by Alena Dillon
“I’m leaving the convent,” Eloise said, and the words shot through Evelyn like a bullet, slicing decisively and burrowing until they hit bone. Evelyn stopped short and Eloise grabbed her wrist. “This world can be a more just and accepting place, don’t you think? And I can help, but the church won’t let me. So I have to leave. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner; I thought the feeling would pass. But now, after everything we witnessed this week, I know. God is calling me, and I’m going to answer.”
“God already called you. He called you to be a nun,” Evelyn said. Her words sounded as if they had ricocheted around her empty insides, losing their force before exiting her mouth.
Eloise let her arm drop to her side. “The world is changing. Even the Vatican admits that. We have to change with it.”
“We are. We have,” Evelyn said, gesturing to her attire.
“It hasn’t changed enough,” Eloise said. She sighed, and her stare drifted past Evelyn, as if trying to identify a sound in the distance. When her gaze returned, she asked, this time more quietly, “Will you come with me?”
Eloise’s veil was darkened by sweat along her hairline. Her sapphire eyes were wide and fervent as they searched Evelyn’s. Then her fingers floated up and tucked beneath Evelyn’s chin. Eloise had held her when Evelyn fell apart. She spoke to Evelyn through the all-consuming hush. She created fun from nothing. They’d been together in the presence of death, in the presence of prayer, in the presence of God and camaraderie and loneliness. The last seven years had been the most challenging and fulfilling of Evelyn’s life, and every shred of goodness she’d experienced in that time had been because of Eloise. Her friend. But more than that. Certainly more than that.
Eloise leaned in and brushed her lips against Evelyn’s.
At first, the kiss felt like a psalm. The sweetest hymn. Praise be to God. Evelyn felt a flutter in her chest, like a hummingbird flapping its wings. But then she heard Father Hawkins groaning in the sacristy. She felt him thrusting into her, cracking her in two: the before and the after. Serving your priest is akin to serving your God. You tempted me, damn you. A darkness rose up from Evelyn’s toes. You tempted me, damn you. It spread throughout her body like a cancer and hardened beneath her skin. You tempted me, damn you. It clipped the hummingbird’s wings and deprived it of light and oxygen. You tempted me, damn you.
Now, forever the biblical Eve, she’d tempted Eloise too.
Evelyn flinched and stepped back. Her saliva soured, as if she were about to be sick.
Eloise’s eyebrows pulled together and her mouth dropped its faint smile. “I love you, Evelyn. And I thought . . . don’t you feel . . . don’t you love me?”
Evelyn shook her head, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak.
“Yes you do. We love each other. We’ve always loved each other; we just couldn’t do anything about it. But if we leave, we can. Don’t you want that?”
Evelyn stared at the ground. She thought of earlier that year when Eloise first got a record player. They lay side by side in Evelyn’s bed, listening to Buddy Holly. Their hands brushed and neither of them pulled away. Then Eloise laced her fingers through Evelyn’s. They held hands for ten minutes before they heard someone walking down the hall. Later, when Evelyn thought about that night, an electric pulse rushed to the place between her thighs. Sometimes she touched the pulsing bud until it bloomed into mortal sin. “No. I’m a nun.”
“I know intimacy is complicated for you. I can be patient.” Evelyn shook her head more forcefully. Eloise lowered her voice. “You’ve been hurt, but that doesn’t mean it’s all over. Evelyn, don’t push me away. You deserve to love and to be loved.”
Eloise reached for her and caressed her cheek, but Evelyn slapped her friend’s hand away. “I said no.”
Eloise retracted her arm, and her eyes rounded with the surprise of her friend’s fierce anger. She cradled Evelyn’s hand like a bird with a broken wing. “I guess I was wrong.”
Evelyn quivered; she knew, even in that moment, that she’d just thrown away the most precious gift she’d ever be given.
* * *
April 2010
If Evelyn had believed Eloise back then—if she hadn’t considered herself damaged, disgraceful, a temptress—would she have left the convent and embraced the love her friend so generously offered? If she could have entrusted her emotional and physical selves with another person, who knows, maybe everything would have been different.
Eloise called and wrote letters for years, begging Evelyn to reconsider, then just to keep in touch. But without any response, the contact became sparser. A postcard from Latin America. A Christmas card. A brochure of her latest endeavor. A threaded bracelet a girl in the community center she ran taught her to weave—which Evelyn wore for a year before it shredded and snapped apart. After long enough, the communication evaporated altogether.
She wondered what Eloise looked like, if her hair had whitened or silvered, if she’d grown fat like Evelyn or skeletal like Josephine, if her skin was sagging or finely lined. Evelyn wondered if Eloise had seen the photo of her in the newspaper after she was shot, if Eloise had found her short haircut homely, or if her friend had identified the acumen of all her years and the beauty that remained in her eyes. She wondered if Eloise had married, if her life had been happy, if there were people who loved her the way she deserved to be loved.
Standing in the backyard of Mercy House, Evelyn stared at the scrap of paper, and she considered Desiree’s reminder: maybe she, too, deserved to be loved.
Trenton, New Jersey. What were the odds?
Just then, the deliveryman arrived and placed a stack of steaming pizzas at the center of the table.
“It’s about fucking time,” Desiree said. She elbowed her way to the front of the group and lifted a cardboard lid.
“Be nice,” Lucia scolded, her gaze lingering on the man as he left.
Desiree noticed Lucia’s interest and swatted the idea away. “That boy’s too scrawny for you. You’d break him in half.”
Lucia leaned sideways to watch him go. “That’s just what I was thinking.”
The girls distributed slices, ate past the point of fullness, and drank lukewarm Coca-Cola out of red plastic cups. And though Evelyn didn’t know the next time they’d all be at Chauncey Street together again, it didn’t feel like a last supper. It felt more like a resurrection.
Chapter 27
A report of Evelyn’s confessional homily ran the next day in the New York Times. She knew because, on Monday morning, back at Maureen’s house, her bedroom door creaked open. She rolled over and found her sister standing in a shaft of light, her face soft and wet with tears.
Evelyn’s heart heavied, like an overfilled water balloon. She gestured for Maureen to come in. Tears streamed more freely down her sister’s face. Maureen crawled into bed beside Evelyn, wrapped an arm over her stomach, and laid her head on her sister’s shoulder. They lay side by side like that for a moment, two old women made tired by years of heartache and equally exhausting joy.
“I didn’t know,” Maureen whispered in the dark. She smelled of coffee and cinnamon toast.
Evelyn stared at the light slicing through the space between the curtain and the window, where the morning sun pierced the darkness. “Nobody did.”
“I wish you had told me, or any of us. We wouldn’t have let you stay at the convent with him.”
“I couldn’t tell you. They censored my letters. And, well, you didn’t visit.”
Maureen’s body ebbed as she cried. “I understand it now—your anger. I feel we’ve ruined you.”
And there it was. The regret she’d been waiting a lifetime for. Why did she no longer want it? It was as if she’d spent forty years struggling to draw water from a well, and the moment a puddle began to collect, she felt compelled to pour it back into the earth. Maureen’s tears moistened her nightshirt. She crossed her arm to caress the top of Maureen’s head. “It’s okay. I’m okay now.”
�
��It isn’t okay.” Maureen sniffed and squeezed Evelyn closer. “And I don’t know that you’re okay either.” Her voice sounded choked. “We’ve had our differences, I know. And I can’t change that. But I’m here for you now. You’re my sister, and I love you. I want you to know that.”
There it was again, her identity—sister.
Evelyn tilted her head until it touched Maureen’s and clamped her eyes shut, sending warm tears down her cheeks. Maybe she was okay and maybe she wasn’t. But after all those years, someone in her family had heard her and understood. They’d finally exchanged small mercies, and Evelyn felt her resentment release in her chest like so many doves from a cage. Thank you, Lord, she thought.
And if she wasn’t okay, maybe there was still time to fix that. “You know what might make up for it?” Evelyn said.
Maureen lifted her head from Evelyn’s shoulder. “What?”
“If you lend me your car again.”
The ride afforded Evelyn time to mull over her shame for shutting Eloise out of her life. The lovely gesture scorned in Newark, the letters unacknowledged, the phone calls unreturned.
Evelyn’s habit of denying people was the greatest error of her life. She’d opened Mercy House twenty-five years earlier, but was only just beginning to truly understand mercy and its value to the person who bestows it. Because what good did it do her insides to hold onto old grudges, to cradle and nourish them over the years so they grew robust and mighty enough to become nearly an unrecognizable form of their original hurt, so they transformed into daunting formidable resentment? It did nothing but blacken her organs, like soot to the spirit. She had refused to forgive her more benign offenders—her family—while attempting to forget the one who truly wronged her.
But Eloise hadn’t hurt Evelyn (except in leaving their convent cocoon). Evelyn had just feared she would. And she’d feared herself. So when Eloise reached out, when she so bravely offered herself up, Evelyn had rejected her.
These were Evelyn’s mistakes, but she was old now, and didn’t have time to dwell on mistakes.
The Trenton Clubhouse was beyond the riverfront district, the slice of the city that was actually beautiful and which featured the American Renaissance–style, gold-domed statehouse and the pillared city hall, the historic war memorial and the iconic battle monument, the blocks of quaint row houses. The nonprofit run by Eloise was located in East Trenton on St. Joes Avenue; Evelyn wondered if this was intentional on Eloise’s part or just another one of those deific chances.
Crushed Styrofoam cups, napkins, broken bottles, and empty cigarette packs littered the street. The row houses came in spurts of three or four, and the spaces between were overgrown with brush and leafless trees, as if to make a statement about wildness, or the persistence of life. The paint on the front of homes was peeling, and awnings were dreary and ripped. Weeds sprung up from cracks in the sidewalk. A streak of white spray paint ran across the bottom of three homes and then immediately ended at the fourth, as if the offender suddenly ran out of paint, or perhaps either feared or respected the last dwelling’s inhabitants. There was a wooden sign over that entrance that read: Trenton Clubhouse. The door was propped open, even though some days still felt like winter.
Evelyn felt her soul rise up from her feet and through her limbs to fill the space in her head. Her body below was strictly mechanical, a world apart from herself. She climbed the front stairs and knocked as a formality on the propped door before entering.
The hallway opened into a living room that was deceptively large, having been bumped out into the backyard. Sunlight poured in through large windows, illuminating a collection of six adolescent boys and girls gathered around a board game, giggling and shoving one another playfully, and a few others sitting with a middle-aged adult at a table by the back door, workbooks flopped open before them.
The floor creaked below Evelyn’s feet. Several of the children glanced her way but continued with their game. The adult pushed herself to her feet. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’m—I’m looking for Eloise? Eloise Harper?”
Her head tilted to the side. “I’m sorry. You just missed her, quite literally. She’ll be back tomorrow. Is there something I can help you with in the meantime?”
Evelyn’s spirit floated down from her head, a balloon whose party had passed. She reoccupied her body again. Her thigh muscles were gelatinous and trembled beneath her bulk. Her hip ached. “No, that’s all right. Never mind.”
Outside, she gripped the railing and took care not to slip down the front steps, whose brick edges were crumbling.
“Hello, Evie.”
The woman’s voice rang in Evelyn’s ears like a lullaby from a past life. It filled her with nostalgia, and with something else, a fondness, a sweet melody.
Although her hair had whitened and her skin had paled and lined, although she looked frailer than her robust twenty-eight-year-old self, Eloise still emanated a glow, a youthful verve. She wore a colorful argyle scarf and thick cat-eye glasses. Her lips spread in a complicated smile, and her chin tensed with emotion.
“I saw you get out of your car. I should have said something. I just couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it was you,” she said and added a girlish shrug.
Evelyn saw her friend so clearly, it was as if they were standing in the hall of their convent on the Hudson River so many decades earlier. The delicate chin. The poise of a dancer who’d just stuck a calypso leap. And the bold sapphire eyes, which hadn’t been altered by the years. Evelyn clasped the railing so that she wouldn’t falter.
“Oh, Eloise,” she said. The words were choked by a tangle of feeling. Her other arm extended all on its own, stretching out to touch her friend. Without hesitating, Eloise stepped forward, reached out to Evelyn, and took her hand. “I’m sorry,” Evelyn said. “I am so, so sorry.” Eloise’s eyes watered. She looked up toward the heavens and dabbed her eyes with the back of her free hand. Tears stung Evelyn’s eyes too but she did nothing to stall them—it had taken her sixty years to live honestly. In her next blink, they raced down her cheeks. “I’m sorry for pushing you away.”
“It’s all right.”
“It isn’t. It isn’t.” A sob rose up from Evelyn’s belly. “All the time I wasted. All the years that have gone by.”
Eloise squeezed her hand and looked back up at Evelyn. Her eyes had the power to break the space-time continuum, to bring the estranged into the here and now. “Let’s not waste any more.”
If grace was undeserved love, then perhaps here was proof of that—a love, a mercy, Evelyn hadn’t earned. She couldn’t help herself—a laugh effervesced through her open mouth like a champagne bubble. Evelyn didn’t know what her future held—if the bishop would be punished, if she’d move back to Mercy House, if the Catholic Church would change—but her present, this exact moment, was a gift, a little drop of grace.
She stepped down onto the sidewalk and wrapped her arms around Eloise. Her friend’s cheek, nipped by the crisp air, rested against her warm neck. It was like a dream. Eloise’s scent was unfamiliar, but pleasant and comforting. Evelyn hadn’t expected to smell lilac in such an inhospitable season.
She was inflated, made full by a great deal of hope. Hope that you were never too old to love someone, and to ask someone to love you. Hope that the truth of what the bishop did would not be ignored. Hope that Mercy House would continue operating. Hope that she still had good work left to do in this life.
Beyond the rundown row houses, the dusky sky blushed across the horizon like so many scattered carnation petals. When Evelyn was a child, joy was pure. Now it was shadowed by the complications of human existence: pain, worry, loss. But perhaps this contrast was what made joy sing. She held Eloise close enough to feel her heartbeat, and she thought, How strange and mysterious, how divine this world could be.
Acknowledgments
The deeper I delve into the publishing world, the more I realize that books are not born of the author alone. They are a collabo
ration, and I am forever indebted to all my brilliant collaborators, who redirected and intensified this novel in so many necessary ways.
Thank you to my agents, Nicki Richesin and Wendy Sherman, who picked me up when I was on the verge of shredding this book (and my authoring aspirations along with it). Thank you to Amy Schumer, Kevin Kane, and Corinne Brinkerhoff, whose belief in the story and characters was not just the thrill of a lifetime, but a true launching point. Thank you to the good people at William Morrow, especially my editor, Lucia Macro, who took a chance on me, and Asanté Simons. Thank you to Ioanna Opidee and Jennifer Cinguina, invaluable readers and friends.
And of course, to the sisters of St. Joseph’s College, especially Sister Suzanne Franck—thank you for the inspiration.
I also extend my gratitude to family and friends who never stopped asking, “How’s the writing going?” manuscript after manuscript after godforsaken manuscript. Ten years is a long time to ask the same question knowing you’re likely to hear the same dreary answer. Thank you for asking anyway. I’m especially appreciative for the love and support of my parents and brothers. I’m tempted to call us the Dillon Five. What do you think?
And to Phil, my collaborator in life. We got here together.
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
About the Author
* * *
Meet Alena Dillon
About the Book
* * *
Inspiration behind Mercy House
Interview with Sister Suzanne Franck, CSJ, PhD
Reading Group Guide
About the Author
Meet Alena Dillon
ALENA DILLON’S work has appeared in Slice magazine, The Rumpus, and The Seventh Wave, among other publications. She earned her MFA from Fairfield University. This is her debut novel. She lives on the North Shore of Boston with her husband and son, and their black Labrador, Penny.