In This Small Spot

by Caren Werlinger

  “What?” Jessica asked.

  “Nothing.”

  ╬ ╬ ╬

  Mickey planned to spend most of her Christmas Eve holiday in an extended visit with Jamie. Natalie was staying in Florida for Christmas this year, but had sent cases of oranges and grapefruit to the abbey again. When Jamie arrived, they went for a walk through the abbey’s front grounds as he excitedly told her about his recent gallery show in New York. The air was sharp and cold under a cloudless December sky and they were soon chilled through, despite the sunshine.

  “Brrr,” Mickey said, “let’s go back in and get some hot tea.”

  They were walking back up the abbey’s long drive when a familiar blue Ford passed them on its way to the parking lot. As they approached the front doors, they saw Jennifer standing there.

  “You’re back!” Mickey exclaimed, giving her a tight hug.

  “Just got back a couple of weeks ago,” Jennifer said. “Is it okay to come for a visit?”

  “Yes. We were just going in to get warm,” Mickey said. “You remember my brother?”

  “Boy, have you grown up!” Jamie exclaimed.

  Jennifer blushed. “You haven’t changed at all.”

  Mickey ushered them into one of the parlours and went to get a tray of hot tea.

  “Here,” said Sister Cecilia, putting a plate of freshly baked orange cranberry muffins on the tray.

  “Well, tell us all about your trip to France,” Mickey demanded when she returned to the parlour.

  Jennifer had brought photos of the countryside around Lyon as well as of the tapestries and silks she had studied while she was there. “The patterns are so intricate,” she explained, “no machine could do this. They still do it all by hand, the way they have since the Middle Ages.”

  “You know,” Mickey mused as she looked at the photos, “I’m no expert, but these look a lot like the vestments and cloths the abbey produces.”

  “Really?” Jennifer looked over Mickey’s shoulder. “Like this? I’d love to see some of the work sometime.”

  Mickey turned to Jamie. “Did you bring any pictures from your gallery show?”

  Jennifer eagerly leaned in for a closer look as Jamie pulled out several newspaper clippings and photos. Mickey sat back as they talked art and New York.

  “Where are you staying tonight?” Jamie asked as the parlour began to darken by late afternoon.

  “I got a hotel room,” Jennifer said.

  “You can use Mickey’s old room at my place, if you like,” he offered. “It’s sitting empty. We can get some dinner and be back tonight for Midnight Mass.”

  “Are you sure?” Jennifer asked. “That sounds much better than a hotel.”

  They gathered up their coats to leave.

  “Would you wait for me just a minute?” Jennifer asked. “I need to speak to Mickey alone real quickly.”

  “Take your time,” he smiled.

  “What’s up?” Mickey asked after Jamie left to wait by the front door.

  Jennifer opened her purse, frowning. “I don’t know if you even remember, but after we got back from that trip to Maine, you gave me Alice’s luggage set. I haven’t used it until this trip, and… I found this in one of the pockets.”

  She held out an envelope. On the front, in Alice’s beautiful handwriting, was Mickey’s name. Mickey took it and stared at it. When she looked up, Jennifer had tears in her eyes. She quickly gave Mickey a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “See you tonight,” she said, and left.

  Mickey tucked the envelope into the inside pocket of her yoke, and went to dinner. As in years past, the nuns were dismissed after dinner to get some rest before Midnight Mass. Mickey sat on her bed, holding the envelope. She couldn’t bring herself to open it. She placed the envelope on her desk and undressed to try and get some sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, there was Alice – “you two go,” she had insisted, watching and waving from the rocky beach as Mickey and Jennifer sailed a little sailboat not far from shore, tacking back and forth, or “you go, I’ll wait for you here,” pushing them out for bike rides she no longer had the stamina for. She had spent much of that trip sleeping, but Mickey supposed she must have written during one of those outings.

  Mickey had not cried during Alice’s brief illness. She had not cried at the funeral or after. It had felt like, if she allowed herself to start, she would never, ever stop – she would find herself drowning in an abyss of misery and grief.

  She had felt herself floundering in that abyss during her retreat, but Sister Anselma had been there to buoy her up, pull her out….

  At last, she fell into a fitful sleep and didn’t feel rested at all when it was time to rise. Even the beauty of the Mass couldn’t bring her solace as she tried to sing. She suddenly remembered the little card sitting on her desk. Solatium Nostrum. She closed her eyes. How do you always know? When she opened her eyes, she saw Sister Anselma on the other side of the choir, watching her as if she could feel Mickey’s turmoil.

  When Mass was over, she had another brief visit with Jamie and Jennifer. Jamie obviously knew now about the letter because he asked with concern, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she assured him, “I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

  The nuns went to the refectory for tea and cookies. Not in the mood to be social, Mickey forced herself to go to be polite. She looked out the tall windows and saw that a full moon was shining outside.

  “Something tells me you’re not with us tonight.”

  Startled, Mickey turned to find Mother Theodora beside her. “No,” she smiled, “I guess I’m not.”

  “Is anything wrong, Sister?”

  “I guess my visit with my family stirred up a lot of memories.” She supposed this was close enough to the truth.

  “Understandable. This time of year, as joyous as it is, can be hard at times.” Mother gave Mickey’s arm a squeeze and moved on. Mickey saw Sister Anselma watching her from near the tables. It only lasted a second, but the look in her eyes was so tender, so unguarded – and then it was gone, and she turned away.

  Mickey suddenly felt as if the women around her were pressing closer and closer, leaving her no room to breathe… she had to get out. She slipped quietly out of the refectory and went to her cell. There, she tucked the letter back inside her pocket and went to get her heavy winter cloak. Once outside, the air was cold and crisp and she felt could breathe again. It hadn’t yet snowed that winter, but the frozen grass crunched as she walked through the enclosure and let herself through the gate. The moon was so bright, it was almost like daylight. She found herself heading toward the barn. She slid the heavy door open just enough to let herself in and closed it behind her. A few of the cows shuffled at the disturbance. She spoke to them in a low, soothing voice. At the rear of the barn was a small room which had a cot for Sister Regina during calf season. She clicked on the light and took off her cloak. Sitting on the cot, she pulled the envelope from her pocket. She stared at Alice’s handwriting, tracing a fingertip gently over the swirls of ink. This was probably the last thing Alice had written. At last, she turned the envelope over and carefully pried the flap loose. Her hands were trembling as she pulled out the paper inside and unfolded it.

  My beloved Mickey,

  By the time you read this, I should be gone. I know it’s melodramatic and clichéd to leave an ‘after I’ve died note’, but there are a few things I want to say to you.

  The most critical is that I know you’re blaming yourself – that we didn’t catch this sooner, that there wasn’t anything you could do – a whole host of recriminations. I want you to forgive yourself because there is nothing to feel guilty about. As a matter of fact, it’s a little egotistical of you to think you personally should be able to undo what God has allowed to transpire. I don’t know Her reasons, but I believe with all my heart that there are reasons for all this. Someday we will understand them.

  Mickey paused to smile and wipe tears from her eyes. Damn, why hadn’t she brought
tissues? It was so like Alice to find a way, even after she’d died, to keep Mickey grounded.

  I’m not going to write about how much I love you, because if I didn’t show you that while I was alive, it’s too late now. What I do want to say is, I know you well enough to know that right now, you are keeping your emotions under control. You will have to allow yourself to deal with this at some point. I hope, when you let that happen, you will heal. As you heal, I hope you will allow love to come back into your life. I know you won’t go looking for it, but I also know it will come to you. You are such an incredibly good, pure soul that people cannot help but be drawn to you. When it does come, don’t turn away. It isn’t a betrayal of the love we had for you to love someone else – just the opposite; it would belittle our love if you could never love again. And remember, love comes in many forms.

  It really is much easier to be the one leaving rather than the one left behind. I will be waiting for you in a place where time doesn’t exist, and where our love continues undiminished.

  Alice

  Mickey was crying so hard by the time she finished that she could scarcely breathe. Like that night during her retreat, her grief and pain and loneliness seemed bottomless. Eventually, she cried herself to sleep.

  At five that morning, Sister Regina found her on the cot with three of the barn cats curled up around her, her cloak sliding off her shoulders. The letter lay on the floor where it had fallen from her hand. Sister Regina folded the letter and placed it on the cot next to Mickey, and then covered her again with her cloak. Quietly, she fed the cows and began milking, humming Christmas carols. If a stable was good enough for Jesus, she saw no reason why it shouldn’t be just fine for one of them.

  Chapter 28

  “I don’t want it,” Alice protested. “It’ll just make me sleep, and I don’t want to sleep the days away.”

  “I know you don’t,” Mickey assured her. “We’ll try to find the minimal dosage to take the edge off, okay?”

  Even Alice could no longer hide the pain she was in, and Mickey gently insisted on adequate pain control. By the time they returned from Maine, Alice was getting weak. Jennifer stayed with them and helped look after Alice so Mickey could do things like the grocery shopping. “I want to take care of her myself,” she said when hospice called. Friends stepped in to bring meals – “they know how pathetic you are in the kitchen,” Alice joked weakly.

  Christopher came by often, bringing Alice Communion and bags of letters and cards from the youth group and other parish members. When she asked, he heard her confession, and blessed her, dipping his thumb into the container of holy oil and anointing her forehead with a cross “in the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Consoler.”

  Mickey called Edna and Charles to tell them it was time. Alice died with her family gathered around her, held propped against Mickey as she took her last ragged breaths. The next days were a blur of activity. Mickey was overwhelmed by the number of people who came to the funeral home and then the funeral. St. Matthew’s was packed with many of the parishioners as well as teachers and administrators, parents of Alice’s students past and present, several former students, most of whom were now parents themselves, plus Alice and Mickey’s wide circle of friends. And then there were Mickey’s colleagues and students, even patients who had heard or read about Alice’s passing. It was ironic that, not until then, had Mickey realized how wide Alice’s circle of influence had been. More than one young adult told Mickey that he or she had become a teacher because of Alice’s example.

  Jennifer, Edna and Charles were the last ones to leave a couple of weeks later. They helped Mickey write thank you notes to everyone who sent cards. Together, they went through Alice’s closet and dressers – “Are you sure you’re ready to do this now?” Edna asked, but “I have to,” Mickey said. She had encouraged Alice’s family to let her know if there were specific items they wanted – jewelry, clothing, whatever. The rest would be distributed among the church’s thrift shop and women’s shelters.

  “You will be with us for Thanksgiving,” Edna ordered as she gave Mickey a hug.

  “I’ll be there,” Mickey smiled. She waved them off, and went back inside the house. Standing with her back against the door, she suddenly felt suffocated by the emptiness, as if the house had become a vacuum. Clutching at her chest, she tried to slow her breathing and stop the tears that threatened to drown her. When she could breathe, she stood in the living room, looking around.

  “Now what?”

  Chapter 29

  Mickey woke, drenched in a cold sweat. Gasping, she sat up, clutching the edge of her thin mattress. These dreams were becoming unbearable – such realistic, erotic dreams involving bizarre mixes of Alice and Sister Anselma. They made her dread going to sleep so much that she wasn’t sleeping most nights, choosing instead to spend many of those long, night-time hours in her choir stall, praying, begging for release.

  She was surprised at how many people came to the Chapel through those dark hours – several nuns each night, slipping quietly into their stalls to spend thirty minutes or an hour, even Mother who went to an ordinary stall, not hers at the head of the choir – “I miss being out here, in my old stall,” she would say long after when Mickey asked her. If they noticed her there, night after night, at all hours, they said nothing, leaving to her to battle her demons – “The way we all must,” the nuns could have told her. “Nights are always the worst. The devils come out then.” The doubts, the physical urges, the bottomless melancholy – all were worse in the dark, when it seemed morning would never come. “Not like this,” Mickey would have said, but “you’d be surprised,” they would have replied sagely.

  Alice’s letter, five years late, had dredged Mickey’s grief to the surface, making the loss feel brand new. She was constantly on the verge of tears, and could only maintain control by keeping everyone at a distance.

  “Was that really necessary?” Sister Josephine rebuked her sharply one afternoon when Mickey’s sarcasm had caused Sister Alison to stomp off angrily.

  Only Jessica was brave enough to attempt penetrating Mickey’s caustic defenses, but when she approached, asking what was wrong, Mickey could feel herself choking up. “I can’t,” she mumbled before walking away. There was only one person she could have talked to about all that she was feeling, but Sister Anselma was maintaining a careful distance. Sometimes, when Mickey looked across the aisle in choir, she thought she saw Sister Anselma’s eyes leaving her, but she couldn’t be sure.

  In January, Mickey and Jessica had been required to do another inventory of possessions, but “this one must include not just what you brought with you to St. Bridget’s,” explained Sister Bernice, the abbey’s cellarer, “but everything you own in the world. Once you take your vows in April, you cannot own any physical property, no investments, no animals or cars if someone was keeping them for you, nothing.”

  Nothing.

  Mickey’s list included, presumably for the last time, a house and a storage facility of furniture and other items which would all have to be sold if she were to take vows. Nearly every night, she sat at her desk, staring at the list, knowing she should have contacted a realtor long ago if she intended to stay. She wasn’t required to give the money to St. Bridget’s, but “any money you do offer will be kept in an escrow account, not to be touched, until you take your solemn vows,” Sister Bernice told them.

  All around Mickey, the life of the abbey continued, like a river whose waters are briefly churned by one boulder causing turbulence, then calming again downstream from the disturbance, but “just because we go on, doesn’t mean we don’t notice.”

  Up in the infirmary, “Are you ill?” Sister Angelica asked one day as Mickey bathed her and changed her nightgown. “I may be old, but I can see that something is troubling you, dear.”

  Behind her, Mickey could tell Sister Mary David and Jessica had become still. Unwilling to lie, Mickey said, “I’m not ill, Sister.”

  “But som
ething is troubling you.”

  Mickey looked into her concerned eyes, remembering that she had been the healer here for decades. “Yes,” she said simply.

  Sister Angelica nodded. “I’ll pray for you,” she said, patting Mickey’s arm.

  Mickey’s throat tightened. “Thank you.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked herself one bitterly cold night when she had abandoned her choir stall to pace the paths of the enclosure, her heavy winter cloak drawn tightly under her chin. “Why can you not just make a decision and live with it?”

  As she came back around to the door into the cloister corridor, Sister Anselma was standing there. Startled, Mickey stopped and stared at her.

  What was she doing here? They weren’t supposed to break Silence.

  “Come,” was all Sister Anselma said. She led Mickey to the same study they had used on previous occasions. “Sit down,” she said as she turned on a lamp and closed the door. Mickey took off her cloak and sat tensely on the edge of a chair, staring at the floor.

  Sister Anselma sat also. “Michele, I don’t mean to invade your privacy or presume that you would want to talk to me, but… I don’t think we can go on like this.” Mickey forced herself to meet Sister Anselma’s gaze. “You have seemed so unhappy lately, and I can’t help but feel at least partially responsible for that.” Sister Anselma could no longer look Mickey in the eye. “I must apologize for the things I said when I was in the infirmary –”

  “No,” Mickey cut in. “It’s not that. It’s not your fault. I… read this.” She pulled Alice’s letter from the pocket where she kept it most of the time lately. As she read, Sister Anselma’s pale cheeks burned scarlet and she had to wipe her eyes.

  Mickey began pacing again, and her voice when she spoke quavered. “I got that letter at Christmas. It had been tucked away and just recently found. I feel like I’ve lost her all over again.” She clasped her hands together inside her sleeves to stop their trembling. “I don’t know what to do about vows, but I can’t imagine leaving this place I’ve come to love so much.” She paused and turned to look at Sister Anselma with tortured eyes, knowing if she spoke now, there was no turning back. “And I don’t know what to do about how very much I love you.” She put her hands over her face. “I feel like I’m losing my mind,” she choked as her shoulders shook.