Then Came Heaven (27 page)

The streetlights came on and a patron from the liquor store stumbled out and went the opposite direction down the sidewalk.

Eddie’s patience was growing thin. He’d never known how stubborn she was. “Pardon me, but this is stupid, Sister, that you should wait for a bus that’s late, in weather like this, then wander around St. Cloud or Foley—maybe both—in the middle of the night, not even knowing when you’ll get home. Would Krystyna have let you do that without trying to help? Well, neither will I. You wait here, I’ll be right back.”

He went back into the liquor store and told Romaine, “Got to borrow your car. Sister Regina needs a ride to Gilman and I better not take her in my truck. Will you ring the Angelus for me at six?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks. If you need my truck, take it. Keys are in it.” Romaine’s car was parked across the street with the keys in the ignition. Eddie made a U-turn at the comer, swung back to the curb and got out beside Sister. He put her suitcase in the backseat, let her get in beside it without so much as touching her on the arm, then slammed the door.

When he was seated behind the wheel again, he said, “I see there’s a blanket back there. Better put it over your lap ’cause it’ll take a while for the heater to warm up and even when it does, not much heat gets back there.”

She covered her lap and watched the snowflakes parting like blown hair in the headlights, worrying all the while about giving the ticket money back to Mother Superior. She’d had to request money to buy the ticket in the first place; that’s how it was done. Whenever a nun requested money for a special need, Mother Superior made a judgment as to whether or not the communal coffers should be dipped into. It had been embarrassing for Sister Regina to ask for money, given why she was asking—ultimately to enable her to leave her vocation. When she got back here at the end of Christmas vacation she’d have to cash in the ticket and return the money to Mother Superior. Then she would have to admit that she’d ridden with Mr. Olczak, unchaperoned.

“How’s the heat back there?” he asked. “Any of it getting to you?”

“Yes, it’s warming up nicely, thank you.”

“I thought I’d go to long Prairie, then cut straight over east to Pierz, and south out of there toward Foley. How far is Gilman from Foley?”

“Just a few miles on this side.”

“Good. Well, then you give me directions when we get closer.”

After that he drove in silence.

She could make out the silhouette of his head against the windshield, the line of his cap, his right ear, right shoulder. It wasn’t bad enough she was breaking Holy Rule with every mile they traveled; she was indulging in forbidden thoughts about him. The physical attraction he held for her, combined with his thoughtfulness, his loneliness, his very 
availability
 put a sharp pang up high beneath her ribs. It was a heady thought that in a mere six months from now such simple pleasure as riding in an automobile with a man she liked would be hers to enjoy whenever the opportunity arose.

What if he knew she was going to seek a dispensation of vows? What would he say? How would he react to the news? She experienced a spell of disembodiment, a floating feeling of unreality, as if it could not possibly be her riding in this car. As if it could not have been her who’d stood on the sidewalk only a short while ago and allowed him to make a decision for her that was sharply against all the vows she had taken. Obedience would have meant riding the bus as Mother Superior expected her to do. Poverty would have meant taking the less comfortable mode of travel. Chastity—ah, well, her adherence to the vow of chastity seemed to have been blown sky-high a hundred times since September when Eddie Olczak’s wife had died.

The astounding truth was that she wanted to tell him why she was going home. But she was still a nun for at least another half a year, and during that time she was expected to comport herself according to the rules of the order.

She cast her eyes away from the view of his profile in an effort to keep her thought pure. He had a St. Christopher medal on the dashboard and she concentrated on it for a while. Then she found her rosary inside her habit, deep inside where it was warm and cozy from the blanket he’d so thoughtfully provided. She clung to the wooden beads, sleek beneath the fingers of her flannel gloves.

Dear God, silence me.

Don’t let me tell him.

I must not tell him.

It would be wrong to tell him.

________

At long Prairie they turned left and headed out into the flat farmland between there and little Falls—twenty-five miles of darkness lit only by the headlights, the falling snow and an occasional yard light on a barn.

She had grown so accustomed to the silence that she jumped when he asked, “Sister, am I allowed to talk to you?”

“About what, Mr. Olczak?”

“That day you stopped Sister Mary Charles from beating Anne.” He waited, but she said nothing, so he went on. “I mean, I don’t want to make you sin again or anything, but you said you didn’t get in trouble for stepping in, and I think you did. Are they... well... I don’t know exactly how to say it... are they deporting you or something?”

“Deporting me?”

“You know—sending you away for crossing Sister Mary Charles?”

“Oh, gracious, 
no,
 Mr. Olczak! They don’t do things like that.”

“Then, why are you going home?”

“I told you, to spend Christmas with my family.”

“I happen to know, Sister, that you’re not allowed to go home but maybe once every couple years or so.”

“Five.”

“Five?”

“Five years. We’re allowed to go home once every five years.”

“Once every five years...” he whispered in horror. “Why, Sister, that’s just terrible! They’re your family!” He cleared his throat and sat up straighter. “Sorry, Sister. It’s just that I don’t know what I’d do if somebody told me I couldn’t see my family for five years.”

“My religious community is my family.”

“It still must be hard. And I don’t see any reason why they do that to you.” He thought for a while, then asked, “Wasn’t it about two years ago when Krystyna took you home for your folks’ silver-wedding anniversary and Sister Dora went along with you?”

She said nothing so he turned the rearview mirror until he could see her in it. Her features were only suggestions in the reflected headlights, but the dots of light in her eyes told him she was looking squarely at the mirror.

“If you were home two years ago, what are they letting you go again for? This 
does
 have something to do with my kids, doesn’t it?” he insisted. “You’re getting reprimanded for sticking up for them, aren’t you?”

“No, Mr. Olczak. I told you... no.”

“Pardon me, Sister, I don’t mean any disrespect, but I don’t believe you.” They rode for a while staring at what they could make out of each other in the rearview mirror. Then he righted it and they rode in silence once again.

She longed to tell him. But it was not allowed. Leaving one’s religious vocation was done under a veil of secrecy, to protect the Church from the stigma, she surmised. There was a chapter covering it in their Constitution, which she’d read many times this past year. It made quite clear that while waiting for the dispensation, Holy Rule and the Constitution were to be strictly adhered to.

They rode the remainder of the way with few words between them. In little Falls they had to wait for a freight train at the Mississippi River crossing, and while it rumbled past, they sat in the glow of the headlights from the car behind them, the quiver from the speeding wheels trembling up through the car seats, adding to their unsettled nerves. They stared at the flashing stream of freight cars, at the loose snow whipped up by the wheels, and at the blinking red lights on the black-and-white striped yardarm that had halted them.

And sometimes they thought of Krystyna being hit by that train.

And sometimes they thought of each other.

And the weight of their mutual attraction for each other felt like those wheels were running smack across their chests.

________

“This is it,” she said after forty-five more minutes of silence broken only by her directions. “Pull right up next to the apple trees.”

A dog started barking and a yard light came on.

Eddie pulled up where she’d told him to, killed the lights and engine, then turned around and looked at her over the seat. “Sister, look, I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Mr. Olczak. I appreciate th—”

“Yes! I do!” She was folding the blanket, and he grabbed her arm through it. Even through four layers of wool the contact ricocheted through both of them. “Don’t... don’t...!” His eyes burned with frustration as he stared at her and tried to think of what to say. Don’t call me Mr. Olczak anymore!

“Don’t what?”

“There’s something that...” He was so confused about what he sensed happening between them that he could not go on. There was no protocol for this kind of thing, falling in love with a nun.

“I must go in,” she said in the calm, quiet way he’d always known, freeing her arm without making an issue of it. “My folks are wondering who’s out here.”

“Sister, please...” he said miserably. “I’ve never argued with a nun before, not with one I liked. I shouldn’t have said what I did. I’m sorry.”

She knew perfectly well the best way to handle this was to pretend nothing had happened at all, no attraction, no argument, no touch. “Thank you for giving me a ride all this way. I hope you’ll be all right on the way home.” She placed the folded blanket neatly on the seat. “I know you will, with Saint Christopher looking after you.”

“You just tell me when, and I’ll come back and get you,” he offered.

“That won’t be necessary. I have to stop at Saint Benedict’s on my way home, and I’m sure my dad will take me.”

“Well... okay, then. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too.”

He got out and opened the rear door for her, and reached inside for her suitcase. As they headed for the house the dog circled them, wagging and sniffing, and a woman’s voice called, “Jean, is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me, Mama.”

“Oh my gracious me, it 
is
 you!”

And the man’s voice, full of sudden emotion and disbelief. “Regina?” He used the Polish derivative, rolling the 
R
 in the old-world way, pronouncing it with a hard 
g
.

Then they were leaving the shelter of the glassed-in back porch and hurrying down the walk. Eddie watched them hug, thinking over and over, 
Her name is Jean. Her name is Jean.
 Her father tried to wrest the suitcase from Eddie, saying, “Here, let me take that.”

“No, sir, I’ve got it. I’ll take it to the house.”

“Well, who’s this, then?” the older man said.

“This is Mr. Olczak, Daddy, our janitor at St. Joseph’s. He was kind enough to drive me on this ugly night.”

“Mr. Olczak.” They shook hands. “We’ve heard your name.”

The dog was barking. Her mother was crying. Her father said, “Enough of that now, Bertha. Better get inside before we all freeze to death.”

Eddie planned to slip the suitcase onto the porch step and make a hasty retreat, but Frank and Bertha Potlocki would have none of it. Frank said, “Come on in here and warm up. Bertha will get you a cup of coffee before you head back.”

“By all means, Mr. Olczak,” Bertha said, remembering her manners before relapsing into surprise. “My goodness gracious, I can’t believe this! Our Jean dropping in out of nowhere!”

The kitchen was as ordinary as field straw, but spotlessly clean. There was a cast-iron wood range, a table as big as a hay wagon, eight spindled chairs and worn blue linoleum on the floor. A water pail with a dipper, a white porcelain washbasin and a pantry, where Bertha Potlocki went to find coffee. She filled the pot from the water pail, while Frank stirred up the coals and dropped two pieces of firewood into the stove.

Then they all sat at the table and Bertha asked her daughter, “How long are you staying?”

“For Christmas.”

With one hand Bertha covered her daughter’s hand on top of the oilcloth. With the other she covered her own mouth. The tears that shot into her eyes told how long it had been since this had happened.

“You should have told us you were coming,” Frank said.

“I would’ve made you some prune coffee cakes,” Bertha added.

“We’ll make some together, Mama. I’ll help you.”

“Wait till your grandma finds out you’re here. Oh, Jean, how that woman misses you.”

“How is she?”

As they talked, Eddie saw that Regina (Jean) Potlocki had grown up much like he, in this big drafty farmhouse, surrounded by people she loved. A mother with a face burned red from cooking on a wood range, and a father who, even in the dead of winter, sported a white head above his hat line, and a red face below. Somewhere on the glassed-in porch his overalls and boots must have been waiting, for the faint smell of the barn lingered even above the aroma of boiling coffee. Through a trapdoor in the kitchen floor, Bertha disappeared and came up with a quart jar of home-canned peach sauce. From the pantry came sauce dishes and a blue roaster full of home-baked buns. From out on the chilly porch, a bowl of butter and a pitcher of thick cream that had come straight from the separator.

Eddie wondered again how Sister Regina had tolerated being cut off from them.

She asked her mother, buttering a bun even before the coffee was done, “Do you have any chokecherry jelly?”

“Oh, how could I forget?” Bertha was up, lifting the trapdoor again to protestations of “No, no, Mama, you don’t have to get it just for me!”

But she did. Up came a pint of chokecherry jam as clear and dark as wine, and Eddie watched the woman across the table fold her hands and say a quick prayer to the crucifix on the kitchen wall before slathering her bun with the rich memory of home. She took a huge bite, and looked up, with butter in the comers of her mouth, and saw him watching her with a smile.