The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (45 page)

She couldn’t blame Jim. It was her own weakness that had caused her to stumble from the path. And now here she was, putting one foot in front of the other simply because it was the only thing she could think of to do.

Gerry glanced at her novice mistress out of the corner of her eye. Sister Agnes was seated in the first pew to her right, flanked by Mother was Jerome and horsefaced Sister Eunice, a plump little muffin of a woman whom she’d grown to love like a mother, and who had instructed her in everything from the chanting of the Divine Office to mulching flower beds and making Mulligan stew. Now she caught Gerry’s eye and smiled in encouragement, her round cheeks glowing and deep-set blue eyes sparkling with a warmth that penetrated even the coldness at Gerry’s center.

I should have confided in her.
Sister Agnes never judged, only gently corrected. She saw God in everything, even the humblest of His creations: the bees delivering pollen to the hives, a perfect piece of fruit, the homeliest wildflowers, equal in her eye to the lilies of the field.
She’d have understood.
Like a lighted window, she’d have guided Gerry through the darkness.

But no one could help her now. These past weeks had been a sort of half sleep in which she’d floated dreamily, a sleep from which she’d only just been awakened as if by a rude slap. Now the moment of reckoning was near. Once she took her final vows there could be no turning back, no second thoughts. It wasn’t just that she’d be living a lie, there would be no more—
God forgive me
—of the hot, furtive pleasure she’d found in Jim’s bed. Never again would she feel that delicious heat between her legs, building and building until she was consumed by it.

Gerry watched with growing panic as the sheet over Peggy was removed and she rose gracefully to her feet, swaying slightly, her face a pale pink cameo framed by her starched white wimple and veil. Peggy, who’d sooner offer her throat to be cut than open her legs to a man. As Father Gallagher stepped toward Peggy, Gerry allowed herself a glimpse, just one, like a stolen sip of wine: a fleeting impression of dark hair dipping in a comma over a smooth white brow, a small straight nose, a sharply defined upper lip curled in a bow over the fuller bottom lip. His white and gold vestments shimmered jewel-like in the light streaming through the stained-glass window as he directed his beneficent gaze on Peggy before turning to face Mother Jerome.

“Reverend Mother,” he said in a solemn tone, “do you accept Sister Bernadette,” a nod toward Peggy, “as a member of your congregation for the rest of her religious life?”

Mother Jerome, as ancient as the breviary she clutched in one hand, its pages worn to a whisper, once more struggled to her feet. A small woman hunched with arthritis, she nonetheless carried herself with a grace earned from years as a Living Rule. In a cracked voice that somehow carried up into the rafters, she responded, “We do, Father, and with God’s grace she will remain faithful to her vows all the days of her life. May her soul be one with Christ, united with Him for all eternity.”

Father Gallagher returned his solemn gaze to Peggy. Was it only six years ago he’d been assigned to their parish, fresh from the seminary? His demeanor was that of someone far older and wiser, as if he occupied a higher plane than those around him. How did he stand there looking as if nothing were out of the ordinary? As if the things they’d done together in the darkness of his bedroom were but a fever dream. Remembering, she felt blood surge up into her face, making it throb.

“Do you, Sister Bernadette, promise obedience, chastity, and poverty to God for the rest of your days?” he went on.

Jim, he said to call him Jim.
As if the name she whispered in the close-smelling darkness were a separate entity from the priest known to the outside world as Father Gallagher, a man who ceased to exist outside the narrow confines of his bed and therefore carried no responsibility for what happened there. There were times she herself wondered if she hadn’t imagined the whole thing. Only her guilt, nibbling at her with sharp rodent’s teeth, told her it was real, guilt she alone was left to bear.

The newly anointed Sister Bernadette, formerly known as Peggy Rourke, raised her blameless blue eyes to his. “I do,” she said in a voice husky with emotion.

Mother Jerome hobbled over, listing to one side, to remove Peggy’s veil, allowing a fleeting glimpse of short wispy locks the pale orange of marmalade—hair that from now on was to be cut eight times a year, only on holy days—before fitting the black veil of profession over her head. When the mother superior presented her with a plain silver cross on a sturdy black cord, Peggy placed it around her neck as if it were the finest of jewels. Gerry caught the rapturous glow on her face as she floated back to her pew, where she knelt and bowed her head in prayer.

Now it was Gerry’s turn.

She could feel every eye in the chapel on her. Mother Jerome and all the sisters. Ann Marie, Peggy, and their families. She glanced over her shoulder at her mother, sitting ramrod straight in her pew several rows back, her thick hair that had once shone as bright as new pennies springing from its combs like a tangle of rusty wires. Mavis, who’d cried that she hadn’t buried a husband only to lose a daughter, but who’d eventually come to accept her decision. Beside her sat Gerry’s fourteen-year-old brother, Kevin, who must have shot up at least three inches since she’d last seen him. He looked close to tears.

What would they think if they knew?

Her knees threatened to buckle. Oh, God. She was doomed, not only to hell, but also to endlessly replay those memories: the whisper of his breath against her neck, the brush of his lips over her bare flesh. Each day, throughout her morning and evening prayers and the chanting of the Divine Office, when she ought to have been filled with the Holy Spirit, she’d been overflowing with thoughts of Jim instead. His skin, pale and smooth as marble. His slender hands with their shy touch that took her breath away. The feel of him thrusting into her, that little gasp he gave, as if caught by surprise.

Help me, Lord.

They say God is in the details, and in the end that was what brought it all to a head. In the collectively held breath that seemed to fill the chapel, swelling up into the rafters, she heard the soft mutter of ancient Sister Helena passing wind. Gerry didn’t have to look around to see noses wrinkling and lips pressed together in helpless mirth. Suddenly the answer to her dilemma became clear: She had no more control over her fate than poor old Sister Helena had over her bowels. However hard she fought it, however much she prayed, her course was set. She had no choice but to navigate it.

With a small strangled cry Gerry turned and fled. The oak pews on either side melted into a waxy blur lined with startled faces. She caught sight of her best friend, Sam, in a sleeveless green shift, her wide hazel eyes seeming to register relief.

Then a fire seemed to engulf Gerry, incinerating everything in her wake, a rush of heat that seared her lungs, leaving her gasping for air. She stumbled and nearly fell. The double doors to the vestibule swam into view. What was waiting beyond those doors? What kind of life would she have? For it wouldn’t be just her. There’d be—

The baby.

The realization swooped out of nowhere, like a bird smacking headlong into a windowpane: She was pregnant. At least two months. Deep down, hadn’t she known all along?

In a wild panic, she hurled herself at the heavy oak doors, scrabbling blindly for a knob. Not until the following day would she notice the bruise running in an inky smudge down her right shoulder all the way to her elbow. The only thing she was aware of that bright August morning, as she dashed through the vestibule and spilled panting into the ivied cloister garden, with its statues of saints staring blankly back at her from amid the lush greenery, was that life,
her
life—wildly divergent from any she’d imagined—was about to begin. And there wasn’t a blessed thing she could do about it.

Present day

G
ERRY SLIPPED A HAND
into her coat pocket. The envelope was still there: folded and refolded, the letter inside dog-eared, its contents long since committed to memory. In the two days since it had arrived in the mail she’d carried it everywhere, fingering it as compulsively as she once had her rosary beads.
Her name is Claire.
Not a name she’d have chosen. In her mind it would always be Ai-leen. Aileen Fitzgerald, after her great-grandmother from Kenmare.

An image surfaced in her mind: a small red face peeking from the folds of a blanket, topped by a tuft of pale brown hair. An old pain flared to life, and her ears were filled with a rushing noise that momentarily dimmed the warbling of the carolers. On the thronged sidewalk, in the flickering glow of countless bobbing candles, their voices drifted toward her as if through layers of cotton:
Silent night, holy night … all is calm … all is bright
…

The knot of people in front of her inched forward: men and women, each clutching a lighted candle and bundled up against the unaccustomed cold, many with babies in their arms or toddlers on their hips. She spotted Sam’s sister, Audrey, with her husband, Grant, the tin of coconut snowballs Audrey gave Father Reardon every year tucked under one arm. And who could miss Marguerite Moore, in a crimson jacket, sailing at the head of the line like a brightly decked barge? Or the elderly Miller twins, Rose and Olive, dressed in identical green velvet coats and matching cloche hats.

It was a tradition that had been a part of Christmas festivities in Carson Springs since the days of the early Spanish settlers, this candlelight procession up Calle de Navidad that ended with evening mass at St. Xavier’s. Gerry remembered when she was small, trudging dutifully at her mother’s side, wanting only to be inside where it was warm and she could keep an eye out for Santa. Tonight it was the only thing keeping her sane. She straightened her shoulders, joining the chorus in her sure, strong alto.

Round yon virgin, mother and child … holy infant, so tender and mild
…

The familiar lyrics acted like a tonic, and her fears seemed to evaporate along with the frosty plume of her breath funneling up into the night sky. The knot in her chest loosened, and she felt a surge of wild hope: that she and Claire would meet and find they had more in common than not, that they would find a way to put the past behind them and move forward, like a broken leg that’s healed badly but is still strong enough to walk on.

Yeah, and a few hours from now Santa and his reindeer are going to land on your rooftop with a sack full of goodies.
She gave in to a small, wry smile. It was Christmas, the time of the year one was allowed visions of dancing sugarplums. Tomorrow, when the wrapping paper was cleared away, she would get real, as her daughter would say.

She caught sight of Andie, a dozen or so yards ahead, gabbing with a group of friends from school, their faces rosy in the candlelight. She looked happy and relaxed, and Gerry couldn’t help thinking of how long it had been since she’d been that way at home. Justin, dragging his heels at Gerry’s side, followed her gaze and sighed.

“Mom, how come Andie gets to be with
her
friends?”

Gerry turned to him, answering mildly, “Because all of yours are with
their
parents. And because,” she threw in, “you’d be leaving your poor old mother all alone on Christmas Eve.”

Justin, not seeing the humor in her reply, merely eyed her plaintively, his narrow freckled face, framed by the hood of his sweatshirt, making her long for the Christmas Eves when he’d been a baby in his snowsuit and she’d carried him in her arms up Calle de Navidad. “It’s just …” His voice trailed off, and he looked down at his Air Jordans that were two sizes bigger than last year’s. He was small for his age, but his feet seemed to have a life of their own.

“I know,” she said gently.

“It’s nothing against
you,
Mom.”

“I know.”

“It’d be different if Dad were here.”

“You miss him, don’t you?”

He gave her a sheepish look. “Sort of … but only a little.” His brand of loyalty, she knew. He must think he was sparing her in some way.

“Look at it this way,” she said. “Think of all the fun stuff
he’s
missing out on.”

A dark and decidedly unchildlike look flitted over her eleven-year-old son’s face. “Yeah, like what?”

“Christmas with you guys, for one thing, and—”

“Snow?” A corner of Justin’s mouth hooked up in a wise-guy smile.

“Okay, but a time-share in Tahoe isn’t exactly what the guy who wrote ‘Jingle Bells’ had in mind,” she said dryly.

Her son fell silent, his unspoken words hanging in the air:
He could have invited us anyway.
Not that Justin would have preferred spending Christmas with Mike and Cindy, just that it would’ve been nice to have been asked. Gerry knew exactly how he felt. Hadn’t she spent the better part of fifteen years waiting for Mike to do right by her?

“Mom, watch it.”

Gerry’s eyes dropped to the candle precariously atilt in one hand, molten wax a hairbreadth away from dribbling onto her knuckles. She tipped it so that the wax drizzled onto the sidewalk instead. “We’ll have a wonderful Christmas, just the four of us—you, me, Andie, and Grandma,” she said in what she hoped wasn’t too hearty a tone. “You’ll see.”

The procession inched forward. Justin took a shuffling step, only the toes of his sneakers protruding from the jeans puddled about his feet—gravity-defying jeans that rode so low on his hips the back pockets were roughly in line with his knees. “Is Grandma spending the night?” he asked.

“If it’s okay with you.” Her mother lived only a few miles away, out by Horse Creek, in the ramshackle Victorian Gerry had grown up in, but her eyesight had gotten so bad she no longer drove, and it would save Gerry from having to pick her up in the morning. The only thing was that Mavis would have to bunk in with Justin since his was the only room with two beds.

“Sure.” He shrugged, though she knew he was secretly pleased. “Except Buster won’t like it.”