7
ELLE’S MOTHER ESCORTED her down hallway after hallway. From the outside, the abbey looked like a gray stone square—three stories high and likely as long as it was wide. The inside, however, was labyrinthine. Every few feet they turned a corner, then another. Winding hallways, unmarked doors. On the walls were crucifixes, icons, shrines, image after image of Saint Monica in various poses, in various mediums. In one mosaic Saint Monica held her son Saint Augustine in her arms. Elle glanced at it only a moment, glanced away quickly.
“Where are we going?” she asked her mother, who hadn’t released her hand this entire time.
“I’m going to the Chapel of Perpetual Adoration. Mother Prioress is there tonight. We’ll need to get her permission to let you stay.”
“Will she give it?”
“She doesn’t like outsiders in the abbey.”
“Is that a no?”
“No, but start praying anyway,” her mother said, and Elle did as she was told.
Elle had a good sense of direction, but by the time they arrived at the chapel, she knew she’d never find her way back to the front door without help. Good. The front door was the gateway to the outside world. It was the last place she wanted to go.
They walked under a polished wooden archway and into an open seating area that looked like nothing more than a living room. She saw bookshelves, baskets of knitting and chairs of all types.
“Here. Wait for me in the library,” her mother said. “I’ll be back soon.”
Elle took a seat in a cane-back chair that had probably been here since the convent was founded in 1856. It creaked under her weight but held her. A few minutes passed. Elle relaxed into the chair. For two days now she’d been coasting on the fumes of her fury. Now a deep exhaustion set into her body. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep. Sleep for a year, sleep for the rest of her life.
She looked to her right and saw a stack of magazines on a small table. Catholic Digest. Inside the Vatican. The Catholic Times. The front page of one of the magazines blared the headline Why God Demands Priestly Celibacy.
“What the fuck am I doing here?” Elle asked herself out loud. No one answered. No one had to. Elle knew what the fuck she was doing there.
Because she had nowhere else to go.
“This is your Eleanor?”
Elle stood up immediately. In the doorway loomed a woman who must have been almost six feet tall. She wore round glasses and a black habit with an elaborate rosary hanging down her side.
“Ellie, this is Mother Prioress. Mother Prioress, my only child.”
Mother Prioress looked Elle up and down.
“Why are you here?” Mother Prioress asked. She had a slight accent, vaguely Irish, but time in America had washed most of it out.
“I was just asking myself the same thing,” she said, deciding to try honesty.
“She left her lover,” her mother said.
“How is this our concern?” Mother Prioress asked.
“Because he beats her.”
“Mom, he—”
Her mother raised a hand to silence her. Elle closed her mouth.
“I’m very sorry to hear that. But isn’t that a matter for the police?” Mother Prioress asked.
“He’s in a position of power,” her mother answered for Elle. “And he has dangerous friends.”
Elle couldn’t argue with either of those assertions. Søren was in a position of power. And he did have dangerous friends. She knew that because they were her dangerous friends, too.
“Are you certain she’s telling the truth?” Mother Prioress asked Elle’s mother. Elle was about five seconds away from losing the last vestiges of her self-control. “Isn’t this the daughter who you said has had run-ins with the law?”
“That was over ten years ago, Mother Prioress. And I’m certain she’s telling the truth.”
“We don’t let outsiders stay within the walls,” Mother Prioress said. “That’s against our rules.”
“What of the rule of Saint Benedict?” her mother asked the prioress. “‘Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, for He is going to say I came as a guest, and you received Me.’”
Mother Prioress nodded. “Yes, and when Christ arrived to visit His disciples after the resurrection, He did not hesitate to prove Himself. Do you have any proof your accusations against this man are true?”
Elle looked her mother in the eye. She knew what she needed to do but was loath to do it. Everything within her rebelled at the lie she needed to tell. Søren was no saint and neither was she. But to blame him for a crime he hadn’t committed felt like blasphemy. Søren had sinned against her, yes. Sinned so that she never wanted to lay eyes on him again. But leaving him and lying about him were two different things. And yet...
She turned around and lifted the back of her shirt. Without even having to look she knew what her mother and the Prioress saw. Five nights ago Kingsley had flogged her before fucking her, flogged her for an hour. Flogged her, then caned her. Flogged, caned her, whipped her, spanked her. And now her back boasted the fading welts and bruises from that long and beautiful night.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” the Prioress said, and the Irish accent came out in full force. Elle pulled her shirt back down. She’d always loved her bruises and welts, cherished them. Kingsley had kissed them after giving them to her. She knew he’d been especially bruising simply to goad Søren, whose return from Rome was imminent that week. The welts were Kingsley’s way of saying, “Look how much fun we had without you.”
“Only sisters and retreatants are allowed on the grounds,” Mother Prioress said. “We have our own rules to follow.”
“I can be a retreatant,” Elle said. “I have some money. What does a week-long retreat here cost?”
“One hundred dollars.”
A hotel room would cost her fifty a night, at least. “I can pay it,” Elle said.
“I suppose,” Mother Prioress said. “But this is highly unusual.”
“I’ll work, too. I’ll be useful. Please. I can’t...I can’t go back out there yet.”
Something in Elle’s voice must have gotten through to Mother Prioress. The fear, the desperation. Or maybe it was the money. Who knew? Elle didn’t care as long as they let her stay.
“If she works, she can stay,” Mother Prioress said at last. “We’ll consider it a special sort of retreat. No longer than a year, however. We work here. We pray here. We serve each other here. We, none of us, are in hiding.”
Elle turned around and faced them. She was too ashamed of herself to meet their eyes. Not ashamed of the bruises on her back. Ashamed that she’d lied.
“Thank you,” Elle said. “I’ll work.”
“You will.” Mother Prioress took a step forward and looked down into her face. “You’ll work and you’ll behave. The sisters here have made great sacrifices to be part of this community. They are here to love and serve God, worship Him and pray for His people. This is good and holy work and they are not to be disturbed, bothered, interrupted or interfered with in any way.”
“I understand,” Elle said.
“You had a lover in the outside world. You will keep that information to yourself. We have all taken vows of chastity. Consider yourself under one, as well. You say you aren’t safe outside our walls. Then you will remain inside our walls as long as you are a resident here. You will bring no one else inside our walls.”
“No one.”
“Keep you head down. Stay out of trouble. Work hard. If you harm any of the women here, you will be expelled. Immediately.”
Elle nodded her understanding.
“I don’t...” she began, and paused. Something had lodged in her throat. She swallowed it down. “I don’t want to hurt anybody. Ever.”
“Yes.” Mother Prioress gave her the first smile she’d seen on the woman’s face yet. “Yes, I believe that.” She turned to Elle’s mother. “Take her to the infirmary. I’ll send someone to prepare a room for her.”
Elle took her mother’s hand and together they started from the room.
“Eleanor?” the Prioress said.
“Elle.”
The Prioress gave her a tight smile. “Elle.”
“Yes?”
“You will do as you are told here. I certainly hope you’re capable of following orders.”
Elle smiled. “Trust me. If I know how to do anything, it’s follow orders.”
Her mother tugged her hand and led her from the room.
“I don’t need the infirmary, Mom,” Elle said.
“You have to call me Sister John or Sister in front of others. And yes, you need the infirmary.”
“It’s bruises and welts. They’ll be gone in a few more days.”
“You look like you were mugged.”
“Nobody gets flogged during a mugging, Mom. And if they did, I’d walk around bad neighborhoods more often.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
“It wasn’t even him who did it.” Him. Søren. Although her mother didn’t know that name. She knew him as Father Marcus Stearns. But Elle couldn’t call him Marcus Stearns in case one of the other sisters had heard of him. So “him” it was.
“Do I want to know who did that to you?”
“My friend Kingsley.”
“You have an interesting definition of friend.”
“Maybe a better definition,” Elle said. “It was consensual. You know I like this stuff.”
“And you know I hate that you like it. And I hate him for making you like it.”
“He didn’t make me like it, Mom. And he didn’t rape me. And he didn’t seduce me.”
“You were fifteen when you met him. He groomed you.”
“I was also fifteen when I first tried to get him in bed. I came pre-groomed.” She couldn’t believe they were having this fight again. “If you really thought he was a danger to children, you would have called the bishop. But you know as well as I do that he isn’t.”
“The church has enough scandals. I wasn’t about to create a new one.”
“Two consenting adults shouldn’t be a scandal.”
“Ellie, that man is—”
“Mom, you can hate him if you want to hate him. But at least hate him for the right reasons.”
“Hate him for the right reasons?” Her mother stood up and came over to her. “I thought I was. But you tell me then. What are the right reasons to hate the priest who seduced and beat my daughter?”
“Hate him because I hate him.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?” Elle asked, meeting her mother’s eyes.
“Because you might stop hating him. And then I would have to stop, too.”
Elle looked away from her mother’s beseeching eyes.
“What did he do to you, baby?” her mother whispered. “What did he do to make you come to me after all this time?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Elle said as they neared a bright white room, no doubt the infirmary or whatever passed for it in this aging edifice.
“You should talk to someone. A professional who can help you.”
“I don’t need counseling. I’m as sane as you are.” If not saner. After all, she wasn’t the one walking around in a wedding dress telling the world Jesus was her husband.
“You could talk to someone here. Sister Margaret is a trained psychologist. And once a week, Father Antonio—”
Elle turned her head and stared at her mother. “You think I’m going to talk to a priest about this?”
“Well...” her mother began. “Perhaps Sister Margaret then.”
If she’d had the energy for it, Elle would have laughed. But she didn’t so she didn’t and in silence they walked into the infirmary.
Her mother left her sitting in a chair while she went to fetch another one of the sisters. Twenty minutes later, a nun who looked about her mother’s age—no more than fifty definitely—entered the infirmary and gave Elle a once-over. Her mother introduced the woman as Sister Aquinas. She wore a white apron over her black habit and her sleeves were pinned up to expose her forearms. Sister Aquinas pointed to a bed behind a white curtain and told Elle to wait there.
“I’ll go check on your room and make sure you have everything you need,” her mother said, taking Elle’s duffel bag from her. “I’ll be back. Don’t worry. You’re in good hands with Sister Aquinas.”
“Okay,” Elle said, too relieved to have a place to stay for the time being to worry about anything much at the moment. “I’ll see you soon.”
Her mother kissed her on the forehead.
“Thank you.” The two words came out of Elle’s mouth entirely of their own volition.
“You’re thanking me?” Her mother sounded utterly baffled.
“Well, you got them to let me stay here. I know we haven’t gotten along the past few years...ten years.”
“Twenty-six years,” her mother said, but she said it kindly.
She paused to laugh. “Okay, twenty-six years. But yeah, I appreciate it, Mom. Sister John, I mean. Sorry.”
Her mother cupped her face and looked her in the eyes.
“Every morning for the past three years I’ve woken up and prayed the same prayer. Do you want to know what that prayer is?”
“What?” Elle asked, even though she was certain she didn’t want to know.
“Dear God, please don’t let today be the day he finally kills her.”
Once more her mother kissed her on the forehead and then hurried away before Elle could say another word.
Something turned in Elle’s heart, turned like a knob on a telescope. For the first time, Elle looked through the eyepiece of her mother’s heart, and now, this moment, the light had come into focus and Elle saw what her mother saw—a daughter she didn’t understand in love with a powerful, dangerous man twice her size who couldn’t make love to her without hurting her first. And every day she feared he would go too far and kill her only child. Every time her mother looked at Elle, that’s what she saw. For one second, Elle saw it, too.
“Behind the curtain,” Sister Aquinas said. “I’ll be right there.”
Dazed by her vision, Elle did as told, walking behind the curtain and sitting numbly on the hospital cot.
Sister Aquinas came around with a towel in her hand. She tossed it on the side table and put her hands on either side of Elle’s neck.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Oh...I’m fine,” Elle said.
“Are you sure about that? Your eyes are bloodshot. Are you on drugs?”
“Nothing illegal. I had some nausea.”
“Have you been vomiting?”
“A few times.”
“Are you pregnant?”
“Not since Monday night.”
Sister Aquinas blinked at her. But it was only one blink, one pause.
“Miscarriage?”
“No.”
“I see.” Sister Aquinas took a long breath. “Surgical or medical?”
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