33
Three days later Mother Superior Celestine came up to Sister Katherine on the playground of the school. “Your mother’s parole officer called a little while ago, and I took the liberty of speaking with him. You know how much interest I’ve felt in your mother’s case—even though I’ve never met her.”
Sister Katherine did her best to smile. “Thank you, Reverend Mother. What did he say?”
“Your mother is in a severe depression. She has missed three days at work, and also her scheduled meeting with him. That is a very bad course for your mother to take, dear. She evidently wants to see you, she evidently needs to see you very badly. I think that you ought to go to see her this afternoon, Sister Katherine.”
“I have—”
“Your duties will be reassigned. There’s a bus at eleven-thirty, and I’ll have Sister Prudentia drive you to the station.”
In the bottom of the book bag that Sister Katherine took with her on the bus were the clothes that she had purchased at Morgan Memorial; but today she felt that she must visit her mother in truth. In her present state, Anne Dolan might not even hesitate to get on the bus to Hingham.
Anne Dolan was happy indeed to see her daughter, and Sister Katherine was as affectionate as she could be—until she discovered that her mother’s story to the parole officer had been a lie.
“Oh, Kathy, I didn’t know what to do! I knew you weren’t coming back for two weeks, and that seemed like such a long time! So this morning, when it was time for my meeting with Mr. Jameson, I called him up and told him how bad I felt and how much I needed to see you. I told him I had missed three days at work, but really I hadn’t. I can’t afford to miss work, no matter what happens. I’m sorry, Kathy, but I just had to see you! You don’t know how much your visits mean to me.”
“Ma,” said Sister Katherine calmly, “if you ever do anything like this again, I will apply for a transfer. I’ll get transferred to Oregon or Taiwan or somewhere like that—and you will never see me again. Do you understand that?”
“No! I just wanted to see you. It didn’t matter—”
“Your parole officer called the convent. Mother Superior Celestine had to drop everything to talk to him, then she had to come find me on the playground. Sister Prudentia had to skip a class so that she could drive me to the bus station. Sister Birgitta had to take over my classes this afternoon, and that kept her from going to see her mother in the nursing home. You see the trouble you caused?”
“I didn’t know, Kathy, I just thought—”
“You didn’t think, Ma. You never think of anybody but yourself. Now listen, I don’t intend to be your nursemaid. I’m always willing to come and see you, and come and visit you whenever I can get away from the convent. But I have my own life now—and my life is in the convent. I’ve devoted myself to God. I’m the bride of Christ. You seem to think I’m still a little girl and we all live happily ever after on Medford Street. Well Daddy’s dead, and you’re an ex-offender, and I’m a nun: things just aren’t the same any more. You’re different and I’m different, and you’re trying to treat me like things were just the same as they always were!”
“No I’m not, I—”
“Ma!” cried Sister Katherine. “You’re not listening to me. Listen to me! You’ve got to leave me alone!”
Yet Katherine knew that remonstration was useless. Anne Dolan, so long as she had breath in her body, would be her curse and bane.
On Christmas Eve Katherine again found herself in her mother’s small rented room in East Cambridge. The window blinds were up, and beyond the glass a light snow was falling. In each window Anne Dolan had suspended wreaths of long-needle pine encrusted with red-sprayed cones. A large paper pop-up crèche rested on the table. Arranged round the nativity scene were a number of small packages done up in brown paper and bright ribbons—gifts of homemade jams and jellies, fruitcake, nuts, and sweet bread, prepared for Anne Dolan by Sisters Henrica and Prudentia. A larger package contained a shawl of white virgin wool knitted by Reverend Mother Celestine herself. She had even embellished one corner with three ornate crosses representing the Crucifixion.
In her canvas book bag Katherine had two gifts for her mother. One was wrapped in shiny blue foil with a white bow; it had been purchased at the last minute at the small Christmas shop run by the sisters in the recreational hall of the Church of St. Luke. The second was a bottle of sweet berry wine made in the kitchen of St. Luke’s—Sister Prudentia’s special recipe. It was wrapped in bright red foil with a green bow round the neck. Into the bottle Katherine had poured enough rat poison to kill every inhabitant of her mother’s rooming house.
Katherine apologized to her mother for her sharpness the previous week, and Anne Dolan waved away that apology in embarrassment. “Oh, Kathy, of course you were right, I guess. I’m just an old woman now, and I can’t expect you to take care of me. I guess I just keep thinking about things, and how I’d like them to be, that’s all. And you know, I’ve never been alone before, never in my life, like I’m alone now. I lived at home, and then I married Jim, then you came along. Even at Framingham, I was never alone. But now I am, and it’s hard . . .”
She was sitting in an armchair she’d raked close to the table. Katherine sat stiffly in a high-backed wooden chair only inches from her. Anne Dolan kept one bony hand dangling against her daughter’s robes. For the occasion she had tied a red velvet ribbon in her hair and attached a sprig of vibrant green plastic holly to the breast of her brown sweater. There was a chill in the room, and Anne Dolan held the collar of the sweater closed with her other hand. When once it fell open, Katherine saw to her astonishment that her mother was wearing the red-beaded rosary as if it were a necklace, with the heavy silver crucifix resting against her breast.
Katherine had advised her mother to wait until Christmas to open the gifts, but Anne Dolan protested, “I’ll be all alone tomorrow, what would be the fun in that?!” As her mother slowly unwrapped each present, Katherine told who it was from and promised that she would relay her mother’s gratitude. Katherine prepared instant coffee and brought plates for the cake, and slowly ate as her mother arranged the gifts in a little arc on the table. She had already wrapped the shawl round her shoulders.
“I’ve saved yours for last,” she said.
“Well, Ma, the shawl is the nicest. Mine’s not nearly so nice.”
“Yes, but it’s from you, and that’s what matters.” She pulled over Katherine’s gift and slowly unwrapped it. Inside the box, wrapped in tissue, was a hand carved crèche of wood and ivory. Anne Dolan moved her chair so that the meager light from the window fell full upon it. “Oh, it’s so beautiful, Kathy! Did the sisters make it?”
“It’s from Germany, Ma. It’s all done by hand . . . But when I got it I didn’t know you already had one,” she said, indicating the paper scene on the table before them.
Anne Dolan frowned. “Oh that!” she said disdainfully. “That’s just nothing. I got that from the store. I just took it home with me one day.”
“You stole it!” cried Sister Katherine, amazed.
“No,” said Anne Dolan wonderingly. “I just brought it home. Like all the other ladies there do.”
“Ma—”
Anne Dolan took up the paper crèche and tore it in half. She dropped the pieces on the floor with the discarded paper and ribbon. The carved manger took its place on the table.
“You remember that big manger scene your grandma used to have on top of the TV set every year? That was nice, but it wasn’t as nice as this one. I miss Mama sometimes. You know, the only time I got to leave Framingham was to go to her funeral. She wrote to me once. She said she heard I was in prison, and she wanted to know what I had done. I never wrote back. I miss her sometimes. I miss Jim, too. You know, when I’m at the register, I can see the Necco building out the front window. So when I’m at the regi
ster, I think of Jim all day long. He was so good to us! Kathy, didn’t you say you had two presents for me?”
“No, Ma,” replied Katherine after a moment, “there was just the manger.”
Anne Dolan begged another Christmas gift that her daughter was reluctant to bestow: she wanted to visit her husband’s grave. Katherine pointed to the increasing snow; she thought the cemetery might not be open on Christmas Eve; they had no way of getting there easily—but Anne Dolan pressed, and Katherine gave in. She would be able to tell Reverend Mother Celestine that she had at last persuaded her mother to visit James Dolan’s grave.
They travelled to the cemetery by taxi and, once there, had to ask a caretaker to locate the plot for them. There was no marker—the burial policy money had run out just at that point—and only a slight sinking in the blanket of snow indicated that it was in fact a grave. Anne Dolan began to sob. She took the rosary from around her neck and ran the beads through her fingers. After three decats she dropped to her knees in the snow.
“Ma, get up!” hissed Katherine, heartily embarrassed despite the fact that they were alone. “You’ll catch pneumonia down there!” Katherine gripped her mother’s thin forearm and pulled her to her feet.
“Poor Jim!” she cried. “Kathy, you should say your beads too!”
“We’ll find a church, Ma. Where it’s warm and dry.”
Katherine tugged her mother away. Anne’s low heels slipped in the snow and she flung out her arm to maintain balance. The rosary flew from her fingers and dropped in the snow near her husband’s grave. She jerked away from her daughter and stumbled toward the rosary. She fell onto her side, and, trying to raise herself, she only rolled over onto James Dolan’s little sinking plot.
She didn’t even try to get up, but only turned her weeping face into the snow.
Sister Katherine stooped, grasped her mother’s arms, and lifted her up. “Ma,” she said quietly, “this is why I didn’t want us to come. Look what you’ve done: you’ve got snow all over Mother Celestine’s shawl.”
“My rosary!” she sobbed. “That’s the rosary you gave me!”
Sister Katherine retrieved the rosary and placed it in her mother’s hands. She readjusted the shawl about Anne Dolan’s shoulders. Unmindful of the wet ground, she knelt and brushed the snow from her mother’s legs and shoes. Then, holding her arm tightly, she led her from the cemetery.
When they returned to Anne’s room, Katherine took out the bottle of wine and placed it on the mantelpiece. “Sister Prudentia made it, Ma. She said you shouldn’t worry about how much you drink, because it’s not really alcoholic at all. I like it a lot.”
That evening, an hour after dinner, Reverend Mother Celestine called Katherine to her office. There was a little fire of birch in the hearth, and the only other illumination in the room was the antique lamp on Mother Celestine’s desk. Dim firelight played shadows about Katherine when she entered the room. When Mother Celestine requested that she take the chair nearest the desk, Katherine declined and stepped just to the edge of the pool of light cast by the green-shaded lamp. Her face was mostly obscured by the changing shadows. Her wimple, and that of the superior across from her, were made a pale, crackling orange by the fitful light of the fire.
Mother Celestine rose from her armchair and moved to stand in the bay of the window. Her expression was deeply troubled. She laid one hand lightly against a pane of cold glass and stared distractedly into the chill night as she spoke.
“Sister Katherine,” she began, “your life, since you came to us, and even before, has been full of unhappiness . . .”
“But I’ve never been as happy as I am now, Reverend Mother, now that my final vows are so near. And,” Katherine added, “now that my mother has been able to begin her new life.”
Mother Celestine turned from the window to face the young nun, said nothing for a long moment, and then stepped into the perimeter of green light. Katherine became increasingly uneasy. Mother Celestine rested the tips of her fingers on the desk; Katherine could see the sorrow in her eyes.
“Oh, Sister Katherine . . . my poor child.” Mother Celestine’s voice was no more than a whisper. “I would give anything on earth not to have to—” She drew in her breath: “Your mother is dead, and she died by her own hand.”
The fire crackled and hissed in the steely silence that fell between them. Katherine drew her hands up slowly and closed them, fist into palm, before her. She said nothing, but waited for Mother Celestine to continue.
“It happened this evening, probably no more than an hour after you left her.”
Katherine drew further back into the shadow. She turned toward the low fire, away from Mother Celestine. It was necessary to hide the relief that flooded her: at last she was entirely free.
Mother Celestine came round the desk and stood behind Katherine. She placed her hands firmly on the young woman’s shoulders. Katherine lowered her chin and said in a low voice, “How? How did she do it?”
“Not now, child.”
“Please, Mother, I ought to know. Ma—”
“She hanged herself—with the shawl that you gave her this afternoon.”
“What!” cried Katherine. “She hanged herself?”
Mother Celestine nodded, and when she spoke, her voice broke. “I’m so sorry, Sister Katherine.” Her hands closed tighter over Katherine’s shoulders.
Katherine went to the fire; she bent forward and stared into it. With her cupped hand, she covered the smile that would have betrayed her.
The next day Katherine returned to her mother’s room. She bundled all Anne Dolan’s clothing and meager effects into the bed cover, placed them on the doorstep of the building, and called for the Salvation Army to pick them up. The poisoned wine was poured down the sink, and the bottle deposited in the trash can on the neighboring playground.
34
Sitting at the small table in her room, Katherine unlatched her diary and turned to a blank page. She’d removed her veil and wimple and run her fingers through her short blond hair, massaging the nape of her neck and bowing her back slightly as she stretched. Tension seemed always to be with her lately, and now a headache throbbed dully behind her eyes. She wrote:
When I think about the Ultimate Sacrifice that Christ made upon the Cross of Calvary, I am filled with a sadness so great it can’t be measured. This sadness doesn’t leave room enough for grief over Ma’s death. We are told that this is the way it should be, but the sisters look at me strangely, and think it is strange that I’m not crying because Ma is dead. I can’t cry, I try to think of Ma and pray for her, but I end up thinking about Christ on the Calvary Cross—and that’s the way it should be. When I came in this order I left the world behind. That’s what I’d like to tell the sisters: I’ve left the world behind.
No announcement had been made of the death by suicide of Katherine’s mother, but all the convent knew of it. Katherine felt herself constantly observed; and the attention was disconcerting and wholly unwelcome. The eyes that fell upon her were sympathetic and genuinely sorrowful, but Katherine wanted only to be ignored. She dreaded to find herself alone with a sister, for then the other nun would invariably take the opportunity to speak a word of consolation; Katherine was ever at a loss for a response to this kindness. She looked away, she thanked the sister, and she moved quickly on. It was thought that Sister Katherine was grief-stricken over her mother’s grisly and unholy death. Her plight had provided hushed conversation over the preparation of meals, in minutes before bedtime, while a hundred different duties were carried out in the convent and the church.
Katherine felt no sorrow. Her apparent unhappiness was the result of the attention that was paid to her because of her bereavement. For Katherine, the death of Anne Dolan had but a single meaning: it was liberation. That her mother had died truly by her own hand and not Katherine’s was an unmistaka
ble sign of God’s favor. Katherine saw a parallel with the story of Abraham and Isaac: she had been willing to sacrifice her mother in order to obey God more perfectly, but at the very last, the sacrifice had not been required of her. Katherine had not yet found opportunity to dispose of her street clothes, but the certainty that she would never again have to employ them in deceit was a distinct relief. Her past lay where pasts should lie: far behind her—it no longer encroached on her present contentments. Now that Anne Dolan was dead, there was no one to preserve the memory of Katherine Dolan. Now there was only Sister Katherine of the Order of the Slaves of the Immaculate Conception.
After the autopsy had been performed on Anne Dolan’s body, it was released for burial. James Dolan’s burial policy through Necco would have covered the expenses of Katherine’s mother’s funeral, but because of her suicide, Anne Dolan could not be buried in a Roman Catholic cemetery. Katherine refused to claim the body. Reverend Mother Celestine had gently suggested that Katherine find a Protestant or municipal cemetery, which had no directives against those who took their own lives, but Katherine said that she would accept humbly the teaching of the church in this matter. Katherine signed a certificate donating her mother’s body for medical research. There would be no funeral to attend, no grave to visit.
And why should she attend the funeral or visit the grave of a woman who had not loved her, and who was, after all, not her real mother? Anne Dolan hadn’t loved Katherine, she had only needed her. Her real mother had died on the night she was born; her real mother had died just hours after giving birth to twins.
The following day Katherine volunteered to help scrub the tiled floors on the convent’s kitchen. She was granted permission by Sister Lazarus, whose duty was to organize work details, and so Katherine spent the hours after luncheon on her knees, alongside Sisters Philomena and Alfred. The floors of the convent were scrubbed twice a week, the work devolving either by rotation or penance. Grime was painstakingly scraped from between the small squares of quarry tile until the mortar shone; the baseboards met the floor in a clean, straight line. The sisters used buckets, small wire brushes, and putty knives. It was neither easy work nor happy, but to Katherine it was preferable to remaining silent and alone in her chamber. With her sleeves pinned up to the elbows and a large denim apron protecting her habit, Katherine crawled along the outside wall and chanted prayers in time with Sisters Philomena and Alfred. Singing and conversation were forbidden when performing work that was deliberately menial.
Blood Rubies Page 25