The Sisterhood (5 page)

“My husband’s a hard worker. He built his business from nothing,” Sarah-Lynn interrupted proudly. “He started off as a plumber when we got married and now he owns a plumbing business with five branches, doing work all over the place, clear to Atlanta where there’s lots of new homes going up. Got eighteen people working for him now.”

“Here, this is one of my trucks,” said Virgil, pulling out his wallet and extracting a business card that showed a sleek dark-green van with classical script on the side:
GET A QUOTE FROM VIRGIL
. “Latin teacher at the high school’s an old army buddy—this was his idea.”

“Virgil, honey!” Sarah-Lynn nudged her husband. “Tell about our church.”

“Well, ma’am, we belong to the First Baptist Church, we go every Sunday, and on Wednesday night for a prayer meeting and a potluck supper.” Virgil talked on about vacation Bible school, and the Little League baseball team he coached, and the Brownies—things that Mother had never heard of but were evidently children’s activities.

Gunfire in the distance, then an explosion, interrupted them. Both sounded closer than usual. The Walkers jumped.

Mother gathered up Isabelita’s file, with the newspaper clippings. “Here is all we know about Isabelita. We can only speculate who her parents might have been—almost certainly local people and certainly dead. They may have been from one of the fishing communities on the coast, or trying to escape.”

The Walkers both nodded and Virgil took the file. “Our adoption worker has stressed that adopted children need to know where
they came from. Especially when it’s a foreign adoption. It can turn into a big issue when they grow up. So we’ll make sure she knows.”

Mother took a large parcel from her desk. “I understand. And since Isabelita will have so little to go on, here are two keepsakes from the convent. One is a medal she was wearing when she was rescued. You will see a photo of it in the newspaper stories in the file. We were extremely surprised to see it as our convent had one like it once. We felt she should have it.

“And this book is for her, too. It is very old, some old records of our convent. Our nuns were always educated, and the convent always had a scribe to keep the records. Perhaps Isabelita will want to read it someday if she remembers her Spanish. There is a section in the middle in Latin, too, but I know children do not learn Latin in school as they did in my day. Still, it is all we have to give her. Before I consent to the adoption I require your solemn promise to give her both these things on her sixteenth birthday.” Mother felt an acute pang of regret that they had been unable to read the Chronicle properly before sending it away. Various nuns had made a start during the past year, but God alone knew where the convent’s old Latin dictionary was. No one’s Latin was up to much, and in any case there was so much work to do in the convent there hadn’t been enough time, even to read the Spanish.

Sarah-Lynn Walker leaned forward earnestly. “That’s lovely! Of course we promise, don’t we Virgil?”

Her husband nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I give you my word. We’ll see she gets these things. And our local high school still teaches Latin in the honors program; it helps kids get college scholarships so the PTA won’t let them drop it. So we’ll do our best to see she takes Latin, too. Virgil Walker doesn’t go back on his word,” he added and instinctively stuck out his hand to shake on the bargain. Startled but quick on the uptake, Mother reached out her own frail hand for his firm handshake. She believed him.

“Very well. I approve the adoption.” Mother nodded at the Walkers and pushed the parcel over to Sarah-Lynn, who whispered, “Thank you.” Mother rang a little silver bell and Sor Rosario appeared so quickly Mother knew she had been listening outside the door. “Please bring Isabelita.”

Sor Rosario took her time. Mother made polite conversation while they waited, proudly pointing out the portraits of the crowned nuns, saying she thought they were quite special and certainly old, explaining that on feast days the orphanage children were allowed into her study to see them as a special treat. Convent life was rather spartan for the children, and a visit to Mother’s parlor to hear a story about the crowned nuns was one of their few luxuries. Mother explained to the Walkers how she would give a little talk about these extraordinary girls, who were dressed in beautiful clothes with flowers and jewels and elaborate crowns as they prepared to become nuns. “Isabelita loves these paintings. When I asked why, she said they smiled at her.” Mother smiled herself. “Perhaps they do. But mainly the children look forward to these occasions because afterward they have hot chocolate and almond pastries, like the ones offered to girls entering the convent, as a symbol of the sweetness of a cloistered life dedicated to God.”

The Protestant Walkers looked dazed by this information, so Mother politely changed the subject.

“Let’s see, what can I tell you about Isabelita to help you know her a little? She is a very good girl, very obedient, says her prayers and tidies her clothes. Her health is good. She’s never been ill or at all naughty, although when Christian Outreach was so generous we were able to buy toys for the children—we’ve never been able to afford toys here.” Mother shrugged apologetically. “Isabelita was so excited by the crayons and coloring books that she decorated the walls of the dormitory and some of the missals in the chapel before we could stop her.”

“Bless her heart, the child was just happy to have something to play with!” exclaimed Sarah-Lynn.

Virgil grinned. “We got a new refrigerator, plain white, could do with some decorating,” he said. “I’ll get her the biggest box of crayons they make and she can draw on that all she likes.”

Then there was a knock at the study door and the three of them turned as the door opened. Sor Rosario was holding the hand of a beautiful little girl, her dark hair neatly braided, wearing a spotlessly clean, carefully darned white pinafore, white socks, and new white sandals. Mother repressed thoughts of sacrificial lambs. After saying “
Buenas tardes
, Mother,” the child smiled shyly from under her long eyelashes and wished the Walkers “
Buenas tardes.
”

“Well hey there.” Virgil smiled.

Sarah-Lynn whispered, “My precious baby!”

Mother beckoned the child to her side and took her face in her hands. Speaking in slow Spanish so the Walkers could follow she said, “These good people were lonely without a little girl of their own and have chosen you to be their daughter. Your parents in heaven are watching over you and are happy that God has sent them to be your new mother and father. You will leave the convent and go with them now. But wherever you go, our prayers will follow you every day.” She spoke earnestly, looking deep into the child’s eyes, which were neither brown nor black but a dark, inky blue. Mother’s word was law. The child nodded obediently. “Good girl,” whispered Mother.

Mother unscrewed an old-fashioned fountain pen. “Now the paperwork must be completed. The full name on her baptismal certificate is Maria Salome Isabella Luz de los Angeles—the ‘light of the angels’ surname we give to all our orphans whose surnames are unknown, but what of her first names? Do you wish to give her another?” Mother strove to sound casual.

Virgil looked at his wife. Adoption counseling stressed the need to respect ethnic origins. Would it seem disrespectful to change this rather exotic name? He said tentatively, “That’s a real nice name, just a little unusual—not many girls named Salome, what with John the Baptist and that business with his head—”

“A more American name, perhaps? Brenda or Marjorie or…Nancy?” Mother suggested, racking her brains for American names. “Susan?”

Virgil breathed more easily. “Those are nice but, we always had a name picked out for a daughter if we had one. Menina Ann Walker.”

Mother looked up in surprise. In old Castilian “Menina” meant a young lady-in-waiting to the queen.

“Where we come from, it’s a custom to call children by names in the family. Sarah-Lynn’s mother was Menina. She passed shortly after our wedding. Ann was my mom’s name. How does that sound to you?”

“Menina Ann Walker—sounds very American. Very nice.” Mother took her time laboriously signing the official adoption papers in handwriting she had practiced over and over, until it was so embellished with curlicues as to be almost but not quite indecipherable. “Just one more form, for the convent records.” Now Mother filled in the names of the adoptive parents as Mary and John Smith, place of residence, Chicago. She wrote Isabelita’s old and new names illegibly. She shook a large blot of ink onto the new one for good measure and replaced the pen in the inkwell with a smile of satisfaction. Then the Walkers signed everything—too nervous to bother reading the papers, let alone translating them. Anyone looking for Isabelita would find themselves on a wild goose chase.

“Isabelita, from today you have a new name, Menina Ann Walker. It is God’s will,” said Mother in Spanish. She sat up very straight, pushed her spectacles back up her nose and frowned at Sor Rosario, who was dabbing her eyes suspiciously. Sor Rosario gave a little sob and bent and hugged Isabelita hard, then Mother came round her desk and bent down stiffly and hugged her, too. “Remember, always be good.” She said again in the child’s ear, “Be a good girl. A very good girl. God bless and keep you.
Adios.
”

“Don’t y’all worry,” Virgil told the nuns. “We’ll bring her up right. And keep our promise,” he added. He bent down and held out the teddy bear to the child. She looked at Mother for permission. When Mother nodded, her face broke into a huge smile as she walked to him and took it. He scooped her up and said, “Hey, whose little girl we got here?” The child giggled and buried her face in the bear. “Menina honey, Mama and Daddy are going to take you for some ice cream,
helado
. You like
helado
?” The child nodded. She had no idea what helado was, but that seemed to be the right response. “And after that, we’re going to get on a big airplane and fly away. This family’s going home!”

Sor Rosario opened the door and followed them out, sniffing loudly. Mother listened as their footsteps faded down the corridor. Alone again, she looked up at the
monjas coronadas
. “May God guide and protect her, but I am convinced we have done the right thing.
Deo gratias
, for the Walkers, sisters.
Deo gratias
.”

Laurel Run, Georgia, March 2000

The force of Mother’s parting admonition to “
Be a good girl
” stayed with Menina long after her memories of Mother, Sor Rosario, and even the convent faded into a hazy recollection.

“
Be a good girl! Be a very good girl!
”

She was. Everyone in the small town of Laurel Run agreed that Menina Walker was a credit to her adoptive parents. She was polite, a straight-A student since first grade, sang in the choir of the Baptist church, helped her mother without being asked, and in high school had been one of the girls with a “good” reputation. She had never sneaked cigarettes, smoked pot, come home drunk, or experimented with sex at the drive-in. Laurel Run mothers who despaired of their own teenage daughters’ behavior wondered how Sarah-Lynn Walker had managed to raise such a lady, and held her up as an example to their own girls.

The girls often felt driven to retort that it wasn’t like Menina had had much chance to be anything but good. The pretty child who returned from South America with the Walkers had gone through a gawky adolescence, taller than her classmates since the age of twelve, afflicted by braces on her teeth and a reputation as the class brainbox, teacher’s pet, and model of good behavior. The scrawny duckling had only emerged as a swan during her final year
in high school, and by then boys saw her as the class valedictorian, not someone to date.

But she had blossomed, strikingly. At nineteen she was tall and slender, fine featured, with a smooth olive complexion and dark hair that offset her beautiful sapphire eyes. Up close, despite her ready smile, a certain tentativeness in her manner and a slight shyness in those lovely eyes betrayed the fact that her beauty was a recent development—one she was still getting used to.

Even now she didn’t quite believe how she’d changed, whatever her mirror and her doting parents said. Not that she spent much time worrying about how she looked. She had had to develop the good sense not to and besides, she knew she was a bit of a nerd—she had learned long ago that the best antidote to feeling plain and left out of the giggling cliques of her girl classmates was to bury herself in her schoolwork. It made her parents proud when she got all As and was at the top of her class and the star of her high school honors program. And she actually really, really enjoyed school.

But not being popular left her with time to fill. So she found a way to do that, too.

No one had ever disparaged Menina’s Hispanic origins, and indeed, the Walkers had always stressed that she should be proud of them. When they gave Menina the medal and the old book on her sixteenth birthday, just as they had promised Mother Superior they would, Virgil had made a little speech about how important her heritage was and how her birth parents might have put the medal round her neck, hoping it had some miraculous power to save their child. Menina had taken his words to heart.