Back in the Habit

by Alice Loweecey

  “Text me.” Frank shifted into Park.

  “As soon as I know something.”

  He unbuckled his seat belt. “Finish soon, okay? I want you back in the office.”

  She smiled. “As a buffer between you and Sidney?”

  He grinned back. “There’s that. You have more patience with her than I do. But it’s not just that, it’s more like, well, I’m used to you around there now, and …”

  “Is this where you sing two verses of ‘I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face’?”

  He frowned. “That’s not what I mean.”

  She started to make a smart remark before she realized his face was closing in on hers. Both her hands came up between them. “What are you doing?”

  He stopped with his chest just touching her hands. She watched the progression of thoughts on his face until the conclusion clicked and he jerked back.

  “Sorry. Sorry, Giu—Sister.” The frown returned. “Forgot the boundaries. Won’t happen again.”

  Giulia suppressed a sigh. “It’s just the wrong place and wrong time.” Her eyes looked over his shoulder at the mother with three young children crossing the street in front of the car. The mother glanced into the windshield as they waited for a space in the traffic.

  Without another word, Frank exited his side and came around to open her door. “Have a pleasant afternoon, Sister.” He spoke to her, but his voice was pitched to be heard by the people around them on the sidewalk.

  “Thank you.” She didn’t offer to shake his hand or initiate any other physical contact. When she turned away, an older couple inclined their heads to her and she nodded back. Nuns are like cable TV: always on. What on earth was Frank thinking to get in “kiss” mode with me dressed like this? Talk about burning hot and cold.

  The wind knifed through her habit. She walked quickly—but decorously—up to the driveway. One hand held down her skirt in case it tried to imitate Marilyn Monroe’s in The Seven Year Itch. She scanned the Motherhouse windows as she came around the end of the wall. No one looking out of the fifth floor or the fourth; movement on the third near the bathroom; two faces in the corner parlor on the second.

  “Blow me into Fabian if it’ll make your narrow little lives happy, ladies,” she muttered. “She’d love another reason to chastise me in public. She would’ve flipped her veil if she’d known I was parked one hundred feet away in imminent danger of a kiss.”

  A car and a taxi passed her, the breeze fluttering her veil. Cold, she thought, and right on its heels, Camouflage.

  Abandoning decorum at the edge of the wall, Giulia ran. As the new arrivals piled out of the car and taxi with suitcases, she ducked between them with welcomes and hellos. The first one out rang the doorbell and as the same delighted nun checked names against her clipboard list, Giulia slipped out of the foyer—and bumped into Sister Arnulf.

  The little nun nodded at Giulia and blocked the path of the first Sister to make it through the arrival gauntlet. When Giulia saw Sister Arnulf’s “game face,” she ditched any idea of trying to communicate with her in this chaos and tried to disappear into the main hall.

  “Sister Regina Coelis, thank Heaven.” Sister Gretchen ran toward her. “Sister Fabian shanghaied my Novices, and all the flowers for tomorrow will arrive in fifteen minutes. Can I borrow you again?”

  “Sister Regina Coelis?” The fluting voice of the “welcoming committee”—in reality, just Sister Alphonsus—cut through the gabble in the foyer. “May I beg your help for these two retired Sisters?”

  “Argh,” Sister Gretchen said at Giulia’s ear.

  “Of course, Sister,” Giulia said. Over her shoulder, she whispered, “I’ll meet you in the back chapel hallway as soon as I can.”

  “Sister Emma is in 435 and Sister Joan is right below her in 335. You’re an angel.” She flipped two pages back over her clipboard and turned to the waiting group. “Now, Sisters, you’re down on the second floor at the far end. We’re rather short on guides right now, so if you don’t mind …”

  Giulia lifted both Sisters’ suitcases. “The elevator is right around this corner.”

  Eighteen

  Half an hour later, Giulia pushed open the doors to the back stairs. The empty silence in the stairwell was a relief.

  “Breathe. They’re just old. You’ll be old someday, shuffling your creaky legs forward six inches at a time, shouting because you’re going deaf.”

  Her shoes made small taps on the plastic runners, the echoes dying when she reached the thin carpet on the treads to the first floor. Blasts of fall air puffed under the door. She clenched her teeth and pushed against the force of the wind.

  A delivery man came through the propped-open garden doors carrying a box of mixed carnations. Sister Gretchen stood in the hall before three other boxes, talking to an invoice.

  “Two dozen white mums, eighteen areca palm leaves, six bunches stargazer lilies, three dozen carnations—oh, good, pink and red, perfect for the stargazers.”

  “Everything okay, Sister?” The delivery man stood by the doors, hands in the pockets of his “Sunday Flowers” jacket.

  “Yes, thank you—oh, did you bring the blocks of floral foam?”

  “Yes, Sister, there’s five of them in the box with the lilies.”

  “Oh, okay, I see them. Thank you very much.”

  “Sure thing, Sister. Want me to close these doors for you?”

  She nodded, already ripping through the masking tape criss-crossed over the protective cellophane. Giulia walked up and tapped her on the shoulder.

  “What would you like me to do first?”

  “Vases, thank you, on the shelves in the first cupboard. The biggest one, and four of the medium-sized ones. Into the vestry by the sink.”

  Giulia lugged the smaller ones two at a time, the big one last. Sister Gretchen followed with the palm leaves and lilies.

  “You’ve put together flower arrangements before, haven’t you?”

  “I have, but only for regular Sunday Mass.” Giulia loosened the carnations from their bunches. “I would’ve thought Sisters Edwen and Epiphania did the arranging.”

  Sister Gretchen shook her head. “They can’t do the lifting anymore. Sister Epiphania’s got Parkinson’s now, too. Her hands shake too much for this delicate work.” She brought out florist’s scissors and made fresh cuts on the lily stems. “Sister Charlotte and I are familiar with the look Sister Fabian expects for the chapel tomorrow. Charlotte’s helping her Postulants finish the table centerpieces for tomorrow, so I said I’d take care of the flowers.”

  Giulia set the green foam bricks in the vases and secured them with florist’s tape. “A backdrop of palm leaves in all of them?”

  “Yes, three each in the four smaller ones. Use the bigger ones for them and save the five narrowest for the central piece.”

  “Right. Got them. Is there another pair of scissors?”

  “In the drawer next to the sink.”

  Snipping sounds filled the vestry for a few minutes.

  “Sister Regina, I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a question.”

  “Of course not.”

  “What made you leave and return?” Sister Gretchen crinkled the cellophane from the mums into a noisy ball and pushed it to the side.

  “It’s a little complicated.”

  “We have time.” She turned toward Giulia, scissors in one hand and a puffy mum the color of new snow in the other. “I’m not just asking out of idle curiosity. Well, maybe a little curiosity,” she smiled, “but also because so many of the Sisters are giving up the life. I worry about my Novices.”

  “This won’t be complimentary. Are you okay with that?”

  Sister Gretchen glanced over her shoulder at the open doorway to the sanctuary. “I am, but we should keep our voices down. You
probably remember all the eager ears in this place.”

  Giulia snorted. “Yeah. Anyway. Did you reach the point when you were so busy that you realized you hadn’t prayed a prayer or contemplated in silence for years?”

  The scissors in the Novice Mistress’ hands snipped a mum stem so hard the end bounced off Giulia’s veil.

  “Sorry.” She picked it up. “Yes, two years ago. I was shepherding an intelligent loner through the discernment process. You know.”

  “I do. I was that intelligent loner once.”

  A pause. “I’m sorry you’re still bitter about it.”

  “I’m not bitter about myself. One of the reasons I was assigned to schools at the farthest places we staff was my refusal to ‘shepherd.’ ” She ripped a long piece of floral tape and secured a block of foam inside a smaller vase.

  “Ah. Well, my mother passed away just after that young lady started her Postulancy. When I cleaned out my mother’s apartment after the funeral, I discovered a scrapbook she’d kept of my life.” She stuck palm leaves in one of Giulia’s prepared vases. “Like this, at the back—start with one in the center and overlap the other two. The scrapbook was full of embarrassing childhood pictures and sweet memories.”

  Giulia adjusted palms.

  “Twenty pages at the end of the book were dedicated to my years in the Community. Pictures of my Investiture, my temporary vows, my final vows. I looked so happy.”

  “We all did. It was a rush. We belonged to a very exclusive club.” She placed more palms.

  “Those look good. Now alternate carnations and mums in a ratio of three to one.” She demonstrated with the vase in front of herself. “This florist always gives us the best. I haven’t seen a limp flower from them, ever. You may think those photos of me all young and giddy were the trigger, but they weren’t. It was the rest of the scrapbook. There were newspaper clippings of me with my students at science fairs, at graduations. The kids looked young and giddy, but every year I looked older and bitterer. Is that a word?”

  Giulia smiled. “Not technically. How’s this?” She stepped back from the flowers.

  “All right …” Sister Gretchen reversed the position of the mums and the carnations on the left-hand side. “Use one bunch of three stargazers, and make the display symmetrical. Sister Fabian is a stickler for symmetry.”

  “We aim to please.” Giulia eyeballed the first stem’s placement.

  “Back to the scrapbook. I stared at myself on page after page and saw an old, angry woman—and I was only forty-three. This wasn’t what I’d signed up for. I talked to my spiritual advisor and ended up taking a sabbatical.” She nodded at Giulia’s finished display. “That’s good. Can you do two more just like it?”

  “Sure.” Giulia ripped a length of green tape. “My advisor suggested a sabbatical, but it wasn’t what I needed.”

  “The opposite was true for me. I spent that summer in my mother’s apartment, attending Mass, working in a soup kitchen, reading in an independent bookstore that just happened to make wonderful smoothies.” She finished one of the smaller displays and prepared the foam for the large central one. “By the middle of August, I’d gained six pounds and realized that my life without the Community was incomplete. Darn, this mum has a bent stem. Low in the front with you.”

  “I’m glad you found your place.”

  “It wasn’t easy, but you must have had a much more difficult time.”

  Giulia placed the lilies in her second vase. “The paperwork would make even a government official weep.”

  “You still seem—if you’ll pardon me—a little uncomfortable with Community life.”

  “I was gone for just over a year. It’s a big readjustment.”

  “And I’m sure this controlled chaos isn’t helping. Hmm. Two pink carnations on the right and three on the left. This won’t fly.”

  “I have an extra pink. Trade you for a red.”

  “Deal. Sister Bartholomew tells me that Sister Fabian is paying extra attention to you.” She bent sideways and whispered, “My sympathy.”

  Giulia laughed. “If patience cancels out venial sins, my ‘Get into Heaven’ account is in the black.”

  Sister Gretchen chuckled. “I witnessed the smackdown this morning. She has a long memory, you know.”

  “It is what it is. I freely admit to having trouble with obedience, then and now.” A lily flopped forward. “Do we have any wire?”

  “In the hall cupboard above the vase shelf.”

  Giulia fingertip-clawed down a small bundle on a shelf two inches too high for her. Cold air whistled through the garden doors at her back. She kicked aside the edge of the rubber-backed runner and dragged the door closed against the wind. When she knelt to straighten the runner, a small orange pill rolled out from beneath its corner.

  Looks like one of those orange-coated low-dose aspirins. Edwen or Epiphania dropped it, I bet.

  She brought it in with her and showed it to Sister Gretchen. “Do you know if this is someone’s prescription? I thought it was a low-dose aspirin, but now that I see it closer, I’m not sure.” She turned it over in her hand.

  “I’ve seen one before down here.” She took it from Giulia. “On second thought, I’ve seen one like it but a different color. This might be one of Edwen’s heart pills.”

  “I’ll give it to her later.” Giulia pocketed the little pill and unrolled a length of wire.

  Sister Gretchen said, “Have I thanked you for all the help you’ve been for my Novices?”

  “You have. It’s selfishness on my part: I like to be useful.”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard about poor Sister Bridget. Putting everything else aside, Sisters Bartholomew and Vivian are doing thirty-three percent more work this week.” She leaned stiff-armed on the counter. “That sounded callous. Truth be told, I’ve put Sister Bridget’s suicide in a locked room in my head for now. Sister Vivian’s working through some issues, and she doesn’t trust me enough to talk freely about them. The merger’s been difficult on the Novices and Postulants.” She shook herself and added another mum. “Are you putting your there-and-back-again in a locked room and using work as camouflage?”

  “For now.”

  “Sometimes it’s the only choice, as long as it’s temporary. That’s what I’m telling myself.” She plucked a bent leaf. “Your turn. What made you hang up the habit last year?”

  Giulia added the last mum to her third vase. “I woke up one day and I was empty. Like one of those hollow chocolate rabbits at Easter.”

  “Try moving that mum a little to the right, behind the striped carnations. All of a sudden?”

  “No, of course not. When I traced it back, I realized it had been building for about two years.” She reached for the lilies. “Part of it was the same as yours: constantly busy and never taking proper time to pray. It’s so easy to keep busy.”

  “Trade me the lily in your hand for this one, would you? Yours is taller.” She made a face at the arrangement and adjusted a carnation. “I’m training the Novices not to fall into that trap. If you chose the world over the emptiness, why did you come back?”

  Giulia finished placing the lilies and looked over all three vases. “This is where I can do the most good. I realized it’s not all about me.”

  “I may use you as an object lesson soon. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Heh. No, I don’t mind. Do the four small ones look similar enough to pass the Fabian test?”

  “Ssh.” She glanced backwards. “Walls. Ears.”

  “I didn’t miss that part of it at all.”

  Sister Gretchen stepped backward and surveyed the arrangements. “Ditto. If I believed in karma, I’d say being appointed Novice Mistress was punishment for my sins in a past life. Not training the girls; living here. Can you fan that palm leaf on the far left o
ut so it overlaps the one next to it?” She did the same for the vase on the far right. “I remind myself daily to be charitable because I’m setting an example for the girls. Some days it’s harder than others.”

  “I used to say that I’d rather get run over by a semi than end up here in my old age, sniping and spying and complaining about the food.”

  “Especially the coffee. I think these will pass inspection. The watering can is underneath the sink, but we’ll avoid hernias if we carry them out dry.”

  Giulia brought one vase to the Blessed Mother statue. It nestled into a pre-cut groove in the marble platform at her feet. She did the same for the statue of Saint Joseph while Sister Gretchen placed the other two on low tables on either side of the top step. Together they hefted the large central vase and set it on a matching table before the altar.

  Giulia filled the watering can seven times to soak the dense blocks of floral foam in all five vases. Together she and Sister Gretchen walked down to the tenth pew to get the full effect.

  “Should we turn the flowers by Mary and Joseph inward so everyone can see them better?”

  “God forbid.” Sister Gretchen whispered. “We’ll have Sister Fabian on one side and Sisters Edwen and Epiphania on the other lecturing us about symmetry and the proper respect to the Saints.”

  In the vestry again as Giulia swept leaves and stem ends into the trash, Sister Gretchen flattened the boxes and slid them onto the shelves below the counter.

  “How long are you staying?”

  “I’ve been assigned to a school in South Dakota, so just till Friday. Assuming I don’t clock Mary Stephen over the head with one of these vases and get kicked out.”

  Sister Gretchen choked so violently that Giulia thumped her on the back several times before the fit subsided.

  “I’m sorry, but that fight in the vestibule was worthy of a daytime tell-all show. All it lacked was the both of you throwing chairs at each other.” She ran water into her hands and slurped it. “I gather you two have a history?”