Whisper Hollow (15 page)

On the third Friday in August, Myrthen packed the same upholstery bag her mother had carried across the Atlantic from Saxony to West Virginia more than three decades before. Now moth-eaten and holding only a clean pair of underwear, a toothbrush, and her Bible, it suited Myrthen’s own hopeful occasion as an expression of poverty and humility.

She was ready to live a life of monastic chastity, prayer, solitude, and guided Godliness. She’d always been ready.

The train took her north and west, through the verdancy of the state, through Phico and Kitchen, Fry and Leet and the Big Ugly Public Hunting Area, then to where West Virginia and Kentucky and Ohio connected themselves together along the banks of the Ohio River like distant cousins, and beyond to Coal Grove and Ironton and Garden City, and up along the winding river that led all the way around Shawnee State Forest to the tiny enclave of Bussie, Ohio. In the gloaming sunlit distance, she looked upon it as a new and everlasting home.

Sister Mary Margaret, an extern whose job it was to greet outsiders, met Myrthen at the monastery gates. Myrthen stood, transfixed. She’d never before seen an actual nun. Stirred by Sister Mary Margaret’s attire, which was as alluring to her as immodest clothing was to men, Myrthen desperately wanted to reach out and feel the fabric of the wimple. It encircled Mary Margaret’s lovely oval face like a swallow-tailed flag. For the first time in longer than she could remember, Myrthen smiled.

She was shown to the guest cottage by way of a broad vegetable and flower garden. A stone-faced Saint Joseph stood amid the blue phlox and wild ginger with the infant Jesus in the crook of an arm. Several nuns knelt along the rows, weeding. They looked up and smiled at her as she passed, but none of them spoke. It was to Myrthen’s ears the most pleasing of any potential greeting. The cottage was no larger than a garden shed, with a plain door and two windows, one facing south to let in the sun in winter, and the other facing east to illuminate dawn prayers. The bed was a cot with a thin mattress and a brown coverlet pulled neatly up. A crucifix hung above it and, next to that, a framed rendering of the Virgin Mother, her sacred heart exposed aflame. Otherwise, the whitewashed
walls were bare, and the only other piece of furniture was a straight-backed chair upon which was draped a rosary.

Sister Mary Margaret showed her the outhouse, and pointed out the public entrance to the main chapel. If Myrthen liked, she could sit that evening — behind the grille that separated the cloistered nuns from the outside world — and listen to them chant the Divine Office. Sister Mary Margaret would herself bring a meal to Myrthen at the cottage before Vespers.

Left alone in the joyful austerity of the room, Myrthen sank to her knees on the planked floor, crossed herself, and began to pray. But she was too excited by the prospect of living amid these dark-veiled brides in peaceful solitude and contemplation to continue the Rosary. Her mind wandered to Ruth.

“I can feel you so closely now, Ruthie. I knew I would be able to! All my life I’ve been waiting, and now here I am. It will almost be like we’re together again,” she whispered. “I wonder if they have an organ, and if I’ll be allowed to play.”

The next morning, Myrthen woke up at five o’clock and attended early Mass. She rejoiced at the sight of those black-and-white figures with their heads bowed in the pews, felt the body of Christ on her tongue as though for the first time. She didn’t touch the breakfast that Sister Mary Margaret brought for her, not wanting to dilute the unleavened memory of the wafer in her mouth. When it was time, she was lead to the speakroom, where she would meet the Mother Prioress.

A large iron grille bisected the room like a screen on an open window. When the Prioress finally entered from her side of the grille, Myrthen bowed her head and held her hands, palms up, right over left, seeking her blessing. The Prioress gave it, and Myrthen would have kissed her hand were it not for the grille between them. Instead she simply stood.

“Please, child, sit down.” The Prioress was small and round as she was tall. Her cheeks were squeezed plump by her wimple,
which also covered every strand of her hair. It was difficult to guess how old she was, how many years she might have knelt in the choir, how long she’d followed her own path from cell to chapel. There were wrinkles about her mouth and eyes, however, and she used glasses to peer at the piece of paper she held in her hands. Ah, there they were, the liver spots and crêpe-like skin that matched the peacefully deep voice of advancing age.

The Prioress looked up from the paper she held — Myrthen’s original letter of inquiry — and smiled. “What a blessing it is to have you come and visit us. Have you enjoyed your stay thus far?”

“Oh yes, very much. It’s beautiful here, really. Sister Mary Margaret has been so gracious, and the nuns … oh, everyone has been very cheerful … I found myself enchanted by the sounds of their voices together last night during prayer. Praise be to God!”

“Praise be to God, indeed.” The Prioress folded her hands atop the letter in her lap. “Now, Miss Bergmann, as I told you in my letter, the formation of a nun is a lengthy process, starting with our introduction. If that goes well, we will ask that you spend some time to seriously discern if God may be calling you to the religious life — ”

“Oh, but I’ve already spent so much time! I’m certain that I’ve been called. I’ve known it all my life!”

The Prioress nodded for a moment, then said, “All right then, why don’t you start by telling me about your life?”

“What … what would you like to know?”

“Tell me about when you were a girl. Did you like athletics? Did you join clubs at school? Did you have many friends?”

“I spent much of my time at home. My father was often ill. He was a coal miner. And my mother … my mother needed my help. And when I wasn’t at home, I spent time at our parish, Saint Michael’s.” She wondered for the first time if her singular devotion was an asset in the eyes of the Prioress. How could it not be?

“What about your siblings?”

“I had a twin. Ruth. She died when we were almost six. She was helping our mother carry jars to the cellar and slipped and fell down the stairs.” Myrthen dropped her head.

“I’m sorry, child. Surely she is with our Lord, in His care.”

Myrthen nodded. That half-remembered memory left her cold whenever she got too close to it. The crash, the scream. Her mother, crying.
It’s not your fault
, Father Timothy had said.
Everything is God’s will
,
you must pray.

After an appropriate pause, the Prioress continued. “What about suitors? Did you have boyfriends? Dates?”

“Not … boyfriends, exactly.”

“No?” The Prioress looked at her over the top of her glasses. “Did you have dates?”

She thought of the night with John on her parents’ couch. “I didn’t have dates, not the traditional way.” Now she was concerned about the flow of information, how it weighed in the Mother’s mind. Was it good or bad for nuns to have been on dates at some point in their lives?

“I see. Nontraditional dates, then?”

“Well, yes. One boy would come sit with me and my parents, but I never went out with him anywhere. When I was nineteen years old, we married. Not by choice, mind you. I didn’t want to be married to anyone other than God. But I had to, for the sake of my parents. They wouldn’t hear of me joining a convent. They needed me near. My father was ill, as I said, and my mother. Well, I couldn’t abandon my mother. So I did it, for their sakes. But it’s ended, fortunately.”

“Has he passed on, then?”

Myrthen looked down. “No. He’s still living. But it’s being nullified. He’s asked for a divorce, which of course I won’t grant him. It’s being done properly.” She looked up, hubris glinting in her eyes. “I’d have done it as soon as my parents died if I’d had
the reason. But finally I did: he committed the sin of adultery. And more than that, he asked for a divorce.”

“You know, of course, that a divorce is only a civil procedure.”

Myrthen nodded.

“So you’ve been granted an annulment of the union?”

“Well …” Myrthen cleared her throat. “It hasn’t been granted yet.”

“Have you heard from the marriage tribunal? Where does it stand?”

“Well … I haven’t actually … begun the process.”

The Prioress folded up Myrthen’s letter and set it to the side. “My dear, I must speak to you now from the point of view of canon law. Frankly, I’m surprised your pastor would send you all the way here without explaining it to you first.”

Myrthen leaned forward, a line of sweat beading on her lip. “Whatever do you mean? I haven’t been sent. I didn’t even tell Father Timothy that I was coming.”

The Prioress nodded. “You would have had to, eventually. All candidates must provide letters of recommendation from their pastors. Nevertheless, that’s not what’s important now,” she said. “There are certain clear signs that entering the religious life is not your vocation.”

Myrthen held her breath.

“You were married in the Church.”

She nodded.

“It mystifies people, the nature of marriage.” The Prioress twisted the gold band she wore that symbolized her union with God. “In the secular world, it is a contract between a man and a woman. But when two Christians are joined in marriage, it becomes a sacramental contract that is nearly impossible to break.”

Silence.

“It’s very rare —
very
rare — for an annulment to be granted. The circumstances must be extenuating, dear. Far beyond the straying of a spouse. You would have to prove that the marriage was null at the time of the ceremony. It would likely have to go all the way to the Vatican, and it could take years, and even then, your petition would most probably be refused.” She paused for a moment and then looked Myrthen directly in the eyes. “I’m afraid that in the eyes of the Church, you are still married, Mrs.…”

“Esposito.”

“The canon law relating to admission to the novitiate clearly states that a spouse — while the marriage lasts — is ineligible. I’m very sorry.”

“Ineligible?” Myrthen shrieked. “You’re saying he has to die first? I have to wait for him to die?”

“There, there.” The Prioress looked genuinely concerned. “Is there any way I can help you? Would you like to stay a few more days in the guest cottage and pray?”

Myrthen put her face in her hands and began to cry.

“There are secular Carmelites who live in the world as laypersons but follow Carmelite spirituality, blended with works of the apostolate. Perhaps you could seek out possibilities with them? Serve God and His community as an educator, perhaps, or a health care provider.”

“No!” Myrthen yanked her hands away from her face and glared at the Prioress. She saw the Prioress’s eyes widen and her back press against the rest of her chair. “No,” she repeated, but more softly. “I don’t want to live as a layperson. I want to be cloistered. I want to … I want to be with the Sisters and belong only to God.”

The Prioress pulled a tissue from some hidden compartment in her habit and waved it, a white flag, through one of the big squares in the grille. Myrthen reached up to take it, and the
Mother let it go before their fingers could touch. “The law is clear, child. As long as your spouse is still living, and unless you are able to nullify it, you will remain married in the eyes of God.”

Myrthen blew her nose and tucked the soiled tissue into her own pocket. She stood up to leave.

As long as your spouse is still living.