In This Small Spot (8 page)

Mickey pressed her fingers to the bridge of
her nose as she listened to the silence on the other end of the
phone. “I should have called,” she said. “But he was already on the
table…”

“The car is packed,” Alice said at last.
“Can you leave if I come by to pick you up?”

“Yes. I’ll be waiting for you.”

As Mickey hurriedly changed out of her
scrubs in the locker room, she whispered a prayer of thanks as she
had done a thousand times before over the past ten years. It would
have sounded trite if she had tried to explain it to anyone else,
but she literally felt that Alice was God’s gift to her. She
resolved to focus all of her attention on Alice over the next few
days as they traveled to their weekend house on the Chesapeake
Bay.

“I’m sorry,” Mickey said again as she got
into the car. “You have every right to be angry.”

Alice wove through the hospital parking lot.
“I was,” she admitted after a moment. “But how can I measure a
weekend at the Bay against a twelve-year-old boy’s life?”

“I truly don’t deserve you,” Mickey said,
taking Alice’s hand and squeezing it.

“I know.” Alice grinned at her. “And I’ll
remind you of that if you complain about the new couch I bought
today.”

Chapter 10

“In a month, you will have been here a year,”
Sister Rosaria told the postulants in March. “It is time for you to
prepare for the decision as to whether or not you will be entering
the Novitiate.” As part of that process, the postulants were
required to make a seven day retreat. “This retreat will be
conducted in complete silence, except for the daily session each of
you will have with the senior nun assigned to be your spiritual
advisor,” Sister Rosaria explained. “You will move from the
dormitory to cells for private sleeping quarters. Your meals will
be taken in a small room off the refectory. You will not
participate in the Office, although you may listen to it, and you
will not be doing any work, since the focus of the week is to be
prayer and reflection.”

During her meeting explaining the retreat to
the five postulants, Sister Rosaria told them who their spiritual
advisors were. To Mickey’s mortification, hers was Sister Anselma.
The seniors serving as advisors had all received intense training
in guiding the retreat process. “Our task is to listen,” they would
have said – listen to the retreatant, and listen for God’s whispers
pointing the way to a meaningful experience. The advisors were also
very much aware that the retreat process could bring up intense
emotional issues. Things easily suppressed under the busy-ness of
daily life often surfaced in the stillness and silence. The retreat
process could have a profound impact, not only on someone’s
psychological state, but also on a shaky vocation. “More than one
woman had left the abbey after a difficult retreat,” Sister Rosaria
warned them. “This is nothing to be ashamed of. Monastic life is
not for everyone. Even those with a true vocation may find that
this retreat simply points them down another path.”

“Don’t fool yourselves into thinking you
deserve God’s attention as a reward for entering religious life,”
Sister Renatta advised them in her last lecture – “even if the
retreat goes badly, that’s something to be grateful for,” Mickey
joked in an undertone to Tanya who immediately coughed to cover her
laugh. Sister Renatta’s eyes got misty as she continued, “Saint
Teresa of Ávila went through a dry period of nearly twenty years
without any sense that God was listening. Her perseverance was
eventually rewarded with a state of grace and communion with our
Lord that most of you will probably never experience. I myself have
experienced several moments of grace, and I can assure you they are
most stirring. Remember that you are beginners on this
journey.”

The day before the retreat was to begin, the
postulants were all packing up their clothes and few belongings in
preparation for the move to their cells. Loudly enough for Mickey
to hear, Wendy said to Tanya, “Yeah, I’ve done this two or three
times. The most important thing is who your spiritual advisor is.
I’m so glad I didn’t get Sister Anselma, or I should say Sister
Absentia. I’ve heard she’s like some kind of ice queen – the
perfect nun with no emotions.”

Wendy, in her snide way, had been even more
aggressive and challenging to Mickey ever since Abigail’s accident
with the knife. Mickey had forced herself to bite her tongue and
remain quiet, but finally, “Whoever you got,” she said as she
picked up the other end of Jessica’s trunk to help her carry it to
her cell, “I hope she’s smart enough to see through your
bullshit.”

Mickey’s cell was at the end of the
corridor, next to Jessica’s. They were all furnished alike, with a
bed, a small wardrobe and a writing desk with a bookshelf on top.
Mostly what Mickey had brought with her were books. She set her
trunk at the foot of her bed, and then sat at the desk to write
Jamie an overdue letter. “I don’t know how busy all this prayer
will keep me,” she wrote, “but seven days feels like a very long
time.”

The next day, they met with their spiritual
advisors for the first time right after Mass. Mickey was greeted by
Sister Anselma and shown into a small study near the library.
Mickey waited for Sister Anselma to sit before she took an adjacent
chair.

“The first thing I want you to know is that
anything we discuss is as confidential as the confessional,” Sister
Anselma began. “I would only repeat our conversations to Mother if
I felt it was absolutely necessary, and then only with your
permission.”

Mickey was watching her grey eyes intently
as she spoke. This was the first time Mickey had had a chance to
really study her face, and she was startled to realize that Sister
Anselma was probably no older than she was. She knew the nuns
didn’t measure age chronologically, but she was still surprised
that someone so young would carry so much responsibility within the
abbey.

Sister Anselma continued, “In order for me
to guide you to the best of my ability, it would be helpful to know
a little about you and what brought you here.”

Mickey quickly considered how much to tell
her. It had taken a long time before she opened up completely with
Mother Theodora. “I was drawn to religious life as a teenager and
almost entered a convent right after high school,” she began
sheepishly, “but I decided to go to college, and there, I became
interested in medicine and pursued medical school. I had been
teaching at Johns Hopkins, and was a partner in a surgical practice
in Baltimore.” Mickey paused. Sister Anselma’s expression hadn’t
changed, and her eyes were still fixed on Mickey’s face. “After… a
few years ago, I guess I just reached the point of feeling I needed
to do something more. I found the abbey by accident one day, and
then met Mother. It was through my conversations with her that I
eventually decided to enter.”

Sister Anselma’s face softened. “I wonder if
she knows how many of us she’s brought here.” She held out a small
book and pen. “You will use this journal to write down the
Scripture passages I give you to pray with each day. Try to spend
an hour with each passage, and then write down your feelings,
thoughts, any words or phrases that speak to you. Begin each
session with a prayer asking to be open to what God wishes to say
to you. Have you ever prayed like this before, Michele?”

Mickey shook her head.

“Try to relax and not force your prayer in
any specific direction.” She flipped through the Bible on her lap,
and gave Mickey three Scripture readings to start with. “We’ll meet
here each day at the start of Recreation.” She stood, and the folds
of her habit fell gracefully into place. She looked down at Mickey
and added, “I believe there is still enough snow left outside for
another snowball fight with the trees if you are so moved.”

╬ ╬ ╬

The first five days of Mickey’s retreat
passed calmly enough. The passages that she had been asked to pray
with had been taken from all over: Lamentations, Isaiah, Psalms,
the Gospels, Paul’s letters. The common thread which seemed to be
emerging was Mickey’s difficulty trusting and believing that she
could be an instrument of God’s will. This was the hardest thing
she had done at St. Bridget’s, maybe the hardest thing she had ever
done.

She had glimpses of the others at meals, and
occasionally, out on the abbey grounds. They seemed to be
struggling also. She saw Tanya and Jessica in tears at different
times.

Meeting with Sister Anselma the afternoon of
the fifth day, Mickey was looking forward to the end of this
retreat and was about to say so when, “Michele,” Sister Anselma
began with a small frown, “I am not sure why or what exactly, but I
sense a block of some kind, keeping you from getting where you need
to be.”

Mickey stared at her. “I don’t feel that
way. I’m not sure what is supposed to happen on these retreats, but
I feel like there have been moments of real clarity and insight
that weren’t there before.”

Sister Anselma’s sharp eyes searched hers
for a long moment. Finally she nodded and said, “Very well. I could
be wrong about this.” Opening her Bible, she began picking the next
set of readings for Mickey to pray with. She looked up and saw that
Mickey had stopped writing and that the color had drained from her
face. “Michele?”

“Why did you choose that passage from
Wisdom?” Mickey asked, looking down at her journal.

Sister Anselma’s eyebrows raised a little.
“I don’t know. I told you I pray for guidance each time we meet.
Why?”

Mickey paused. “That reading is connected to
a… a difficult time in my life. I’d rather not pray with that
one.”

Gently, Sister Anselma said, “Maybe that’s
why I was prompted to give it to you. Please try.”

Mickey nodded and closed her journal.

╬ ╬ ╬

The virtuous woman, though she die before
her time, will find rest.

“Tell me,” was all Sister Anselma said the
next day. She noticed, but didn’t comment on, the dark circles
under Mickey’s eyes. She suspected Mickey had not slept at all.

Length of days is not what makes age
honourable,

Nor number of years the true measure of
life.

Mickey stared at the pen in her hands,
pushing the cap off with her thumb and clicking it back on, over
and over. “I’m afraid I didn’t really get anywhere with the
readings you gave me yesterday,” she said in a low voice.

“Why not?”

She has sought to please God, so God has
loved her.

Mickey frowned and rubbed her forehead. “I
don’t know,” she said irritably. “I just couldn’t seem to settle my
mind.”

Sister Anselma sat silently for a long time,
until Mickey finally looked up at her.

“Michele,” she said, her expression neutral,
“I would like your permission to speak with Mother. I believe we
should extend your retreat.”

Mickey’s heart sank. “How long?”

“A full thirty days.”

After the seventh day, Mickey ate alone in
the room off the refectory. The others returned to the normal
routine of abbey life. Sister Anselma didn’t give Mickey different
Scriptures to pray with. She kept asking Mickey to stay with the
ones she was stuck on. Not until the tenth day did Mickey begin to
open up even a little.

“The reading from Wisdom, with some gender
changes, was one of the passages used in the funeral of my partner,
Alice,” she finally told Sister Anselma that afternoon.

“How long were you together?” Sister Anselma
asked quietly.

“Twelve years. We met while I was in medical
school.” Mickey’s eyes stared, unfocused, at the wall.

“Tell me about her.”

For the first time in days, Mickey’s face
softened a little. “She was everything to me,” she said in a voice
barely above a whisper. “She was the gentlest soul I have ever
known. She always knew what I needed – whether it was just to
listen when I needed to vent, or hold me when a patient died, or
make me laugh when I was taking myself too seriously.”

Mickey was surprised when Sister Anselma
didn’t ask any more questions. She finally gave Mickey three new
Scriptures. When Mickey sat down to pray with them, they were
joyful passages – Psalms 138 and 139, the Song of Songs. A front of
unseasonably warm air had moved into the region, and she was able
to go outside to spend the hours praying with those passages,
immersed in memories of the love and happiness Alice had brought to
her life. She felt tremendously relieved that she was through the
worst of this retreat. She slept better that night, and felt more
prepared to face Sister Anselma the next day.

To her disappointment, Sister Anselma didn’t
ask any questions about those prayer sessions.

“What kind of surgeon were you?” Sister
Anselma asked unexpectedly.

“I’m sorry?” Mickey asked, not sure how to
interpret the question.

“What kind of surgeon were you?” Sister
Anselma repeated, refusing to clarify.

“I was a general surgeon, but my specialty
was oncological cases – removing cancerous tissues,” Mickey opted
to answer.

Sister Anselma was looking at her intently.
“Were you a good doctor?”

Mickey could feel her face burn. “I don’t
know how to answer that,” she responded honestly.

Sister Anselma simply nodded and continued
watching Mickey. “Tell me how Alice died.”

Mickey was unprepared for this. She felt her
face get hotter, and her heartbeat quicken. “She was complaining of
back pain. But she taught second grade; she was always having to
bend and stoop.” She had to stop to try and breathe. “By the time
an MRI was done, her cancer was everywhere. She opted not to have
chemo. We used the time we had left to travel, visit family and
friends.”

“How long?” Sister Anselma’s voice was
gentle, but her expression was inscrutable.