Changing Habits

by Debbie Macomber

  “I need help,” Father Doyle shouted, struggling to keep the other priest upright with one arm around his waist. Father Sanders, who outweighed Father Doyle by a good fifty pounds, was leaning heavily against him. Drunk, he seemed incapable of walking.

  Kathleen hurriedly wrapped her arm around him from the other side, and using her shoulder for leverage, offered him as much support as she could.

  “Mrs. O’Malley, put on coffee,” Father Doyle shouted as they carefully made their way up the back steps. At the top, Father Sanders turned to get a look at his rescuers. Kathleen gasped as he nearly sent all three of them crashing backward. She was convinced the angels must have prevented the fall, because there was no other explanation.

  “Mrs. O’Malley’s…gone for the day.” Father Sanders badly slurred his words.

  “Gone?”

  He laughed as though this had been a brilliant idea. “I gave her the day off.”

  Kathleen could guess why. “I’ll make the coffee,” she said, once they were safely inside and away from prying eyes.

  The younger priest pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and with Kathleen’s help managed to lower Father Sanders onto it.

  Once he was settled, Kathleen started opening and closing cupboards until she located the coffee grounds. In a few minutes she had a pot brewing. No one spoke and the silence seemed to expand in the large kitchen.

  When the coffee was ready, Kathleen poured Father Sanders his first mug. She set it in front of him. He stared at it as if he didn’t know what to do with it. His eyes were rheumy, with deep pockets beneath. He looked lost and sad and frightened.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered brokenly after he’d finished the coffee. He couldn’t look at Kathleen as she refilled the mug.

  “I know, Father.” And she did. When her uncle Patrick gave in to his weakness for drink, he was regretful and melancholy for long days afterward.

  “Did you hurt anyone?” Father Doyle asked.

  Silence returned as Kathleen and Father Doyle awaited his reply.

  Father Sanders buried his face in his hands. “Just me.” He wept openly into his palms. “Forgive me, forgive me,” he pleaded.

  Father Doyle was suspiciously silent.

  “It won’t happen again,” Father Sanders vowed. Lowering his hands, the older priest lifted his head and large tears rolled unrestrained down his cheeks. “Never again. I swear it, never again. I’ve hit rock bottom, and God as my witness, I don’t want to go back there.”

  “You’ve said this before,” Father Doyle told him.

  “I know,” the older priest sobbed piteously. “I do. I’ll never touch another drop. This time I’m serious. I swear by everything holy that I’ll never drink again.”

  Father Doyle’s eyes met Kathleen’s and she could tell that he badly wanted to believe the priest. “This is the end,” he said finally.

  “The end. Yes. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Then Father Sanders started to weep in earnest.

  Standing with her back against the counter, Kathleen found herself fighting tears. This was hard, so hard. Father Doyle had a terrible decision to make. He should probably bring the matter to Bishop Schmidt; Father Sanders’s drinking today—and his subsequent behavior—was out of control. But the older priest sounded sincere and repentant. And they both liked him, wanted him to succeed.

  She was glad she wasn’t the one making the decision.

  19

  SISTER ANGELINA

  Thursday night after school, Angie wrote her father a long newsy letter, telling him about the new habits. Ever since her Health class had learned she was Italian, Angie’s head had been full of childhood memories. In the convent you weren’t Italian or French or American; nationality was ignored. All nuns were considered children of God who’d come to dedicate their lives to His service.

  As she wrote, Angie brooded on what had happened this afternoon. Her Health class had gone poorly. The discussion had gotten out of hand and Angie blamed herself for the resulting chaos as she’d lost control of the class.

  She sat at the table and stared down at the letter, realizing that she’d always turned to her father when she was bothered by something. It was a childhood habit. He rarely answered her letters, though. He had a good command of the English language, but his writing skills were poor and it embarrassed him that he had such trouble spelling.

  Even though he didn’t write, she felt his love. He’d never recovered from the disappointment of losing her to God. He discounted her happiness and still insisted that she’d made a mistake in entering the convent. She wondered if he worked as many hours at the restaurant as he had while she was growing up and what he thought of all this election fuss. It seemed to her Nixon would surely beat McGovern, but she was no judge of that. The nuns always voted Democrat.

  “You’re looking thoughtful, Sister,” Joanna said, sitting in the chair across from her. She pulled out her cross-stitch—of a stylized sailboat—and carefully worked on one of the sails. It was a Christmas gift for her brother and his wife, she’d told Angie.

  Angie set her fountain pen aside. She wasn’t aware that she was so transparent. “We discussed birth control in class this afternoon. I did a poor job of explaining the Church’s position.” In retrospect, she wished she’d invited Sister Joanna to come as a guest speaker. As a nurse, Joanna would have presented the information in a manner that was far more enlightening than her own awkward approach.

  Sister Joanna’s gaze briefly left the fabric. “That’s not a subject I’d want to discuss with teenagers, especially these days.”

  So much for that idea! The more she thought about this afternoon, the worse Angie felt. If she had more knowledge of male-female relationships, more experience, it would help, but she’d dated so little and when it came to sex she knew even less.

  “When I was a teenager, sex was something that simply wasn’t discussed,” Sister Joanna said, concentrating on her cross-stitch.

  “I feel so inadequate talking to my students about anything having to do with it,” Angie murmured. “But it isn’t like I can avoid talking about birth control when we’re ordered to discuss it.” Sister Superior was adamant that all Health classes hear what the Church had to say on the controversial subject. Corinne’s insistence on answers complicated everything; she wanted to know what other forms of birth control worked if the pill was forbidden. Angie didn’t feel she should even mention the rhythm method, the form of birth control acceptable to the Church, to teenagers who shouldn’t be engaging in sex in the first place.

  “The girls giving birth seem to be getting younger and younger, too.” Sister Joanna put down her cross-stitch project and leaned back in her chair. “Dr. Murray assisted Dr. Nelson with a cesarean on a fifteen-year-old who was having twins. At fifteen! It’s hard to believe a fourteen-year-old girl would be sexually active.”

  At that age, Angie was listening to records and the radio and laughing on the phone with her girlfriends. The thought of having sex so young—and dealing with diapers and bottles—was beyond the scope of her imagination.

  “What did you tell your class?” Sister Joanna asked.

  “Well…” Angie mulled over the question. “I said the same things Sister told us.”

  “That the pill is against God and nature?”

  Angie nodded. “I thought it was important my students understand that the medical community doesn’t know what effect the pill will have on a woman twenty years down the road.”

  “Personally I think what the Church is most worried about is that the pill will promote promiscuity.”

  Angie looked around to make sure no one was listening. “I think a few of the girls might already be…active with their boyfriends.” She had her suspicions, especially concerning Corinne.

  “That wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “It does me,” Angie cried. “They’re so young, and they have their whole lives ahead of them.”

  “Don’t you remember this age?” Sister Jo
anna asked. “Everything was so urgent. So crucial. I was constantly afraid that life was going to pass me by. My biggest fear was that I wasn’t going to experience any of it.”

  Angie shook her head. “I didn’t feel that way. My father and I were close. I knew that no matter what happened, he’d be there for me.” A childhood friend who lived on the same street came to mind. Maria Croce. Angie hadn’t thought about Maria in years. Her friend was constantly afraid her house would catch fire. There’d been a fire down the block and although the family escaped, the dog had died. From that point forward, Maria lived in constant fear of a house fire. Angie never gave the possibility a second thought because she knew nothing would prevent her father from rescuing her. He would walk through flames to save her, and she knew it. With that kind of love and security, Angie hadn’t felt the same sense of urgency about life that Joanna had.

  “Frankly, my class didn’t want to hear the Church’s opinion on birth control,” Angie continued, thinking back.

  Corinne was the worst offender; in fact, she had openly scoffed. “One girl,” Angie murmured, “said she didn’t think it was any of the Church’s business whether or not a woman practiced birth control.”

  “More and more women feel that way,” Joanna said as she resumed her cross-stitch.

  Angie couldn’t get the class out of her mind. Especially Corinne. The girl was quick to state her opinion and often critical of others when they disagreed. Rarely, though, did anyone take offense.

  Corinne seemed to revel in being outrageous, but beneath all the show was a good heart. Angie usually enjoyed their talks and looked forward to the days Corinne hung around after class so they could visit.

  Today hadn’t been one of those days. Corinne couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. Sure enough, when Angie looked out the window to the school parking lot, she recognized Jimmy’s car.

  Corinne ran across the lot and threw herself inside as if she’d been waiting for this moment all day. Angie couldn’t tell exactly what was happening in the car, which didn’t leave for several minutes. She guessed Corinne hadn’t been sharing the quadratic formula with her boyfriend.

  “You said you thought a few of your students are sexually active,” Sister Joanna said. “Is this something you feel comfortable talking to them about? Privately, of course.”

  Angie’s eyes widened with dismay. Her talk about sex? She didn’t even know how to approach the subject. And what could she possibly have to say about it?

  Sister Joanna glanced up, looked at Angie and then started to laugh. “God is the one who created sex, you know.”

  “Not to talk about.” Angie was sure of that.

  “Just discuss it with them the same way your mother talked to you,” she advised.

  “My mother died when I was five. My father’s the one who explained the birds and the bees.”

  “Your dad?” Sister Joanna lowered the cross-stitch to her lap.

  “Dad told me everything. He got books from the library, drew me a picture and explained the way a woman’s body works.”

  “He wasn’t embarrassed?”

  At the time Angie had been so caught up in what he was telling her that she couldn’t remember. “I don’t think so.”

  “But you are?”

  She nodded. After years of living in a convent, in which every aspect of her femininity had been ignored, Angie could no more discuss the matter of physical intimacy than she could perform brain surgery.

  “It might be a good idea if you did talk to these girls, Sister.”

  Angie marveled at Sister Joanna. She seemed to believe such a discussion should come naturally—and for her, it probably would.

  “I…couldn’t.”

  “I didn’t think I could put a needle into someone’s arm, but I learned,” Joanna said briskly. “We do what we have to. Your students respect you, and I’m sure they’d welcome the opportunity to speak freely with you.”

  Angie rested her spine against the back of the chair as she considered talking to Corinne about such a deeply personal subject.

  “They’d feel safe with you, I think,” Sister Joanna went on. “For one thing, you aren’t their mother.”

  “Wouldn’t they worry about me judging them?”

  “You’re not like that and they know it.”

  Maybe she could talk to some of the girls, Angie mused. Maybe she could have a frank and honest discussion with Corinne, just like her father had with her when she was a teenager.

  20

  SISTER JOANNA

  Singing with the choir at Sunday morning Masses had never been Joanna’s favorite task. Music wasn’t her gift and she struggled to stay on key, but Sister Martha insisted Joanna’s talent or lack of it didn’t concern her. All the choir director needed that Sunday was another voice. It didn’t matter that Joanna’s undisciplined singing drifted between alto and second soprano, sometimes within the same musical bar.

  Her attention drifted too as she sat through the eight, nine and now the ten o’clock Mass. Father Sanders had said the eight and nine o’clock Masses but he’d been replaced by Father Doyle for the ten o’clock.

  Sitting at the organ, Sister Martha played the multi-tiered keyboard, and the church echoed with the crescendoing tones. Joanna raised the hymnal and joined her fellow nuns in song as Father Doyle entered from the back of the church with a small procession of altar boys. The first carried the six-foot-tall crucifix, with two of the younger boys behind him, followed by Father Doyle, who held a large Bible.

  Joanna was more impressed with the younger priest than ever. His sermons focused on the importance of God in the contemporary world, and he wasn’t afraid of difficult concepts, which he tried to explain in clear and relevant ways. Granted, his delivery was a bit dry and sometimes faltering, but he was improving every week. Not long ago he’d quoted the lyrics to a popular song Joanna remembered from her own teenage years. To know Him is to love Him.

  The priest’s words had stayed with her, and she knew they had with others, too. To take something as simple as the lyrics of a familiar song and to use that as the basis for a sermon on God’s unconditional love struck her as divinely inspired. The tune ran through her mind for days and she knew she’d never think of it the same way again.

  Sister Kathleen had casually mentioned how helpful the younger priest had been to her, too. Joanna worried about her friend, who was burdened with the task of sorting out the church books. It seemed to be weighing heavily on her, although she never complained.

  As Father Doyle approached the altar for the beginning of the ten o’clock Mass, Joanna noted that the church was far more crowded than it had been for the previous two. Father Doyle was becoming popular with the parishioners; she hoped that wouldn’t cause problems for him with Father Sanders. Joanna quickly rejected that thought. Father Sanders was such a friendly, likeable priest, she doubted he’d care one way or the other.

  As the organ music faded, Joanna saw a lone male figure move up the side aisle, searching for space at the end of a pew. If she didn’t know better, she would’ve thought it was Dr. Murray, although of course it couldn’t be.

  She peered closer, or tried to without being obvious. The man, whoever he was, certainly resembled the doctor, she decided absently. Their gait was similar and—

  It was Dr. Murray.

  Once he’d found a seat, he turned around and glanced over his shoulder. She gazed down at his face. Dr. Murray, the lapsed Catholic who’d emphatically stated that he had no intention of attending Mass again, was in church.

  At first Joanna was dumbstruck, and then so excited she nearly dropped her hymnal. Dr. Murray had actually come to Mass! This was what she’d been praying for since their first conversation, what she’d wanted more than anything. He had been listening to her, had felt her concern for him. He’d come back to church!

  The rest of the hour passed in a blur. She couldn’t remember what she sang, or even if she did. Nor did she recall more than two words of the s
ermon, or climbing down the stairs with the other nuns when it came time to receive Communion.

  The minute Mass was over, Joanna set aside the hymnal and hurried down the stairs, hoping to catch Dr. Murray before he left. Unfortunately, she was caught in the crowd of parishioners as they exited. For one frantic moment, it was impossible for Joanna to move.

  People stopped to greet her and Joanna couldn’t be rude. She smiled and remarked how good it was to see them, then quickly excused herself in an effort to find Dr. Murray.

  Once outside, she paused at the top of the church steps, certain she’d missed him. Disappointment flooded her as she scanned the crowd and didn’t see him.

  “Looking for someone?” the familiar deep-throated voice asked from behind her.

  “Dr. Murray!” Joanna whirled around and breathlessly placed a hand over her pounding heart. She stared up and smiled at him, so pleased that for a moment she couldn’t speak. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  He looked different without his hospital whites. Good. Better than any man had a right to look. So handsome it was a sin for her to even notice—yet she couldn’t help herself.

  “I figured you’d be at this Mass,” he said.

  “I was at the eight and nine o’clock Masses, too.”

  “I thought we Catholics were only required to attend one a week.”

  “You are, unless you’re singing in the choir. Sister Martha needed an extra voice and—” She stopped, wanting to kick herself for rambling. “What made you decide to come to Mass?” She blurted out the question without even a hint of finesse.

  His expression mildly uncomfortable, Dr. Murray shrugged. “I don’t know. I woke up, there weren’t any emergencies and I decided what the hell, why not? I kept thinking about you praying for me and it seemed the least I could do.” He grinned. “By way of thanks, I mean.”

  Apparently he hadn’t been on any Saturday-night dates, which pleased her even more.

  Then, because she wasn’t sure what to say next, she asked, “Have you met Father Doyle?”