and the community followed her
lead. During the consecration of the Eucharist, Mickey could see
his hands shaking as they held the host.

“Poor thing, he must be sick,” the nuns
murmured sympathetically as they made their way to the refectory
for a late breakfast following Mass.

The normal work schedule was suspended for
the Thanksgiving holiday. Instead, the community used the time to
make preparations for Advent which marked the beginning of the
church year and came with a feeling of anticipation leading up to
Christmas. “It’s like being a little kid again,” Abigail said
gleefully, and even Mickey had to admit that the excitement was
contagious. During the four weeks of Advent, an Advent wreath was
lit in the Chapel with a smaller one in the refectory during each
evening meal as a reader read a passage from various meditations on
Advent and Christmas as they ate.

The juniors spent Recreation each day
rehearsing their traditional Christmas concert for the rest of the
community under the direction of Sister Margaret, the precentrix.
“This is a heavy load on her,” the novices warned the postulants.
“She still has the Christmas choir to rehearse also.” They also
helped with the Chapel decorations. Sister Teresa, the sacristan,
was in charge of putting out the chalices and plates for Communion
each day, and for the cleaning and decorating of the Chapel. There
was a lot of extra work involved in preparing the Chapel for
Christmas. The novices had helped with these tasks before, and
directed the postulants as they hung evergreen garlands from the
stone arches and pillars. Mickey was up on a ladder accepting
garland strands from Sister Helen, one of the second year novices,
and attaching them with wire to the small hooks set in the stone.
As Sister Helen climbed back down to get another strand, she
mis-judged the rungs and fell a couple of feet to the floor. Mickey
came down off the ladder quickly, asking her if she was okay.

“It’s my knee,” Sister Helen responded,
grimacing.

Without thinking, Mickey began palpating and
moving her knee carefully. “It seems to be just a sprain,” she
pronounced. She realized the others were all gathered around them.
Suddenly feeling very self-conscious, she helped Sister Helen to
her feet and said, “You should get some ice on that. Why don’t we
get you to the infirmary?”

Sister Helen put one arm over Mickey’s
shoulders as Mickey put her arm around Sister Helen’s waist.
Gingerly, Sister Helen limped out of the Chapel. Once in the
infirmary, Mickey left her with Sister Mary David, the nun in
charge there, and hurried back to the Chapel. Wendy seemed to be
waiting for her, because she came over as soon as Mickey
returned.

“How is she?” she asked casually.

“Fine.” Mickey was on guard. She squatted
down to get more garland.

“It’s a good thing you were here.”

Mickey was starting to get annoyed. “It
wasn’t a serious injury.”

“Maybe,” Wendy shrugged. “But it was bad
enough for you to almost carry her to the infirmary.”

“What is your point?” Mickey asked in a low
voice, straightening up to face Wendy.

Wendy shrugged again. “Nothing… it just must
have felt good, to be able to help, I mean.”

Mickey bit back the words that leapt to her
tongue. Clenching her jaw, she turned her back on Wendy and carried
her garland back up the ladder.

╬ ╬ ╬

Over the next few weeks leading up to
Christmas, Mickey kept her distance from Wendy, but she could feel
Wendy’s gaze whenever Sister Helen spoke to Mickey during their
rehearsals at Recreation. To Mickey’s chagrin, Sister Helen was
friendlier after the knee sprain, and did seek opportunities to
speak with Mickey whenever she had a chance.

She’s just being nice,
Mickey kept
telling herself.
Don’t let Wendy make you question
yourself.

When Sister Margaret asked Mickey to sing a
duet of
The Cherry Tree Carol
with Sister Helen, Mickey was
uncomfortably aware that Wendy was listening.

“You have a good voice,” Sister Helen said
appreciatively.

“No, just loud,” Mickey grinned, blushing.
Sister Helen easily had the best voice among them, a soaring
soprano that often gave Mickey goosebumps when it reached into the
upper octaves.

“Your alto will provide perfect counterpoint
if we transpose the harmony to a lower octave,” Sister Helen
insisted, getting excited about the project.

In spite of her nagging worry about Wendy,
Mickey found herself enjoying the rehearsals with Sister Helen who
was also an excellent pianist and provided the accompaniment.
Patiently, she coached Mickey through the harmony whenever Mickey’s
voice would slip back into the melody. The first time they made it
completely through with no mistakes, Sister Helen laughed and gave
Mickey a hug.

“We make a good pair,” she said, looking at
Mickey with an intensity that chilled Mickey’s heart. No matter how
much she wanted to dismiss Wendy’s jealousy, she could no longer
pretend Sister Helen was just being friendly.

When she was teaching, Mickey had often had
medical students of both genders develop crushes on her.
Occasionally, a crush crossed the line into infatuation. In the
beginning, Mickey had tried to gently discourage the attention, but
“you do realize how much more elusive and attractive that makes
you,” Alice would point out drolly, amused at Mickey’s
consternation when that approach didn’t work. Mickey had discovered
that a little public humiliation in the form of one or two biting,
sarcastic comments was much more effective, although “I feel
horrible,” she always said afterward. What made this situation
especially difficult was Mickey’s suspicion that Sister Helen would
have been mortified at the suggestion that she had a crush on
Mickey. She kept remembering what Mother Theodora had said about
abbey life magnifying the real her. “You wanted this to happen,”
she could hear Wendy saying, and she couldn’t help wondering if she
was, in fact subconsciously doing something to invite this
attention. In an atmosphere of women who had foresworn physical
intimacy, touch was incredibly powerful, even touch as simple and
innocent as examining an injured knee. She appreciated as never
before the delicate balancing act of living in a small, cohesive
community and still maintaining enough personal space to stay true
to monastic life.

Sister Helen had become curious about
Mickey’s past and what brought her to St. Bridget’s. She began
interrupting their rehearsals to talk.

“Are you trying to be mysterious?” Sister
Helen asked with a smile as Mickey evaded her questions.

Mickey could see that this tactic was not
working. Hardening herself, she replied coldly, “What I’m trying to
do is tell you that my past is none of your damned business.”

Sister Helen looked as if she had been
slapped. Her cheeks reddened and she blinked back tears. “I’m
sorry,” she said in a quavering voice.

“Let’s pick this up tomorrow,” Mickey said
curtly as she got up and left. Stalking away, staring at the floor,
Mickey rounded a corner and ran heavily into Wendy, almost knocking
her over.

“Sorry,” Mickey muttered before hurrying
along, cursing under her breath.

Wendy was staring after her retreating form
when Sister Helen emerged from the music room. Startled, she saw
Wendy and reversed direction, but not before Wendy saw the tears
streaming down her cheeks.

╬ ╬ ╬

Christmas came to the abbey with a fresh
blanket of snow. The juniors had outdone themselves, and the Chapel
looked magnificent. There were evergreen garlands everywhere, now
adorned with brilliant red clusters of holly and nandina berries.
There were extra candle sconces inserted into the stone pillars
behind the nuns’ choir stalls and flanking the grille that
separated the choir from the public pews. The dancing light from
the extra candles seemed festive while simultaneously creating
deeper shadows which lent an increased air of austerity to the
Office in the dark winter days leading up to Christmas.

There was an almost palpable feeling of
anticipation among the nuns as Christmas drew closer, as this was
one of the few times during the year when families were permitted
to enter the enclosure for a reception after Mass on Christmas
Day.

“We do not forbid visits from family in
those first months,” Sister Ignatius had told all of the postulants
during the admission process, “but we find it helps new postulants
settle in better if family holds off visiting until Christmas.”

Jamie had written that he would be coming.
Mickey hadn’t seen him since the day he had brought her to St.
Bridget’s. She had never written as many letters in her life as she
probably had in the last nine months – mostly to Jamie, but also to
friends and former colleagues in Baltimore. In keeping with its
adherence to traditions such as the full habit and singing the
Office in Latin, St. Bridget’s had avoided bringing in computers
and the internet. “But a lot of religious orders have web sites and
they say that much of their outreach to this younger generation
happens via computer,” some of the more progressive nuns argued,
while others reasoned, “Part of our role, part of what calls women
to us, is the simplicity of the life we have chosen. We do not wish
to remove ourselves entirely from the world, but we don’t have to
invite it inside our walls on the internet.” Writing was the most
economical way of communicating with people outside the abbey.
Telephone calls could be made, with permission, if something needed
more immediate attention. Mickey had had to re-learn the art of
written description, something which was very unlike the terse,
concise notes she had used in medical charts and the neverending
e-mails she had had to respond to.

On December 24th, the afternoon work session
was cancelled so that the nuns could have an early dinner and
retire to their cells for some rest before rising again for a late
Matins and a period of reflection before midnight Mass.

Mickey was just leaving the refectory after
supper when Sister Lucille came to her, telling her that she had
visitors in one of the parlours. Wondering who in the world could
be here, she walked quickly to the abbey’s entryway, where there
were four parlours for receiving visitors. Peeking into the first,
she found it empty. She heard voices coming from the second and
walked into it to see Jamie and their mother sitting there. She
stood there in shock. Jamie leapt up and came to her with a big
smile and a hug.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as she
held him tightly. “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow – and I
wasn’t expecting this,” she added in an undertone.

“Thought we’d surprise you,” he answered
with that look she knew so well, partly because she’d used it so
often herself, the one that said, “I knew you’d be mad if I told
you about this ahead of time, so I’m springing this on you
now.”

Turning to her mother, Mickey guardedly
said, “Hello, Mom.”

Natalie Stewart did not come over to embrace
her daughter. She sat stiffly in her chair, her blue eyes pale and
icy, her bony, arthritic hands tightly clasping the purse in her
lap. She looked Mickey from head to toe and said, “I never thought
I’d see you in a skirt again.”

Turning back to Jamie with an amused
expression, Mickey said, “Well, you surprised me.”

He grinned apologetically as they sat.

“So, Mom, how long are you up here for?”
Mickey forced herself to make polite conversation.

“I’m not sure,” Natalie replied, looking
around the parlour with an expression of distaste. “Probably a
week, and then I’ll go back to Florida.”

Mickey gave Jamie a pitying look.

“So, do you really intend to pursue this
convent thing?” Natalie asked.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Mickey warily
replied.

“Do they know about… you?” Natalie
continued. “I wouldn’t think they would want people like you in
here.”

Closing her eyes and praying for patience,
Mickey said, “The Abbess and I had many honest conversations prior
to my entering St. Bridget’s.”

“And you’re willing to give up everything?
For this?” Natalie gestured around the parlour with its clean but
plain furnishings. “Your house? Your money?”