Waiting to Believe (26 page)

Quickly, Quentin turned off the light, plunging them into darkness again. “Sorry!” she whispered. “I don't want anyone to know we're here!” She reached out and took Kacey's two hands. “I wanted to say good-bye. I'm leaving.”

Kacey was stunned. “Leaving?”

“I just can't go through with this. I kept telling myself I could, but I can't!”

Kacey was shaken. “But—”

Quentin squeezed Kacey's hands tightly, interrupting her. “I've tried so hard to move beyond. You know, beyond Mary Patrick, but I can't.”

It had been two years since Kacey had watched Mary Patrick and Mary Quentin during Clue games. She remembered the shy smiles, the quick glances that had flashed between them. Two years since Mother Mary Julian had announced at breakfast that Mary Patrick had left the night before.

“You knew, didn't you?” Quentin asked.

“About you two? I think I understood,” Kacey admitted. “I just saw how you looked at each other.”

“But you never judged. You kept being kind. I think you went out of your way to include me after Patrick left. That's why I have to say good-bye and thank you for your kindness.”

“Oh, Mary Quentin. Are you leaving to be with her?”

Even in the darkness, Mary Quentin shook her head no. “I don't even know where she is. I haven't heard from her. How could I? They never would have allowed it.”

“But then—”

“No, I'm leaving for me. I haven't been able to forget what it was like, being in love. Wanting more. That hasn't changed. I'll never fit in.”

Kacey took her hand away from Quentin and raised it to brush against Quentin's cheek. “Your first obligation is to yourself, Quentin. You need to do what's right for you—not what others tell you is right.”

Kacey heard a small sob. “Will you pray for me, Mary Laurence? I don't know what's going to happen to me. My folks are so disappointed, and mother general is furious with me for leaving just before we go out for our teaching assignment. She doesn't admit it, but I know she is!”

“It doesn't matter anymore what she thinks!”

In spite of tears, Mary Quentin gave Kacey a sad smile, leaning in closer to Kacey's face to whisper again, “Please, Mary Laurence. Please pray for me.”

“I will, but you've got to pray for me, too.” Kacey reached out again and stroked her friend's cheek, calling her, for the first time, by her given name. “Go in peace, Bonnie.”

Their number had now diminished by three. Sister Rhonda had been the first to leave in 1963. Mary Patrick in 1966. Now Mary Quentin.

47

Kacey felt a quickening every time the back door opened. She had volunteered to wash the dining room floor after breakfast. It was a way of being first to see Mary Adrian the moment she returned from her year of teaching. She was coming back for the weeklong annual Blessed Sacrament retreat, which concluded with final vows for Mary Adrian's class and teaching assignments for Kacey's class.

Kacey was just getting up from the floor when Mary Adrian came through the back door, carrying a small suitcase and her prayer book. Kacey let out a squeal. Adrian swiveled in time to see Kacey clutch a damp rag to her heart. Smiles from both. Kacey quickly took in as much of Adrian as she could. Her face looked fuller. A year is a long time to be apart. Kacey yearned to speak but knew she must not. There would be time at the end of the retreat when the week's silence would be broken during a huge breakfast celebration. Not much time, but some.

The community-wide retreat was a grand homecoming for the more than one hundred Blessed Sacrament sisters scattered throughout the Midwest. Though it was always a solemn affair, Kacey still thought of it as a pep rally for the spirit. The theme this year was “Defining a Moral State.” Father Parker Hudson, a Jesuit from Milwaukee, was flying in to be the retreat master. It was a feather in Blessed Sacrament's cap that he had accepted their invitation. The older sisters who knew of his reputation could barely contain their clucking approval.

The retreat began that evening with homecoming vespers. Kacey was glad to see all those who had come back for it, but in truth, she dreaded sitting in silence for the week of introspection, reading, and prayer. She'd prefer ironing veils, habits, and skirts in the basement, reading yesterday's newspaper off the floor.

During vespers, Kacey wondered what Father Hudson, an authority on the social teachings of the church, thought about the increasing opposition to the Vietnam War, the lawful and unlawful protests, the young priests who were marching alongside angry students.

Sitting in her place, she mouthed the required responses, forcing herself to put on the outward appearance of participation. Another indication, she feared, of her spiritual unreadiness.

The next morning, Father Hudson stood before them in the crowded chapel and offered his definition of a moral state: the promotion of an individual's personal growth to achieve emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical well-being.

“Morality,” he declared in his resounding bass voice, “moves society toward the principles of equal liberty and justice for all.” Kacey found herself pulled in. The Jesuits, she knew, were the thinkers of the church. Could it be that even they were moving from their intellectual ivory towers to the realities of a troubled world?

After five days, her interest waned. She fidgeted in her seat. Her back ached, and her left foot had gone to sleep. She had heard as much as she wanted about the Belgian theologian Edward Schillebeeckx. She was weary of Father Hudson's mesmerizing voice, which now seemed to drone. She was weary of praying for insight and strength to follow the dictates of God in her daily life. She had had enough of the heady lectures. She wanted to be called on to participate, to answer. She suddenly and profoundly missed the conversations she used to have with her baby brother, Joey.

“What's a charley horse?” Seven-year old Joseph had once asked, looking up from his book. Teenage Kacey was washing the dishes, bored with the prospect of a Saturday night at home.

“It's a cramp. Like in your leg.”

“Well, who's Charley? What'd his horse have to do with it?” Joseph looked up at his sister with a trusting face.

Kacey turned to lift the dried dishes to the cupboard. “Charley . . .” she began slowly, allowing herself time to think. “Charley was Charley Zimmerman from Brainerd.”

“Brainerd?”

“Well, the Brainerd area.”

“Never heard of him,” Joseph said earnestly.

A half smile crept across Kacey's face as she wiped her hands on a dishtowel. “I'm surprised at that, because he became famous in the '20s for discovering a major leg cramp that struck horses. Now people get 'em, too.”

“Have you ever gotten one?”

Kacey drew back in mock horror. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed, clamping her hand to her chest. “If you get one, they have to shoot you, just like they do with a horse that breaks its leg!”

Instinctively, Joseph reached for his leg. “Naaaaw!” he responded with a level of uncertainty.

Kacey reached out and snapped her dishtowel at him. “Don't ask questions if you're afraid of the answer!”

Mercifully, the bell sounded, and Father Hudson's lecture ended. There would be a ten-minute bathroom break before the closing chapel service. Kacey stood up gingerly, shaking her foot to get the blood flowing. What she needed more than the bathroom was to get outside, if only for a minute.

Standing on the top step of the back porch, she looked around at the familiar sights. Summer had slipped by in a rush of hot, humid days. When it was time to go back inside, she took one last sweeping glance around the vegetable garden and the perky flower gardens.

Tomorrow she would leave Blessed Sacrament for her year of teaching. Who would tend the gardens as faithfully as she had? Who would harvest the crops she had so lovingly planted?

She was the last to enter the chapel, slipping into her seat just as Father Hudson rose to begin the service. He had an engaging sense of humor and a firm grasp on the divine. With a broad smile, he lifted his arms heavenward. “Rejoice!” he exclaimed. And the community of sisters responded: “Rejoice!”

The heat did not abate, even at nightfall. Kacey climbed into bed, her cotton nightgown clinging to her damp skin. The narrow window in the crowded room was open wide, but no air moved through it. The night would be long, but it would be the last she would spend in this room, with these four others who had been with her from the beginning. Debbie, Lori, Elaine, and Barbara, they had been. Now they were Maximilian, Callistus, Bartholomew, and Rose.

She turned onto her back, pulling her nightgown up above her knees. She searched out the window for the moon, but the sky was black. Her apprehension mounted as she played out possible scenarios for the next day. Restlessly, she rolled onto her side. Finally, sleep sneaked up on her.

The white envelopes containing teaching assignments lay in the chapel pews, each one with a handwritten name. Kacey found hers immediately. She wanted to rip it open but knew she must wait until Mass ended. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Lisa, one row back, nervously fingering her envelope. Their eyes met, and they each, instinctively, lifted their envelopes in a small salute.
Here's hoping!

At last the moment arrived, followed by muffled reactions: a small gasp, an exclamation of delight, a sigh of resignation. Kacey's hands trembled as she pulled out the single sheet: Visitation Convent School—Rochester, Minnesota.

Adrian was in Rochester! Not at Visitation but across town at Incarnation, a wealthy neighborhood and a wealthy school near the homes of many Mayo Clinic doctors and administrators.

Once again, Kacey turned to seek out Lisa. They each held up the sheets with their assignments, but the distance was too great to make out the small handwriting. They would have to wait till breakfast.

The breakfast was a feast. Mouthwatering smells greeted the sisters as they emerged from the chapel and made their way to the dining hall. Sausages and bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns, pancakes with hot maple syrup, bowls of fresh fruit, cinnamon rolls right from the oven, and all the coffee they could drink. But best of all, they were free to speak to one another. What a gift!