In This Small Spot

by Caren Werlinger

  Chapter 30

  Mickey unlocked her front door, balancing her Chinese take-out in one hand and carrying a large bundle of mail under her arm as she let herself in. She tossed the mail on the kitchen island and went to get something to drink. Opening the refrigerator, she stared at the nearly empty interior. With a sigh, she got a glass and filled it with cold water from the tap.

  She stood at the island, eating out of the cardboard food containers as she sorted through the mail, tossing most of it into a pile to be recycled. She almost threw out a personally addressed envelope. Looking closely at the return address, she smiled when she saw that it was from Jennifer. Mickey hadn’t seen her since Christmas at the Worthingtons’, but Jennifer and her parents had written every couple of weeks, just cards and brief notes. It helped to come home to them.

  She pried open the envelope and read the note inside as she pushed the play button on her answering machine. Multiple messages played: one from Christopher, “Mickey, we miss seeing you at Mass. Everyone asks about you. Please, come back soon.” Three were from other friends and two from Jamie, asking her to call.

  Mickey wandered back to the master bedroom where the bed lay undisturbed, the spread neatly pulled up, pillow shams in place the way Alice liked them. She pulled clean underwear and pj’s from the dresser drawer and went to shower. The phone rang as she got dressed. She looked at the caller ID before answering.

  “Mickey?” Jamie’s voice came over the line. “I can’t believe I got you. If I hadn’t reached you tonight, I was ready to come down there in person.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been getting in late.”

  “Liar. I’ve called late. And I’ve left five messages on your cell phone. Remember who you’re talking to,” he scolded gently. “You haven’t been coming home at all, have you? You’ve probably been sleeping at the office.” He took her silence as acknowledgement that he was right. “Anyway, I was calling to see if you can take some time off and come up for a visit?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she hemmed, “I’m really busy right now.”

  “I know you are,” he agreed. “I’m sure you’ve taken on extra cases to keep yourself busy, but spring break is coming up in March, isn’t it? So there’ll be a week with no teaching. How about then? Please?”

  She smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “You’d better. Talk to you soon.”

  “Jamie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  She placed the phone back on the charger and went down the hall to the guest room where the bedclothes were crumpled, the bed unmade. She crawled in, pulling the covers over her and turned out the light.

  Chapter 31

  Mickey yawned as she walked to the barn. She and Claire Decault, one of the new Novices, had been working with Sister Regina on the farm for the past few weeks. Though Mickey had made peace with being assigned to the infirmary, things had quieted there and when Sister Regina asked for volunteers to help with the extra work load that came with spring, Mickey jumped at the opportunity. She breathed deeply, enjoying this beautiful April morning, the sun not yet up, misty patches of fog lying in the low areas of the fields as they walked through the dewy grass. She could hear deep moos coming from the cows, and the higher pitched bawling of the calves in a farther pasture. All spring, as calves were born at a rate of two or three a day, milking had been suspended so they could nurse. Most of the nuns had found excuses to come out and laugh as the calves ran and played, cavorting clumsily on their wobbly legs. Now, most of the calves were old enough to be weaned and nobody was happy about it. They had to coax the cows into the barn and into the milking stanchions. Talking in low voices, they gave the cows some feed to calm them. Pulling stools up beside the cows, they washed the udders and began milking. Claire had grown up on a farm in Québec province, but Mickey had never stood next to a cow before. “They’re huge!” she exclaimed in surprise her first day. “They are,” Sister Regina admitted fondly, patting a Guernsey on her broad face, “but you’ll learn,” and she had learned how to handle them and was getting the hang of milking. Claire liked to talk to them in French as she milked, and was almost as fast as Sister Regina. Mickey had been a little tentative at first – you’d think handling an udder would come more naturally, she thought with a wry smile at what Alice would say to the comparison. She finished milking her first cow, and moved on to a young cow named Fuzzy who had had her first calf that season. She was agitated, kicking at her uncomfortably full udder as Mickey washed her and sat down on her stool.

  “Quiet down,” Mickey crooned, trying to soothe her as she began pulling on the teats. Fuzzy seemed to be settling down as the milking eased her discomfort, and she ate a bit.

  “SHIT!”

  Sister Regina and Claire looked up just in time to see Fuzzy swinging her hindquarters into Mickey, knocking her off the stool and kicking over the milk bucket. Mickey stood up with one side of her face plastered with wet manure from Fuzzy’s tail and her habit drenched with milk.

  “Yes,” said Sister Regina calmly, looking at Mickey’s red face. “It’s shit.”

  Claire started giggling. “In French, it is merde,” she laughed.

  Mickey stood with her arms out, looking down at the mess. “Oh well,” she shrugged, using her sleeve to wipe the worst of the manure off her face. She cleaned her bucket and moved on to the next cow.

  When they were done milking and had mucked the stalls, Mickey went in to wash up before breakfast. She attracted several curious, amused stares as she walked through the cloister to the stairs. As she could have predicted, she passed Mother Theodora and Sister Anselma who were conferring in the hallway. They stopped talking and turned in her direction.

  “Don’t even ask,” Mickey muttered as she hurried past. She could hear stifled laughter behind her. She hurriedly cleaned up and changed into her spare habit and went down to breakfast. Nervously, she got through the morning, keeping an eye out for Sister Lucille.

  “You haven’t kept an eye on the housing market in Baltimore, have you?” her realtor, Carol, had asked over the telephone when she called a few days ago to confirm an offer on Mickey’s house. She had predicted it would sell quickly, but “how much did you say?” Mickey asked weakly.

  All the paperwork requiring her signature was being brought to New York by Susan Harris – “are you sure Susan volunteered to come up here?” Mickey asked incredulously when Carol told her.

  “Yes, why?”

  “Nothing,” said Mickey. “Nothing except the last time I saw her, she screamed at me and walked out and I haven’t heard from her in three years,” but she didn’t say that.

  When Sister Lucille came for her, Mickey almost ran to the parlour, pausing to brace herself before going in. Susan’s mouth hung open as she looked Mickey up and down.

  “Hi,” Mickey said a little uncertainly.

  “Oh my God,” Susan said weakly, collapsing onto the sofa. “I knew this would be a shock, but… I just can’t believe this is you.”

  “It’s me,” Mickey grinned. She sat next to Susan. “Are you okay? Can I get you anything?”

  “No,” Susan replied brusquely, seeming to regain her composure. “Here are the contracts,” she said, pulling papers out of a legal-sized folder.

  “We can do this later. Tell me how you’ve been,” Mickey asked anxiously.

  Susan frowned down at the papers. “No, we’d better take care of this first, before I forget all the places Carol said you have to sign.”

  Puzzled, Mickey gave in and signed everywhere Susan indicated. When they were done, and Susan had put everything back in the folder, Mickey laid her hand on Susan’s arm. “I’ve known you for a very long time,” she said quietly. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

  Susan looked at Mickey, her eyes hard. “It’s no big deal. Christie left.”

  The words hung in the air. “What do you mean she left?” Mickey asked incredulously. “You two have been toge
ther for ten years!”

  Susan smiled bitterly. “You’d think that would count for something, wouldn’t you?”

  Mickey searched Susan’s face. “Why did she leave? Is there someone else?”

  Susan looked away.

  “Susan?”

  “I have breast cancer.”

  Mickey closed her eyes. “Christie’s mother.”

  Susan swallowed. “She said she can’t go through that again.” Susan’s bravado suddenly crumbled and she burst into tears. “I’m so scared.”

  Mickey held her tightly. “I know… I know.” She held Susan until she calmed down, and then wanted to know the facts.

  “I’m having a mastectomy in two weeks,” Susan said. “They don’t know yet if the lymph nodes are involved.”

  Mickey advised her on what questions to ask her doctors. “Where is Christie now?”

  Susan blew her nose. “She’s staying with Julie and Sharon until she figures out what she’s going to do.”

  “Would you mind if I write to her?”

  “I was hoping you would.” Susan’s chin began to quiver again. “You were so good with her when her mother was dying.”

  “What about you?” Mickey watched her closely. “Do you have anyone to talk to?” Susan shook her head. Mickey scribbled a name and phone number on the outside of the folder. “I want you to call this counselor. You need help in getting through this – all of this. She’ll get you in touch with a support group.” Susan made a face and started to protest. “I know you think you’re John Wayne, but you can’t deal with this alone.”

  Susan laughed for a moment and then looked at Mickey, embarrassed. “I feel like such a hypocrite – I mean, I was so angry and felt so betrayed when you told me about this… I wasn’t there for you during what must have been a tough decision… would you… could you… pray for me?” she asked as her eyes filled with tears again.

  “Of course I will pray for you,” Mickey said earnestly. She took Susan’s hand and held it tightly. “Everyone here will pray for you. It is so much more powerful than anything I could have done before.”

  “You really believe that?” Susan’s eyes probed Mickey’s, demanding the truth.

  Mickey squeezed Susan’s hand. “I really believe it.”

  ╬ ╬ ╬

  Mickey stood at the top of the steps into the vestment room, the first time she had been there since the day Mother Theodora fell. Sister Catherine saw her and beckoned her in welcome. Sister Anselma was working at her loom and didn’t look up.

  “A little calmer than the last time you were here, isn’t it?” Sister Catherine smiled. She gave Mickey a tour, showing her around the various work stations, some for weaving, some for embroidery, some for cutting and finish work.

  Mickey hadn’t known how to react when, in June, Mother Theodora had given Jessica and her their new, more or less permanent assignments, Jessica to the library – Mickey had enviously watched the rapturous expression on Jessica’s face – while Mickey was assigned to the vestment room. This was Sister Anselma’s realm, the place where she excelled according to Jennifer, and, “I don’t want to be in your way,” she would say to Sister Anselma later.

  Sister Catherine asked Mickey to begin by working with Sister Madeline who was transferring designs from paper to fabric for later embroidery. Sister Madeline was the next most junior nun here in the vestment room. She showed Mickey how to use different symbols to indicate specific details and colors for the embroiderers later. Mickey looked up once to see Sister Anselma watching them.

  Over the next few days, Mickey was introduced to the different work stations and shown what each involved. Most of the nuns let her try her hand at the work, but she soon realized how quickly she could ruin hours of their labor in her beginner’s clumsiness, and she would turn the task back over, preferring to observe. Finally, she was observing with Sister Anselma at her loom and had an opportunity to speak with her alone.

  “Are you all right with this?” she asked anxiously. “I had no idea Mother would assign me to work here.”

  Sister Anselma smiled at Mickey. “It’s all right. I admit I was startled when she suggested it…” she paused to change to a shuttle with a different color thread, “but I saw no reason not to give it a try.”

  Mickey could think of plenty of reasons as her heart thumped at being so near Sister Anselma, but she told herself if Sister Anselma could accept this invasion of her territory, then “I’d better find a way to deal with it.”

  The following few weeks passed quickly for Mickey with the stimulation of the training she was receiving. In addition to the actual weaving and embroidery, the nuns often dyed their own thread when a specific color was needed that couldn’t quite be matched commercially. Age-old dye recipes reproduced true, accurate colors just as monasteries would have produced centuries ago, “well, almost,” Sister Catherine explained. “We now know some of the old ingredients were toxic, so we’ve had to make some modern substitutions.”

  Mickey quickly reached a level of competence where she was responsible for transferring designs by herself. She was carrying a piece of pale yellow silk on which she had just finished marking a design over to Sisters Catherine and Paula who were both working on embroidering a very large, intricate scene adapted from an illuminated text. Sister Paula was having trouble getting some of the detail in the face of the monk in the design. Watching her, Mickey had an idea. She went to her cell and brought a pair of hemostats back to the vestment room. Using pliers and a hammer to bend a needle, she asked Sister Paula if she could try her idea. She sat down and used the hemostats to guide the needle in and out of the cloth. It was like surgery. She got lost in the work, looking from design to cloth and, with tiny stitches, produced a face almost more detailed than the drawing. She sat back to get a better look, and was startled to realize all the others had gathered round to watch. She had been so absorbed in what she was doing that she hadn’t noticed. Her face burned as she looked up at Sister Anselma who was looking back with an expression of such intensity that it felt to Mickey like a caress.

  “I think,” Sister Anselma said, turning back to her loom, “that we need to set up another embroidery station.”

  They bent more needles and experimented with different stitches and techniques. Mickey showed the other nuns surgical knots and stitches, and they showed her more traditional stitches; by combining them, they improved the level of detail considerably, although it slowed the work somewhat.

  Sister Anselma called Mickey over one day to begin teaching her how to weave. They spent an hour setting a loom for a small practice piece for Mickey to learn on. She sat next to Sister Anselma, transfixed at the speed and delicacy of her work. Her hands were beautiful – long-fingered and deft. Alice had always laughed at Mickey’s obsession with hands, but Mickey stubbornly insisted hands said as much about someone as their eyes. “Concentrate, you idiot,” Mickey chided herself when she realized she hadn’t been listening to a word Sister Anselma was saying to her. It was embarrassing and humbling to try and work the loom and the shuttle herself; she felt so clumsy and awkward in comparison to Sister Anselma’s grace.

  “How did you learn this?” Mickey asked in awe after Sister Anselma patiently pulled out the third mistake Mickey had made in the pattern.

  Sister Anselma smiled. “When I was newly professed, I was sent here to work under old Sister Basil. She taught me everything she knew, gave me a wonderful foundation.”

  Mickey watched her face as she spoke. “But you’re miles beyond what Sister Basil taught you, aren’t you?”

  Sister Anselma blushed and kept her eyes on her work. “I discovered what I have a gift for. This is my prayer.”

  “Sister Anselma?”

  They turned to find tiny Sister Lucille standing in the doorway at the top of the steps.

  “Yes, Sister?”

  “You have visitors.”

  Sister Anselma frowned a little at the interruption. “I’m not expecting anyone an
d we don’t have any deliveries ready to go out. Did you get a name?”

  “I asked, but they wouldn’t say,” Sister Lucille sniffed, clearly not impressed with the visitors’ manners. “They would only say they were here to see Lauren Thackeray.”

  Sister Anselma’s face turned to stone, and she closed her eyes. “Keep going with this pattern,” she said to Mickey as she rose.

  Everyone else resumed their work, but Mickey found it difficult to concentrate, which was unfortunate as she ended up pulling more threads out than she actually wove. Lauren Thackeray. She could never admit it to anyone, especially Sister Anselma, but in her brief fantasies of what it would be like to live with her outside the abbey, one awkward point had been her name. Being named for a rather obscure Italian saint was fine in here, but plain “Anselma” just didn’t sound the same. Lauren suited her.

  When the bell rang for Vespers, Sister Anselma had not returned to the vestment room. As Mickey took her seat in Chapel, she saw that Sister Anselma was already in her choir stall, her eyes downcast and her face almost as white as her wimple.

  Mickey’s weaving lessons did not resume. Sister Anselma was quite distant with everyone, remaining at her loom most of the time, working on an intricate pattern for several days. Mickey assisted Sister Catherine with an ornate altar cloth, glancing frequently in Sister Anselma’s direction, hoping to catch her eye, but Sister Anselma concentrated only on her work.

  Leaving the refectory after lunch one afternoon, Mickey was caught by Sister Lucille who asked her if she would take a bolt of cloth to the vestment room. “They brought it to the front door by mistake again,” Sister Lucille explained apologetically, trying to hold the bulky roll.

  Mickey gathered the large paper-wrapped bundle in her arms and made her way through the corridors, remembering the first time she did this – the day she had met Sister Anselma and caused such havoc in the vestment room. Chuckling, she thought, now I know why she was so pissed. If someone did that to me now... She backed through the door to the vestment room, and as she started down the wooden steps, she was startled to realize Sister Anselma was there, working at her loom.