In This Small Spot

by Caren Werlinger

  In the corner, untouched, was Sister Anselma’s loom. The half-finished vestment on it was pockmarked with burns and water stains. It sat there, almost a presence in the room, catching Mickey’s eye at unexpected moments when she glanced up or spoke to someone in passing. It was a couple of weeks before Mickey could bring herself to approach it, arriving early one day so that she was the only one in the vestment room. As she neared the loom, she could see the tonal pattern that Sister Anselma had been weaving into the cobalt-blue silk. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she stared at the only visible reminder of the fire – well, almost the only, she thought as she turned and clomped back to her work station.

  ╬ ╬ ╬

  Mickey lay naked on her stomach, covered only by a sheet, as Sister Mary David came in and secured the curtain around the bed. She pulled aside the sheet and carefully removed the gauze still covering the few open, bleeding areas on Mickey’s back, tugging gently to loosen it where it was stuck. The first time Mickey had come to the infirmary for this treatment, she’d been able to feel the trembling of Sister Mary David’s hands.

  “Sister, what is it?” Mickey had asked, struggling to sit, wrapping the sheet around herself. “Is this too difficult, too disturbing? We could ask Mother –”

  “No, Sister Michele, it’s not that!” Sister Mary David insisted. She looked as if she were ready to cry. “It’s just… every time I remember that day in the hospital, and everything you’ve endured, I’m so ashamed. I cannot begin to fathom how much pain you were in, but the fortitude you showed… and I was too weak and cowardly to watch and help. I’m so afraid of hurting you.”

  To Sister Mary David’s alarm, Mickey laughed – an angry, bitter laugh. “You can’t hurt me, not compared to –” She pressed her fingers to her eyes, and said more gently, “Believe me, I understand. I hated getting burn cases when I was practicing. As for my so-called bravery, I absolutely dreaded those sessions. The medications couldn’t touch the pain. It was often more than I could take. I just prayed for release, and on the good days, I passed out.” She laid a reassuring hand on Sister Mary David’s arm. “I promise I will tell you if I need you to do anything differently, okay?”

  Thus reassured, Sister Mary David had quickly became more comfortable doing Mickey’s burn care, cleaning the dried blood and applying an emollient to keep the scarred skin supple and soft. Sister Mary David finished this step now, saying, “All done. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  Mickey quickly dressed in t-shirt and sweatpants for their exercise session. This, too, had been difficult at first, as Sister Mary David gave only tentative resistance to work Mickey’s legs. “Harder,” Mickey had urged until Sister Mary David learned how to judge Mickey’s strength and how much to push.

  “Come on, you wimp,” Sister Mary David said now. “You can do better than that.”

  Mickey’s face was scrunched and red with her effort. “It’s a shame,” she panted, “that you’re not as timid about this as you were about looking at my butt.”

  Sister Mary David was so shocked and surprised that she dropped Mickey’s leg. In a few seconds, both of them were laughing so hard they had tears running down their faces. Neither of them was aware that, on the other side of the curtain, Mother Theodora had come into the infirmary to see how the exercise sessions were going. She held a finger to her lips when Sister Helen saw her and smiled as she listened to this exchange, and then realized that the sounds had changed. Mickey was crying. Mother could hear Sister Mary David murmuring to her. Silently, Mother Theodora left the infirmary.

  ╬ ╬ ╬

  Mickey sat at her work station, hemostats in hand as she worked a needle in and out of the cloth. As she worked, she could smell the faint scent of the dried roses sitting at her work station. The mysterious floral arrangements had continued to appear every few days in her cell or the vestment room. No one seemed to know who was bringing them. The juniors had just performed their Christmas concert for the community. Unconsciously, Mickey began humming the Coventry Carol. She was so absorbed in the detailed stitches she was making that she didn’t see Sister Paula and Sister Stephanie exchange smiles as they heard her.

  “It’s nice to see you laugh and smile again,” Sister Helen said one afternoon. She was cleaning the infirmary windows as Mickey was finishing her exercise session with Sister Mary David, telling a story about how she broke her arm when she was a child, climbing onto the garage roof to retrieve Jamie’s Frisbee.

  Mickey glanced up at her in surprise. “Have I been that bad?”

  “Yes,” Sister Mary David interjected. “You have. But I don’t think many could have come through everything you have without being a little bitter. It is nice to see you melting – like Sister Anselma did during your retreat,” she added with a cryptic smile.

  “Good God,” Mickey said to herself, “does the whole damned community know?”

  Christmas was three days away when Mickey got one of her best presents in the mail. Danielle Wilson sent a Christmas card with her senior picture in it. She was graduating a year late because of all the time she’d spent in the hospital, but her cancer was completely gone, something her doctors couldn’t explain, “but I can,” Danielle wrote. She had already been accepted at the University of Maryland as a pre-med student. Mickey shared the news with the entire community.

  As if in answer to a Christmas prayer, the abbey was covered in about eight inches of snow on December 24th. Although it was beautiful, Mickey stood looking out the cloister windows, realizing it would be nearly impossible for her to walk through it for more than a few feet. Over the past few weeks, it had become clear that her part of the abbey had become very small, limited mainly to the enclosure garden. Sometimes at night, she dreamed about running through the orchard, but when she woke, she knew the only way she would ever get back out to the orchard or the farm would be in her wheelchair.

  On her way to the vestment room that morning, Mickey saw the juniors outside shoveling and sweeping the walks of the enclosure to create clear paths. A thought occurred to her, and before she could talk herself out of it, she went outside, dropped her crutches and eased herself backward into the snow. Waving her arms and legs, she made a snow angel. The juniors all looked at each other for a moment, clearly not sure what to think. Then Abigail dropped into the snow also. In a few seconds, the enclosure was peppered with supine figures waving arms and legs, making snow angels and giggling like kids. Faces appeared in windows, laughing and pointing. Sister Josephine came rushing outside, an expression of consternation on her face. The juniors all sat up, waiting to be reprimanded.

  Looking around, she spied Mickey. “I knew it was you!” she scolded.

  “I’ve wanted to do this since I was a postulant,” Mickey grinned. “Here, help me up.”

  Sister Josephine reached for her hand and yelped as Mickey pulled her down into the cold, dry snow. “C’mon, you know you want to!” Mickey laughed, falling back into the snow again.

  All the juniors watched Sister Josephine a little apprehensively and were shocked when she fell backward into the snow and made her own snow angel. Laughing again, several of them moved to fresh snow to make more angels.

  “How appropriate.”

  Everyone stopped and sat up. Mother Theodora was standing there, looking very dignified with her hands tucked inside her sleeves.

  “The last bit of decorating for Christmas, I presume?” she asked, looking around, her eyebrows raised.

  “Wouldn’t you like to make one of your own, Mother?” Mickey asked, looking at her mischievously as if daring her.

  Mother Theodora’s eyes twinkled. “I believe I will.”

  And to everyone’s surprise, she walked out to an undisturbed patch of snow and, lowering herself to the ground a little more carefully than the youngsters, made a snow angel. When she sat up, Mickey and the juniors cheered and clapped.

  “Now,” Mother said, “if some of you will be kind enough to help an old lady to her feet, I’m g
oing to change into a dry habit.”

  They all got to their feet and brushed each other’s backsides off. The juniors resumed their shoveling, still laughing and chattering.

  Mother Theodora slipped an arm through Mickey’s as Mickey got her crutches back in position. Walking together toward the cloister, Mother said, “Thank you, Mickey.”

  “For what?” Mickey asked. “Getting you all wet and snowy?”

  Mother Theodora smiled. “For reminding us that religious life, all life, is meant to be lived joyfully. This is why we needed you back among us for a while.” She stopped and looked at Mickey as they entered the corridor. “I pray this is a very blessed Christmas for you,” she said seriously. Then she kissed Mickey on the cheek and left her.

  Mickey kept playing Mother’s words through her head. She wasn’t sure exactly when or how, but she had decided. As strongly as she had felt pulled to the monastery to re-establish a deeper spiritual life and learn to how to live with things she had no control over, she now felt she was being pulled back to the outside world. This would be her last Christmas as a nun at St. Bridget’s. She had a feeling Mother Theodora knew it as well.

  Chapter 43

  “You understand that I will not be able to return to take care of repairs or other issues,” Mickey said to Carol Barnes, the realtor who would be acting as property manager for the rental of Mickey’s house in Baltimore. “I’ve put together a list of the purchase dates of all appliances and mechanical systems in the house. Some are still under warranty. And here is a list of all the tradesmen who have worked here and know the systems.”

  Carol blinked. “I wish all my clients were this organized,” she smiled, flipping through the notebook Mickey handed her. “And you’re going where, again?”

  Mickey’s acceptance into St. Bridget’s had been finalized two months ago. There were so many loose ends to tie up: the house, her leave of absence from the practice and the university, finances. She’d forwarded five thousand dollars to St. Bridget’s to cover her rent during her postulant and novice years. “No one is turned away if they don’t have the money,” Sister Bernice had written, “but it helps tremendously to offset our expenses.” Mickey was also keeping active checking and savings accounts to cover any expenses related to the house. She’d considered selling it, but, “I just can’t. Not yet.”

  “I’ll be on temporary assignment in central New York,” she said to Carol. “Here’s the address. I’ve given your name and telephone number to the housing office at Hopkins. You should have no trouble limiting renters to medical residents or doctors coming for fellowship training. My furniture will all be in storage by next week.”

  Telling people about this decision had been harder than she expected. Almost universally, the reaction – after the initial shock – had been that she was wasting her medical training and that she was doing this as a reaction to Alice’s death. Jamie, of course, had understood.

  “I didn’t think you were really coming up here just to see me, or to go fishing,” he teased. He put his arm around her shoulders as they walked. “I’m happy for you, Mick. You have seemed more at peace with yourself the past few months than you have since you lost Alice.”

  The most shocking reaction had been Susan’s. “This is a joke, right?” she asked at first. As it sank in that Mickey was serious, the anger had surfaced. “You know, I’ve understood you going to the church here because that priest is so open-minded, but to go to a goddamned convent, putting yourself under the authority of one of the most repressive churches on the planet – it’s turning your back on everything we’ve fought for all these years – wait…” She stood there, breathing hard. “Don’t even tell me that you’re going to make some apology for being gay, or that you’re claiming to be cured like those asshole fundamentalists preach.”

  Mickey was taken aback – she hadn’t anticipated such a vehement reaction. “No! I’m not denying who I am,” she protested. “I think I can pursue this call without getting all tied up in the politics of the Church.”

  Susan shook her head. “I don’t even know you anymore.” And she walked out. Mickey hadn’t heard from her since.

  Now, the house looked bare. Mickey had packed a trunk with her favorite books, and the items on the abbey’s list. Most of her clothing had been given away; she’d packed one suitcase of clothes to keep in case she left the abbey, “or they kick me out,” she joked. All of their photo albums had been packed away – she wasn’t prepared to let those go yet. Most of the knick-knack things had gone to the thrift store. It was amazing to her how much stuff she owned that she had to figure out what to do with: kitchen stuff, bathroom stuff, all the stuff in the attic. It seemed never-ending. Finally, though, all that was left was to get the furniture into storage.

  “This nun thing better work out,” she grumbled to Jamie over the phone. “If it doesn’t, it’s going to cost me a fortune to replace all this crap.”

  Chapter 44

  “Maybe snow angels weren’t such a good idea,” Mickey groaned as she got up the day after Christmas. She had a bad cold and had hardly slept at all due to her congestion and sneezing.

  Christmas had arrived with an unexpected visit from Natalie who came with Jamie and Jennifer to the abbey. It was the first time she and Mickey had seen or talked to one another since the wedding.

  “That is not our mother,” Mickey insisted as she blew her nose, watching Natalie interacting with Mother Theodora. “She hugged me and wished me a Merry Christmas. She’s a pod person.”

  “Jamie said the same thing,” Jennifer giggled.

  “What happened to her?” Mickey asked, eyeing Jamie suspiciously.

  “The day of the wedding, while you and Jen were talking, she came to me all weepy and complaining about how cruel and unfair you’d been when she was making an effort.”

  “And?” Mickey asked menacingly, knowing how manipulative their mother could be.

  “And I told her she had deserved everything you said and more for a long time.”

  Mickey looked at him with her mouth open.

  “That’s what Mom looked like,” he grinned. “I told her she’d elevated being miserable to an art form, and that if she wanted to be happy, she had to learn to make the choice to be happy – it wouldn’t just bite her in the butt.”

  “Wow.” It was all Mickey could think of to say.

  “What about Sister Anselma?” Jennifer changed the subject. “Have you heard from her?”

  Mickey shook her head. “I haven’t expected to. She’s leaving me alone to decide where I should be without any distractions from her.”

  “And have you decided?”

  Mickey looked from one to the other. “I’ve decided to leave,” she said quietly.

  Jennifer glanced at Jamie before asking, “Are you sure?”

  Mickey looked at Jamie. “Do you remember how many times you asked me that when I told you I was entering? It hasn’t been easy.” She looked around at all the familiar figures. “You know, when I first came here, everyone looked the same to me – just a habit. But now, I can identify almost everyone, just watching posture and movements. It will break my heart to leave. I don’t know how Sister – Lauren did it after almost twenty years. It’s going to take a while to get used to the change in names.”

  “I asked her about that once,” Jennifer recalled, “because all of you kept your given names as your religious names. I assumed she wasn’t always Anselma.”

  Mickey was curious since that was something she had wondered about. “What did she say?”

  “Only that when she entered, she didn’t want any connection to her past. She wanted to start fresh, so she requested a new name.”

  “What about her?” Jamie asked. “After you leave I mean?”

  Mickey shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s also dealing with a lot in regard to her family. I know she and Mother communicate. I’m just holding tight to the belief that she’ll find me.”

  Now, fighting this cold, it wa
s all Mickey could do to drag herself around on her crutches.

  “This is not a good idea today.” Sister Mary David had completed the care for Mickey’s burns and was trying to take her through her exercises. “You’re weak and you can’t breathe. You need rest more than you need to exercise.”

  “I think you’re right,” Mickey agreed. “I’m going to go to my cell and sleep.”

  “Do you want to use the wheelchair?” Sister Mary David asked as Mickey struggled to her feet. Mickey glowered at her. “All right,” Sister Mary David laughed. “Be stubborn. I’ll let Mother know where you are.”

  Mickey limped to her cell and fell asleep almost immediately. She wasn’t sure what time it was when she awakened in the dark, barely able to breathe. She struggled to a sitting position, but still could take only shallow breaths. There was no way she could walk. She reached for a crutch and banged on the wall she shared with Jessica. When there was no response, she banged again. A moment later, there was a soft knock and the door opened.

  “Michele?” Jessica whispered.

  “On the bed,” Mickey gasped. Jessica came to her. “Pneumonia – need to get to hospital.”

  Jessica quickly woke Sister Kathleen on the other side of her own cell. She sent her to get Sister Mary David and Mother Theodora. “And tell Sister Mary David to bring the wheelchair. Hurry!”

  Coming back into Mickey’s cell, she turned on the lamp and calmly helped Mickey put on a robe. “It’s too snowy for slippers,” she said matter-of-factly as she brought shoes and socks and put them on Mickey’s feet. Then she sat next to Mickey on the bed, supporting her with an arm around her shoulders. She could hear the rattle as Mickey tried to breathe. “We’ll get you to the hospital as quickly as we can.”