In This Small Spot

by Caren Werlinger

  Mickey stared at her, feeling a poison rising in her like bile. “Don’t you dare,” she breathed. “Don’t you dare apologize to me now… after you ignored Alice for twelve years.” Natalie looked around, afraid that someone might overhear. “Not once did you acknowledge her when she was alive,” Mickey continued, unable to stop now she was started, “and now, because Jamie is getting married, the good son, doing what I couldn’t with this Church-sanctioned ritual, you’re suddenly feeling magnanimous enough to apologize?”

  She stalked away, oblivious to who might have heard. She got as far as the enclosure garden before she was aware of footsteps behind her. It was Jennifer, already changed into her simple long, white dress.

  Filled with shame, Mickey sat on Sister Linus’ bench under the cherry tree, covering her eyes with her hand. Jennifer followed silently. “Jen, I am so sorry,” Mickey said softly. “Of all the days for me to have a meltdown…”

  “I’ve been expecting it,” Jennifer said, slipping her arm through Mickey’s.

  Mickey looked up at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Mickey, I know you love Jamie and me, and that you’re happy for us, but you’d have to be a saint not to feel at least a little angry and hurt and jealous about all this fuss when you and Alice loved each other so much with no real – I don’t know what word to use… validation, I guess, of your relationship.”

  “We didn’t need that,” Mickey protested.

  Jennifer looked at her tenderly. “It’s a lot easier to not need it when it’s a choice to have it or not. I know you could have been married now, but it wasn’t an option then.”

  They sat silently for a bit. “Do you realize,” Jennifer continued, looking out at the garden, “that you and Alice are the model Jamie and I hold up for what we want our marriage to be like? Not my parents, or yours,” she said pointedly, and Mickey couldn’t help but smile, “or any of my other brothers or sisters. The two people in our lives who could never be married gave us the best example of how to build a life together as completely equal partners. You’re why I’m not being walked down the aisle by Dad – I’m not a piece of property being transferred from one man to another. You’re why I don’t need an engagement ring or a huge wedding or gifts. All I need is Jamie and the things we learned from you and Alice.”

  Mickey’s throat was tight as she hugged Jennifer and said, “My brother had better treat you like the treasure you are.”

  Jennifer kissed her on the cheek and said with absolute faith, “He will.”

  The wedding was simple and beautiful. Sister Margaret had chosen works by Bach and Handel for the Mass, and she had rehearsed a small, chosen choir to sing harmony as the community sang the melody. The doors of the grille had been opened so that the wedding guests could come to the altar for Communion.

  After the Mass, in lieu of receiving gifts – “you’ve already given us so much” – Jamie and Jennifer gave the abbey a set of the twelve Stations of the Cross. Jennifer had found them in a church in France that was being remodeled, and Jamie had restored and then bronzed them so that they could be placed around the enclosure as places of meditation.

  An extra table had been set up in the refectory so that everyone could eat together. Edna and Charles had arranged to have the meal catered so that no one had to cook or clean up. Sister Cecilia kept looking anxiously at her kitchen every time one of the servers came through.

  Late in the afternoon, when everyone was finally gone, the abbey settled once more into its quiet routine. Jamie and Jennifer, who were scheduled to leave for England the next day on their honeymoon, were hosting as many people as Jamie’s little house would accommodate, and the others were staying at inns in Millvale. “How romantic,” Jennifer’s family had teased at hearing that they would be spending their wedding night in a house full of relatives, but “it’s romantic enough for us,” Jamie and Jennifer insisted.

  Mickey restlessly waited until nearly midnight before she went to the orchard. It was a night very like the last May night she’d come out here – a warm breeze was blowing, stirring Mickey’s soul with a yearning, an emptiness so deep she felt she would never be whole.

  Mickey hadn’t been out there long when she heard, “I knew you’d be here.” Sister Anselma sat beside her on the hill where they’d talked before.

  “And I knew you would come.” Mickey looked at her in the moonlight, feeling reckless and breathless at how near she was.

  “It was a beautiful ceremony.”

  Mickey smiled. “Yes, it was. It was the only wedding I can truly say I enjoyed.”

  “You know, it occurred to me, Jamie is your twin, and you said Jennifer looks almost exactly like Alice – if they have children, they’ll be as close as you and Alice could have come to having children of your own.”

  “I know. Alice and I thought about it. We even asked Jamie once if he’d be a sperm donor – artificially,” she added quickly, “I not that open-minded.”

  Sister Anselma laughed, something she did more frequently now, Mickey realized as she listened.

  “But when we really thought it through, my schedule was so erratic, and Alice worked with children all day – it just didn’t seem fair to have her come home to be a single parent most of the time.”

  She looked at Sister Anselma. “Does it bother you to talk about Alice so much?”

  Sister Anselma smiled and shook her head. “I feel like she’s a part of our history together.”

  Giving in to her feeling of recklessness, Mickey reached over and took Sister Anselma’s hand. Their fingers intertwined, then pulled apart, only to rejoin in a sensuous dance. For a long time, there was only this forbidden contact, setting every nerve ending in Mickey’s body on fire. “Do we have a history together?” she asked softly. “What about a future?”

  Sister Anselma looked at her, and whispered, “Do you want a future with me?”

  Mickey didn’t answer directly. “Most of the time I’m okay as we are, but sometimes…” Gently she pulled Sister Anselma to her, haltingly, slowly. Their lips touched in a kiss, feather-light, exquisitely soft. Abruptly, they both pulled away.

  “We can’t,” Mickey groaned.

  “I know,” Sister Anselma murmured. “And this is not the right time to be making decisions about anything – with the wedding, and all the emotions it stirred up.”

  “You’re right,” Mickey agreed. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know I should be,” Sister Anselma said, “but I’m not.”

  ╬ ╬ ╬

  Life settled back into a more normal rhythm over the next few weeks. Most of the weaned calves were sold, and Mr. Henderson took a few cows at a time to neighboring farms to “visit the boys.” The abbey always gave the farmers a few calves in payment for the bulls’ services. The hay was growing tall. The enclosure was bursting with color as dogwood, crabapple and cherry trees all bloomed at once. The bronze Stations of the Cross were positioned around the periphery of the enclosure and small flower beds were planted at each one: hydrangeas, roses, azaleas and lilies. The plants were chosen so that there would be something flowering almost continuously through October. Life seemed idyllic. I should have known better, Mickey thought later when she looked back.

  The restoration of the largest tapestry was coming along. The smaller tapestries, ironically, were proving to be harder to work on as nearly the entire bottom third of each had to be carefully pulled out after the design was painstakingly drawn. Then new threads had to be worked in without looking like new threads. They were using a tea dye to age the newer threads.

  Jamie and Jennifer were splitting their time between his house outside Millvale and her apartment in New York. They came out to St. Bridget’s when they got back from England to visit and allow Jennifer an opportunity to check on the tapestries. “I think we’ll have the largest one done by Christmas,” Sister Anselma told her as she brought Jennifer over to where Mickey was carefully working in new threads in one section depicting a hunter on a horse. Mick
ey felt a tingle run through her body as Sister Anselma’s shoulder grazed hers.

  “Excuse me,” Mickey murmured, forcing herself to move away.

  Ever since the wedding, Mickey had felt acutely aware of Sister Anselma’s every movement. She had no idea if Sister Anselma was feeling the same way or not, but Mickey was also feeling the strain of constant physical desires. It wasn’t just sexual – “although that part is pretty damn strong,” she would have said – it was the longing to hold her, touch her, kiss her. She couldn’t believe how much she missed just being touched.

  Mickey coped with her excess energy by continuing to help Sister Regina with as many farm tasks as she could. She worked her required hours in the vestment room, but she spent her Recreation time weeding the vegetables, cleaning the barn, helping with maintenance on St. Jude – anything physical to take her mind off Sister Anselma. She’d had to reassure Sister Regina that this really was how she wanted to use Recreation. And she prayed. When it didn’t seem to help, she prayed harder as Mother Theodora had suggested. But she had a guilty feeling that maybe the reason prayer wasn’t helping was because part of her didn’t really want these feelings to go away. “I like being in love again,” she finally admitted, but only to herself – having someone to dream about as she drifted off to sleep at night, someone to think about while she did all this extra work in an effort not to think, only to realize that she was humming and smiling as she labored.

  And yet, “Being true to your vows is much more than just living them superficially,” Sister Josephine had told the novices more times than Mickey could count. “It requires a whole-hearted commitment to the spirit of your vows, to the call that brought you here in the first place.”

  “Where is that call?” Mickey asked Mickey. “Have you forgotten it?”

  “No, I haven’t,” she replied. “It’s still there. It’s just…”

  “Just what?”

  There was no answer to that.

  “Off to the farm again?”

  Mickey snapped to at the sound of Father Andrew’s voice. He was coming from the direction of the orchard, carrying a small sack.

  Mickey nodded. “Getting ready for the first hay cutting. We need to make sure the trailer is ready to go.” She nodded toward the sack. “Hunting?”

  “Kind of,” he grinned. “Sour apples. I like them early before they’re ripe.” He fell in step with her. “You’ve been going out to the farm almost every day. I thought you had been rotated elsewhere.”

  “I was, but I like the farm work,” she said. “Makes me feel more productive than whiling away my Recreation time doing nothing.”

  “Hmmm,” he intoned. “And it has nothing to do with… say, needing to tire yourself out or distract yourself from anything?”

  Startled, Mickey halted. “Why would you say that?”

  He looked at her. “You forget. You’re talking to an expert at denial and running from personal demons. I recognize the signs.” He smiled when Mickey just stared at the ground. “It’s okay. We all go through this.”

  “Do we?” but she didn’t say it aloud. Instead, she said, “I really should go. Sister Regina is waiting for me.”

  “All right,” he said, turning back toward the abbey. “But if you ever need to talk…”

  Mickey didn’t look back as she descended the knoll separating the abbey from the farm buildings. “Damn,” she muttered as she walked. If others were noticing… maybe I should request to be transferred from the vestment room, she worried as she neared the barn.

  “Oh, there you are,” Sister Regina said. She already had the rear-end of the trailer up on jackstands, both wheels off so they could get to the rear axle. “We need to re-pack these bearings with grease,” she said, holding a can out to Mickey. “Roll up your sleeves. This is a messy job.”

  An hour later, the wheels were back on and the trailer pronounced fit to go. “Thank you so much,” said Sister Regina gratefully. “This would have taken me an extra day or two on my own.”

  “You’re welcome,” Mickey said, using a rag to wipe her hands clean of excess grease.

  The bell rang for None. “We’d better get back,” Sister Regina said, pulling a tarp over the trailer.

  Together, they walked back to the abbey. They topped the knoll and their eyes were caught by movement below. Black smoke was billowing into the sky from the roof of the vestment wing.

  “Call the fire department,” Mickey shouted over her shoulder as she took off in a sprint down the hill. She went to the back entrance to the vestment room and wrenched the door open to find the interior already filled with thick, black, choking smoke. She could see flames against the far wall, running vertically up to the roof timbers where more flames blazed. The wiring. She took as deep a breath as she could and ran to the circuit box on the wall. Sparks kept bursting from the overhead lights, raining down and starting smaller fires below as cloth and fibers were set ablaze. When she got to the electrical box, some of the breakers had actually melted. She grabbed a wooden shuttle from the nearest loom, and used it to whack the main breaker to the off position. Coughing and choking, she made her way back to the door and slammed it shut to find Mother Theodora and several others hurrying over.

  “Has the fire department been called?” she gasped.

  “Yes,” said Mother. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Mickey answered, still coughing. “I think that bad wiring may have started it. Is the rest of the abbey safe?”

  “For now,” said Mother. They were both thinking the same thing – it would take the engines over fifty minutes to get out to the abbey.

  Suddenly, Sister Catherine ran up to them, crying, “Where’s Sister Anselma?”

  “What do you mean, where is she?” Mother Theodora demanded.

  “When she heard about the fire, she said she was going to get the tapestries. She never came back up the stairs. I thought she must have come out this entrance.”

  “God, no,” Mickey groaned. She pulled loose from Mother Theodora’s restraining grasp and ran back in, ignoring the shouts behind her. She immediately realized she couldn’t breathe and wouldn’t last more than a minute or two. Dropping to her hands and knees, she scrambled to the dye sink where she tore her veil off, soaked it in water and wrapped it over her face to better filter her air. Staying close to the floor, she crawled to the work table where the large tapestry had been. She couldn’t see more than about two feet in front of her. Squinting through tears caused by the acrid smoke, her hands felt Sister Anselma’s limp body before her eyes recognized the black form.

  Mickey transferred her wet veil to Sister Anselma, quickly wrapping it around her head. As she grabbed Sister Anselma under the armpits and began dragging her toward the door, she could hear timbers groaning and cracking overhead. Showers of embers rained down through the smoke and hit them, smoldering and burning through the cloth of their habits. Mickey felt like she was drowning – each breath she took seared her lungs. “Help me,” she prayed desperately, tugging, stumbling backwards, hoping to God she was going in the right direction. Everything looked different as she fought to keep from panicking. Where was the door? The smoke was so thick she couldn’t see any hint of daylight, but she should be near it by now. An enormous crack sounded overhead. Mickey heaved with the last of her strength, throwing Sister Anselma’s body as hard as she could, just before a heavy burning timber crushed her to the floor. The last thing she remembered was black skirts coming out of the smoke, pulling Sister Anselma away.

  Chapter 38

  “Why won’t you tell me where you’re going?”

  Mickey looked over at Susan as she brought her suitcase out to the living room.

  “I did tell you,” Mickey reminded her. “I’m going to visit Jamie.”

  “Uh huh.” Susan clearly didn’t believe her. “You’ve visited Jamie more this year than in all the years I’ve known you put together.”

  It was true. Mickey had been going up to New York for wee
kend visits every month or two. What no one, not even Jamie, knew was that she was going to visit with Mother Theodora. Jamie thought she was off fishing. Mickey just wasn’t ready to tell anyone else about the abbey yet – she wasn’t even sure what all these visits were leading to.

  “And what about all the other strange things you’ve been doing lately? Going back to that church? Selling the house on the bay? Getting rid of Alice’s car?”

  “I don’t need two cars,” Mickey explained patiently, “and Jennifer’s had broken down for the fourth time. The church, I go to mainly for Christopher – he always made us feel welcome. As for the house, I haven’t been there since – in months. Why hang onto it?”

  She had been slowly selling off extra things. Without Alice to go to the bay with, she had felt absolutely no desire to be there. It actually felt good to be “lightening up her life,” as she had come to think of it. She had asked her financial advisor to invest the money from Alice’s life insurance and the sale of the bay house for her.

  “Are you seeing someone?” Susan was like a terrier.

  Mickey laughed. “I promise you, if I ever start seeing someone, I’ll let you know.” She looked into her friend’s knowing eyes. “I’ve just needed to get away – away from this house, away from work. These visits have been good for me.”

  She was telling the truth. Mother Theodora was very skilled at drawing her out of herself while seeming to be carrying on casual conversation. Slowly, Mickey had discovered – “no, re-discovered,” Mother Theodora would have pointed out to her – that what seemed to be missing from her life, now that Alice was gone, was some kind of spiritual anchor, something to ground her.

  “I don’t think I could talk about this to my brother or my friends,” Mickey had said to Mother at their last visit. “Not yet.”

  Mother shrugged. “If you did, they would all try to help, and in the clamor, it might be hard to hear the whispers.”