Flesh and Blood (4 page)

“Yeah,” I said, “but he knows what he’s doing. It’ll be fine.”

“John, would you convince him it’s better if we not involve the outside world in this?” Father Jerome asked me, nodding toward Father Thomas.

“It’s not just me you have to convince,” Father Thomas said. “Word of this has already spread through St. Ann’s. It won’t be long before somebody calls the bishop.”

“What’d the doctor say?” Sister Abigail asked.

“That Sister Mary is a pregnant virgin,” I said. “Something she’s convinced of to a medical certainty.”

“See,” Father Thomas said. “There’s no way we’re keeping this quiet, and if it gets back to the bishop and doesn’t come from us, we’ll probably lose St. Ann’s.”

“I’ve never tested a more honest or transparent person,” Keith Coleman said. “She even made the obviously embarrassing admission that she finds John here handsome.”

“So she doesn’t lie, but she’s got a vision problem?” Anna offered.

Keith laughed.

“Bottom line,” he said, growing serious again. “She’s telling the truth. She has not had sex, she has not withheld any information, she doesn’t have any idea how she got pregnant.”

“I told you,” Father Jerome said. “Now, can we please leave her alone? She’s done nothing wrong. She doesn’t deserve to be a sideshow attraction.”

“The fact that she passed the test is all the more reason why we have to notify the church,” Father Thomas said. “We might actually be dealing with a miracle. What if she and her baby have been sent from God, do you want to stand in the way of that?”

“Even if what you’re saying is true,” Father Jerome said, “and I just can’t fathom that it is, why do you think it has to be a spectacle? Mary had Jesus in obscurity. Let Sister Mary Elizabeth have the same consideration.”

Though a lot younger and in a different type of clerical garb, it occurred to me just how much I must look like I fit with these two men in my suit and clerical collar, but I doubted I could be any different and still be a minister in the same religion.

As the two Fathers continued to argue, Keith, Anna, and I stepped down the hallway for some privacy.

“You didn’t just ask her about having sex with a man, but about doing anything that could have gotten her pregnant, right?”

He nodded. “I covered everything,” he said. “Test-tube, artificial insemination, accidents. Everything.”

I nodded as I thought about it some more.

“Thanks again for doing this, Keith,” I said. “I owe you.”

“You can pay me be telling me what the hell’s going on here,” he said. “Is this some spooky second coming shit?”

I laughed.

“Seriously, is she a pregnant virgin? That older nun told me they had medical evidence.”

“For the moment it remains inexplicable,” I said, “but we’re not finished looking into it just yet.”

“Well, hey, let me know if I need to start living right anytime soon,” he said.

Sister Mary Elizabeth opened the door of the classroom and stepped out. Most everyone looked at her differently, nearly reverentially.

“Thanks again for coming to test me, Mr. Coleman,” she said. “Especially on such short notice. I really appreciate it.”

“Can we get you anything, dear?” Father Jerome asked.

She shook her head. “I’m fine. Chaplain Jordan, did you need to see me again? I thought I might take a walk down by the lake.”

“If you don’t mind some company, I’ll join you,” I said.

“So,” she said, “if I’m not lying and I
am
a virgin, how can I be pregnant?”

I shrugged. “The work of the Holy Spirit,?” I offered.

She laughed.

It was a clear, cool night, and the nearly full moon shone brightly on the smooth surface of the lake. Though peaceful, it wasn’t quiet. The nocturnal noises, the chirps and croaks and calls, were so loud they seemed amplified.

“Do you have any idea when this happened?” I asked. “I mean specifically.”

She shook her head.

“Anything strange happen to you around the time of conception?” I asked. “Anything at all?”

She looked up, narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips. “That would’ve been a little over four months ago.”

“Do you live alone?” I asked.

“I have my own room in the girls’ dorm,” she said. “It’s close to Sister Abigail’s.”

“Anything strange, odd, or different happen?”

She shook her head and frowned. “Not that I can remember,” she said.

“Anything at all?” I asked. “No matter how small.”

“I really don’t think so,” she said. “I mean, thinking back now, it’d be easy to read something strange into ordinary occurrences that if I weren’t inexplicably pregnant would otherwise not cross my mind.”

“Such as?”

“I usually don’t recall my dreams, but for a while there I would wake up in the morning with vivid memories of them,” she said.

“Any recurring?”

She shook her head. “Not really.”

“Nightmares?” I asked. “Any of them related to getting pregnant?”

She shook her head again.

“What else?”

“I passed out a couple of times,” she said, “but I think that was after I was already pregnant. I’m just not sure.”

“Where were you when it happened?”

“Different places,” she said.

“The dining hall, the chapel, down here on the path, the porch of Father Jerome’s cabin—I was delivering some medicine to him, he’s very sick—and the soup kitchen in Bridgeport where I volunteer.”

“Ever pass out before or since?”

“Not that I recall.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know,” she said, frustration eating at the edge of her words. “Do you want me to say that I woke up a few mornings with my panties twisted and a funny feeling in my vagina? Maybe I did. I’m just not sure, but if I did, my panties get twisted up all the time when I sleep, I’m a tosser and turner. And as far as funny feelings in my private parts, well, that happens from time to time, too, and it’s never resulted in pregnancy before.”

I nodded, and we were silent a few moments.

She shivered as a breeze blew in through the trees, rustling their branches, raining down leaves, and rippling the otherwise smooth surface of the lake.

I took off my suit coat and draped it around her shoulders.

“Thanks,” she said. “And I’m sorry I was snippy. I’m just so tired of all this. I know you’re only trying to help and I’m being awful.”

I shook my head. “No, you’re not.”

“I’m usually a nice person,” she said.

“Still are,” I said.

“You’re very kind.”

“You feel like going just a little longer?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said.

“Can you think of anything else strange or odd?”

“I really don’t want to go into detail,” she said, “but late one night, while I was praying in the chapel by myself, I had an intense mystical experience. It was unlike anything I’ve ever known, and it meant a lot to me, but there were no angels announcing I would soon be with child.”

“Maybe that’s when it happened,” I said. “Maybe it
is
a miracle.”

“You don’t believe that any more than I do,” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “If it were going to happen, I couldn’t think of a better modern Mary.”

“That’s very sweet, but I just don’t believe it. I haven’t even believed Mary was a virgin for a long time now either.”

“How do you feel about the church getting involved?” I asked.

“I haven’t told anyone this,” she said, “but I’ll leave first.”

“Leave?”

“The church,” she said. “My order. No longer be a nun. I just can’t go through that, put my baby through that. I’ll leave quietly and disappear”

By the time I returned from my walk with Mary, Father Thomas had retired to his room. Sister Abigail and Anna, sitting on a couch in the reception area of the education center, were whispering to one another, the feeble Father Jerome asleep in the chair beside them.

“Where’s Mary?” Sister asked.

“I walked her to her room,” I said. “She’s exhausted.”

“Please tell me you didn’t enter the girls’ dormitory,” Sister said. “One scandal at a time is about all I can handle right now.”

I smiled. “Could I interest you ladies in a cup of coffee?”

They nodded.

“Will he be okay here?” I asked, nodding toward Father Jerome.

“He’ll be just fine,” Sister said.

“You say that,” Anna said, “but we could come back and find him pregnant.”

I laughed.

“I like this girl,” Sister said to me.

As we quietly exited the building, I looked back at Father Jerome.

“How bad is he?” I asked.

“He doesn’t have much longer,” she said. “He’s basically come here to die. He’s stopped all treatment, given up. What he said about sweet Mary is true. She came here to take care of him—which she’s done, even in her condition. He’s like her own personal ministry, but she does it in such a way that it seems like she’s getting something out of it, too. They drink tea on his porch in the evenings and talk theology and church history, she playing the part of eager student to his sagely master. She looks at him the way Tommy Boy looks at her, though in her case it’s an act of compassion.”

“Well,” Sister Abigail said, “what do you think?”

“I’m baffled,” I said. “I really am.”

“Could we have a miracle on our hands?” she asked.

I shrugged.

Anna said, “Medical and scientific evidence confirms that she’s a virgin, that she has never had sex, has never even been near a man, she has no idea how she got pregnant. There’s no way she can be pregnant, but she is.”

“Have we exhausted every possibility?” I asked, more to myself than either of them.

“Sure seems like it,” Sister said. “It just seems impossible.”

The word ‘impossible’ made me think of the famous oft-quoted Sherlock Holmes line, and, as if reading my mind, Anna said it aloud.

“Remember what you’re always saying to me,” she said. “Eliminate the impossible and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

I nodded and smiled at her.

“What’s left?” she asked.

I thought about it.

“Okay,” I said. “Here’s what we’ve eliminated. She couldn’t have gotten pregnant by sexual intercourse—she hasn’t had it, even while unconscious. The medical exam proves that. It wasn’t the result of some procedure she underwent. The lie-detector test proves that. It wasn’t caused by some sort of close-proximity accident. She’s never so much as shared a bathroom with a man. So what’s left? Is there anything left at all?”

“An act of God,” Anna said. “Is there anything else?”

I thought about it some more. At first, I couldn’t think of anything, but then something began to emerge from the fog of improbability. Turning it over and over, examining it from every angle, I thought I just might have an improbable solution where once there had only been impossible ones.

“Anything?” Sister asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “I’ll need Internet access, Anna’s help, a list of everyone at St. Ann’s and the soup kitchen in Bridgeport, and your permission to search every room in the abbey.”

When I got back from my search of St. Ann’s, I found Anna asleep in front of one of the computers in the lab inside the education center, her head resting on the list of names on the desktop beside the keyboard.

I gently touched her shoulder.

“Come on,” I said. “I’ll take you home.”

“Huh?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been so focused on trying to figure out what’s going on with Mary that I forgot how late it is.”

Since I didn’t sleep much, I’d often had no concept of time— especially at night.

“John, if I wanted to be at home, I would be,” she said. “I want to help.”

She covered a yawn with her hands, then extended them out, stretching her arms and arching her back.

“Find anything?” I asked.

I had asked her to check for registered sex offenders among the names on the list Sister Abigail had made for us.

“Nothing,” she said. “If there are any sexual predators here, they haven’t been caught and convicted yet.”

“Or it’s sealed by the courts,” I said.

“A juvenile?” she asked. “Like Tommy Boy?”

I nodded.

“It’s possible,” she said. “How about you? Come up with anything?”