In This Small Spot (13 page)

“I am not undressing him,” Mickey said
firmly as they pushed him into the shower.

“Don’t worry,” said Sister Linus. “He’ll
come to. He always does.” She turned on the cold water and stepped
back as he yelled and flailed. “Go pour him some coffee.”

Mickey returned in a moment to find him
sitting in the bottom of the tub, soaking wet, looking up at her
blearily. Sister Linus handed him the coffee and said, “You drink
this and get cleaned up, Father. Then come and eat some
breakfast.”

“I don’t understand,” Mickey said as she and
Sister Linus went back out to the sitting room. “Where did he get
alcohol?”

“Those men,” Sister Linus said scathingly.
“The ones who come to visit him. They bring bottles as thank-you
gifts. Idiots. I try to get rid of them – the bottles, not the men
– but sometimes he hides one from me.” She pointed to the sofa. “I
think there’s a bottle under there.”

Mickey got down on her hands and knees,
groping under the couch until she could feel the cold smoothness of
glass. As she pulled out an empty brandy bottle, the sleeve of her
habit snagged on a nail under the sofa. Sister Linus took the
bottle to the kitchen trash can and dropped the bag on the floor
until the bottle broke. Then, she stomped on it, breaking the glass
into smaller pieces.

“This can’t go in recycling,” Sister Linus
said, handing the bag to Mickey. “Take it straight to the
trash.”

“We do not throw away anything that can be
recycled, reused or composted,” Sister Rosaria had told the
postulants over and over whenever she saw them about to throw
something in the trash that didn’t belong.

“But Sister,” Mickey protested as Sister
Linus shoved the trash bag into her hands. “He needs help. We can’t
–”

“In the trash,” Sister Linus insisted. “And
you will not tell anyone about this. Do you understand?”

“But –”

“Please, Sister,” said Sister Linus more
gently. “It would humiliate him no end if this got out.”

Mickey sighed. “Yes, Sister.”

Mickey carried the bag to the trash bin. As
she walked back through the enclosure gate, fingering the tear in
her sleeve, she became aware of agitated whispers. Abigail appeared
without warning from behind a vine-covered trellis on the other
side of the garden and entered the cloister without noticing
Mickey. Mickey paused, knowing Wendy must still be there, staying
out of sight. For a moment, she contemplated staying to see how
long Wendy would hide, but “whatever,” she muttered with a shake of
her head, following Abigail inside.

╬ ╬ ╬

“Trust,” said Mother Theodora, “is integral
to all that we do, all that we are.”

Mother gave monthly conferences for the
novices, “a gift I hope you fully appreciate,” Sister Josephine had
said to them, “as our Mother is so very busy. But she feels it is a
priority to become better acquainted with you.”

“Our trust in God is what makes faith
possible,” Mother continued. “There are those who think us fools,
praying to a God no one can see and whose existence we cannot
prove. But we trust that our faith is not misplaced. Living as we
do, in a community where we depend on one another, we absolutely
must trust each sister to do her duty, to behave honorably and
prayerfully…”

Mickey looked down. She had kept her word to
Sister Linus not to say anything about Father Andrew’s drinking.
His occasional bouts of tremors and tardiness made sense now, and
she found herself scrutinizing his physical appearance, but there
had been no further episodes of drinking that she could tell.
Neither he nor Sister Linus had said anything more to her about
that morning.

“
I won’t betray your trust.”

“That’s what you told Mother the day you
entered,” said Mickey to Mickey. “And now look at you.”

“But this isn’t hurting anyone else,” Mickey
argued with herself.

“It isn’t helping, either.”

As if Mother could read her thoughts, she
was saying, “Trust must be mutual. It is an aspect of faithfulness,
of pledging to stand with one another through good times and bad,
through trials and times of stress. Our vows and our common pledge
to live a life of prayer give us the ability to be one community
despite our many differences in culture and age and background. We
must all strive to uphold that trust.”

Mickey slept fitfully that night, Mother’s
words pricking the edge of her consciousness – “and my conscience,”
Mickey would have admitted – so that when a soft knock tapped on
her door in the middle of the night, she was immediately awake. She
opened her door to find Sister Helen standing there.

“Sister Mary David asked me to come for
you,” Sister Helen whispered.

Mickey didn’t ask questions. She nodded and
turned to put on her robe and the old short postulant’s veil as it
wasn’t proper to walk through the abbey with her head
uncovered.

Apparently Sister Helen was now working with
Sister Mary David in the infirmary. When they got there, Mickey saw
Sister Mary David leaning over one of the beds where a frail,
elderly sister lay.

“It’s Sister Francis Marie. She’s been here
in the infirmary for a few months,” Sister Mary David explained.
“Her breathing became labored this afternoon. I’ve been watching
over her. I think it’s time, but… I just wanted someone else to
confirm that we shouldn’t do anything. I hope you don’t mind.”

Mickey squeezed her arm as she knelt beside
the bed. “Of course I don’t mind.” She took a stethoscope and
listened to Sister Francis Marie’s heart and lungs. Sitting back on
her heels, she said, “You’re right. It’s time. Let’s just be with
her.”

Mickey realized this was the first death at
the abbey since she entered.

“Should we call Father Andrew?” she
asked.

“She asked him to give her Last Rites a few
months ago.” Sister Mary David smiled. “She said there was no sense
waiting until she was really old.”

Mickey chuckled. “What about Mother?”

“I’ll go,” Sister Helen offered.

They pulled a few more chairs around the
bed. When Mother Theodora arrived, she and the others knelt beside
the bed, praying the rosary as Mother held Sister Francis Marie’s
hand. Somewhere in the middle of the rosary, Sister Francis Marie
stopped breathing.

“She was my novice mistress,” Mother
Theodora said, wiping a tear from her cheek.

Mickey had been through this many times.
Sometimes it was hard, especially with a child, other times – like
this – it was so peaceful. Even as painful as Alice’s death had
been personally, she had always felt blessed to be witness to this
moment of passing.

Sister Helen was upset, trying not to cry.
All the prior difficulties between them forgotten, Mickey went to
her. “You were present for a very special moment,” she said softly.
Sister Helen nodded, blinking back tears.

It was about three a.m. when Mickey went
back to her cell. Coming around the corner into the corridor where
her cell was, she saw movement in the dim light. It was Wendy,
silently closing one door and disappearing through another. When
Mickey got closer, she saw that it was Abigail’s cell she had come
from. She stood there a moment, stunned in her anger and disbelief.
It was one thing to flirt, to develop an emotional attachment, but
this? She briefly considered barging into Wendy’s room, but, “no,”
she told herself firmly. “You know your temper too well. Think
about this.”

In her cell, she paced angrily. “How could
they?” she whispered. “How could they violate Mother’s trust
–?”

She stopped abruptly. “It’s only a matter of
degree,” she realized.

She took off her robe and veil and got back
into bed, her mind made up to do what she should have done from the
start.

╬ ╬ ╬

Mother Theodora announced Sister Francis
Marie’s passing to the community following Lauds that morning. The
funeral was held during Mass the next day, followed by a procession
up to the cemetery where Mr. Henderson and one of his sons had dug
a grave. Sister Francis Marie’s plain wooden casket was easily
carried by six of the nuns. It was a beautiful summer day with a
gentle breeze blowing.

“
Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux
perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace…”

The voices of the nuns as they sang the
prayers for the dead were peaceful, celebratory. As Father Andrew
summed up Sister Francis Marie’s life, Mickey learned she had been
eighty-five, eighteen when she entered, like Sister Linus. Like
Mother, many of the older nuns had fond memories of being novices
under her guidance, and several of them were sniffling and
puffy-eyed.

Mickey walked part way back down the hill,
and then stopped, waiting.

“I need to speak with you,” she said to
Father Andrew as he drew near.

They walked off to an isolated part of the
garden where Mickey said, “I can’t do this. I won’t do this.” She
peered into his eyes, clear of any alcoholic haze, but troubled now
as he gave a resigned nod.

“I know,” he said heavily. “It’s not right
to ask it of you. I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath as he looked up
at the brilliant blue sky above them. “To tell you the truth, I’m
relieved. The always wondering who and how and when someone will
find out. I’ll talk to Mother.”

Mickey’s eyes narrowed. She hadn’t had a lot
of experience with alcoholics, but the little she’d had prompted
her to ask, “When?”

“Today,” he said, smiling grimly. “Now.”
And, to her surprise, he turned and called to Mother who was on her
way back from the cemetery.

╬ ╬ ╬

“So what is the point of the vow of
chastity?” Sister Josephine asked a few days after Sister Francis
Marie’s funeral as the novices met for one of their regular
sessions to study vows.

“It frees us from other attachments that
would distract us from following God’s will,” offered Sister
Christine, the other second-year.

“There are a lot of ministers and
missionaries out there who have spouses and children, and are doing
God’s work,” challenged Sister Josephine. “They would argue that
they are still following God’s will.” One of the things Mickey had
come to appreciate about her was her lack of dogmatic insistence
that Catholicism was the only or best faith – “something Sister
Renatta never could have done,” Mickey had commented to Jessica.
Sister Josephine challenged them constantly to think in broader
terms.

“It is your responsibility to be aware of
what is happening in the world,” Sister Rosaria had reminded them
frequently, something now echoed by Sister Josephine in her talks
with them. “We chose to cloister ourselves so that we could
concentrate on our work without the petty distractions of the
everyday world, but it does not remove us from the concerns of the
outside world,” she said. “Read the newspapers we subscribe to or
listen to the news on the radio during Recreation. After all, it is
your job now to pray for the world. If you’re going to ask for our
Lord’s attention, you had better know what you are talking
about.”

“Personally, I think it’s unfair to the
families,” Tanya responded now to Sister Josephine’s challenge.
“It’s one thing to decide for yourself to answer God’s call; it’s
another to take your family with you, especially if you’re doing
mission work in a dangerous part of the world.”

This sparked a lively debate on the pros and
cons of families involved in missionary work, which led circularly
back to Sister Josephine’s original question about celibacy.

“Well, there’s tons of discussion about
whether Catholic religious should be required to be celibate, but
if you look at most contemplative traditions – Buddhist monks and
nuns, for example – chastity or celibacy is an element in most of
them.” Jessica surprised everyone by offering this observation. “So
for us, in a contemplative order, chastity would seem to be a
necessary component even if it weren’t required as Catholics.”

Sister Josephine beamed. She loved it when
the group engaged in an energetic dialogue rather than passively
waiting for her to lecture to them. “What about the distinction
between chastity and celibacy, since you brought them both up,” she
pushed. “Is there a difference? Anyone?” she prompted when no one
replied right away.

“Well,” ventured Sister Christine, “I think
of celibacy as only abstaining from sex. Chastity includes
emotional attachments. Kind of like the difference between the
letter of the law and the spirit of the law.”

Mickey glanced over at Abigail who hadn’t
said anything and was looking at the floor. The day after the
funeral, Mickey had pulled Wendy and Abigail into the novices’
classroom at the start of Recreation.

Closing the door, she turned to them and
said, “This is going to stop.”

Wendy and Abigail looked quickly at each
other. Abigail burned a deep red, but Wendy’s face took on a mulish
expression. “What are you –” she started.

“Don’t,” Mickey cut in, her voice assuming
its most authoritative tone. “Don’t even play that game with me.
I’m going to make this simple. You have three choices. One – if you
want to be together, just leave. We’re not under vows; you can
leave right now. Two – if you decide to stay, this stops. Mother,
Sister Josephine and Sister Rosaria do not deserve to have this
happening under their noses.”

Wendy’s cheeks were a blotchy pink. “And
what’s the third choice?” she asked contentiously.

Mickey looked her straight in the eye. “I go
to Mother.”

“You wouldn’t have the guts,” Wendy
sneered.

“Watch me,” Mickey replied coldly. “I’ll
give you one week to talk and make up your minds.” And she
left.

Now, Sister Josephine responded to
Christine. “Is it really as clear as that?” She looked around the
room with a shrewd expression. “How do you define sex? Is it just
intercourse, or is it broader than that?” – “I can’t imagine having
that conversation with Sister Rosaria,” Tanya would whisper later –
Without waiting for an answer, Sister Josephine continued, “And
what about the emotional part? We cannot live in a vacuum with no
emotional connections to anyone, no friends. When does that become
a problem?”