They sat and chatted for a while, watching the other nuns talk animatedly to their guests, and it struck both of them at the same time, that neither of them had another soul in the world except the nuns and priests they lived with.

“It's odd, isn't it?” he said quietly. “Not having a family. I used to miss it terribly on holidays, for the first few years at least, and then I got used to it. The Brothers at St. Mark's were so good to me. I always felt like a hero coming home from the Seminary to visit. Brother Joseph, the director of St. Mark's, was like a father to me.” It was a common experience they shared, which went beyond the Masses he said for them, or his kindness to her in the confessional. It was something each of them understood perfectly, and which no one else seemed to share. It was a kind of solitude and loneliness which formed a silent bond between them.

“I was just glad to be away from the beatings when I first came here,” she said softly. He couldn't even imagine it, except that he had seen that and worse when he worked as a chaplain in the hospital as a young priest. It used to make him cry to see the damage people did to their children.

“Did they hurt you very badly?” he asked gently. She thought about it silently, then nodded and looked into the distance.

“Sometimes,” she said in barely more than a whisper. “I wound up in the hospital once. I loved it there, people were so kind to me. I hated to go home, but I was afraid to tell them. I never told anyone. I always lied about it to everyone. I thought I had to protect them, and I was afraid that if I didn't, my mother would kill me. If she had stuck around for a few more years, she probably would have. She hated me,” she said as she looked up at the young priest who had become her friend now. They had shared a multitude of confidences about their childhoods, and it suddenly seemed like a kind of glue between them.

“She was probably jealous of you,” Father Connors said reasonably. He had asked her to call him Father Joe by then, and she had told him that her name was Gabriella, even though all the other postulants, and some of the old nuns, now called her Sister Bernie,

But his suggestion didn't make sense to Gabriella. “Why would she be jealous of a child?” She looked at him with eyes filled with memories and questions.

“People just are sometimes. There must have been something very wrong with her.” Gabriella knew better than anyone that it was an overwhelming understatement. “What was your father like?”

“I'm not sure. Sometimes I think I never really knew him. He looked a lot like you,” she smiled up at him again, “or at least I think he did, from what I can remember. He was scared of her. He never stood up to her, he just let her do it.”

“He must feel terribly guilty about it. Maybe that was why he ran away from her. He probably just couldn't face it. People do strange things sometimes, when they feel helpless.” It reminded them both of his mother's suicide, but Gabriella didn't want to bring up painful memories for him and ask him about it. It was a nightmare she couldn't even begin to imagine. “Maybe you should try to find him one day, and talk to him about it.” She had fantasies about that sometimes, and it was odd that he should mention it. But she didn't know where to begin looking for him. All she knew was that twelve years before, he had moved to Boston.

“I don't suppose he ever knew that I came here. I don't think she would have bothered to tell him. I was going to talk to Mother Gregoria about it once, but she always says that I have to let go of the past, and leave it far behind me. She's right, I guess. He never called or wrote after he left.” She said it with a sad look in her eyes. Talking about them still pained her greatly.

“Maybe your mother wouldn't let him,” Father Joe offered, but it gave her small comfort, and maybe Mother Gregoria was right after all. She had a very different life, and the ghosts of her past had to be released, though they still haunted her in darker moments. “Where is she now?” he asked, referring to her mother.

“San Francisco, or she was up until she stopped sending money for my room and board here.” It still amazed him to think that her family had completely abandoned her, never wrote to her, never visited, never saw her. He couldn't understand how they could do that. It was entirely beyond him.

“Well, Sister Bernie, you have a good life here, and St. Matthew's needs you. The nuns all love you. I think Mother Gregoria thinks you're going to step into her shoes one day. That would be quite an honor. We've done all right for ourselves, haven't we?” he said, smiling at her. But as their eyes met, they both knew how hard-won it had been, how far they had come, and how much of themselves they'd left behind them. He patted her hand gently with his own, and for an instant she looked startled when he touched her. His hand was so firm, so strong, and once again reminded her so much of her father's. It had been so many years since she'd been that close to any man, that it couldn't help but bring back memories of the only other man she'd ever known or been this close to. And as though he sensed the shock of her memories, Father Connors stood up slowly. “I'd better see how drunk my pals are after drinking your wine all afternoon, and get them back to St. Stephen's.” She couldn't help laughing at the vision of drunken priests, falling down amidst the nuns in the convent garden.

“They look all right to me.” She stood up next to him, glancing around, and then laughed at the image he'd created of them. Two of the priests were talking to the Mother Superior, and another was talking to a family he knew. Sister Emanuel looked as though she was trying to round up the postulants to clean up the kitchen, and most of the children and visitors were looking happy but tired. It had been a lovely Easter for all of them, and especially for Gabriella, talking to Father Connors. “I never talk about this stuff with anyone,” she confessed as she prepared to leave him and join the others. “It still scares me a little.”

“Don't let it,” he said wisely. “They can't hurt you now, Gabbie. They're all gone. You're safe here, and you have been for a long time. They'll never come back to hurt you again, and you never have to go back there.” It was as though he had released her, with his kindness and his words, and with his gentle presence. It was as though just being there next to her for a while, he could protect her. “I'll see you in the confessional,” he said with a lopsided smile. “Try to stay out of trouble with Sister Anne,” he said, looking amused. Sometimes he felt so old when he was talking to her. She was twenty-one, and knew so little of the world beyond these walls, and he was a full ten years older than she was, and in his own eyes, a great deal more worldly, and far wiser.

“I'm sure she'll have a lot to say about my talking to you this afternoon.” Gabriella looked a little tired and somewhat exasperated as she said it. It was so annoying to have to deal constantly with the angry young postulant's accusations.

“Will she?” He looked startled. “Why would she say that?”

“She always has a bee somewhere in her bonnet. Last week she was complaining about the stories I write. She claimed I was writing one when I was supposed to be saying Matins… or Vespers… or Lauds, or something. There isn't much I do that she doesn't complain about.”

“Just keep praying for her,” he said simply. “Shell get tired of it.” Gabriella nodded, not particularly worried, and she left Father Joe with Sister Emanuel as she hurried off to the kitchen. There were a mountain of pots waiting to be scrubbed, a stack of platters, the pans the hams and turkeys had been cooked in, and the floor was a complete disaster. But for once, Sister Anne was so busy when Gabriella walked in, that she didn't even see her. Gabbie put an apron on, rolled up her sleeves, and dug into the stack of greasy pans with a handful of steel wool and a bottle of liquid soap. And it was hours before they had finished. By then the older nuns were sitting quietly in the main hall talking about what a good job the novices and postulants had done with lunch, the families had all gone home, and Father Joe was back at St. Stephen's, in his room, looking strangely serious, and staring out the window.





Chapter 10




FOR THE NEXT two months, Gabriella was busy with the other postulants, doing her chores, attending Mass, studying all that she needed to know, and working happily in her garden. She'd been working on a new story for a while, and it was so long that when Mother Gregoria read part of it, she said it was rapidly becoming a novel. But she was proud of her, she had done well, and even Sister Anne had stopped complaining about her for the time being.

It was already hot in New York and well into June when some of the older nuns left for their retreat at their sister convent in the Catskills. The younger nuns stayed in town, to continue working at Mercy Hospital and teaching summer school, but the postulants and novices rarely left the convent, and summer was no exception. Mother Gregoria also stayed to supervise all of them, and diligently run her convent. It had been years since she'd taken a vacation. She felt that was a privilege best reserved for the elders.

A group of missionary Sisters came to town, to stay with them, and the stories they told of Africa and South America were fascinating, and made Gabriella wonder if one day she might want to be one of them. But she said nothing to Mother Gregoria, for fear it would upset her. Instead, she listened intently to the tales they had to tell, and after they left, wrote wonderful short stories about them. And when Sister Emanuel read them, she insisted that they really ought to be published. But Gabriella only wrote them for the pleasure of it. Writing always released something in her. It never felt as though she were doing the writing herself, but rather as though there was a spirit that moved through her. She had no sense of her own importance as she wrote them, but felt instead as though she didn't exist at all, as though she were a windowpane that another spirit looked through. It was difficult to describe, and the only person she said that to was Father Joe, when he found her scribbling away one day, eating an apple and sitting at the back of the convent garden. He asked if he could look at what she'd done, and when he did, he was deeply moved. It was a story about a child who had died, and returned to earth to seek injustices and bring peace to others.