Then Came Heaven

by LaVyrle Spencer

  Although you children will probably wonder why, I have made a big change in my life and I am no longer a nun. I requested a dispensation of my vows from the Holy Father in Rome, and it came the day I left Browerville. I am now living with my mother and father on their farm and am hoping to go back to college in the fall to get my master’s degree.

  It’s good to be back with my family again, but I certainly do miss all of my students. Anne, I was so happy to get your letter, though I felt very sad to hear that you didn’t like school anymore. Next year will be better. Wait and see. You will be in Sister Mary Charles’s...

  (At this point in the letter Jean went back and started a new page, cutting out the mention of Sister Mary Charles next year.)

  This Sunday you will be making your First Communion, Anne, and I’m so proud of you. I shall think of you in your white dress and veil and say a prayer for you that day. I wish I could be there at Mass with you, as I know it will be a glorious day in your life.

  Lucy, I remember last year when you were one of the angels for the First Communicants. Next year it will be your turn to receive the sacraments for the first time, so you must study your catechism hard during the school year to prepare for it. Anne wrote that you received a 100 on one of your spelling tests. Good for you!

  Mr. Olczak, I remember with fondness your face appearing at my schoolroom door behind a long broom handle. You are a good and kind man, and I always admired how much patience you had with the children when they'd come right behind your broom or your dust cloth and mess up the school building again. I continue to pray for you and for the repose of Krystyna’s soul. I hope by now God has given you some solace in your life.

  It would please me very much to hear from all of you in the future so that I may know you are doing fine.

  God bless you all,

  Jean (Regina) Potlocki

  Eddie found the letter in his post-office box three weeks after Sister Regina left. It had been the longest, gloomiest three weeks of his life. He’d been in an agony of indecision about whether or not to try to find her, and he’d been a bear around the kids. But he had only to read her name on the outside of the envelope to feel his spirits soar. He tore the letter open right in front of the post office and stood on Main Street and read it two times. Then he reread the last two paragraphs three more times.

  One part stuck in his mind: it would please her to hear from him in the future!

  That night at suppertime, he read the letter aloud to the girls. When he finished, they stared at him agape.

  “She’s not a Sister anymore?” Anne exclaimed.

  “No, she’s not.”

  “But how can that be?”

  “Yeah, how can that be, Daddy? She’s Sister Regina.”

  “Well, as she said, she had to ask the Pope himself to sign a paper letting her be a regular person again.” He purposely avoided using the term set free.

  “But why did she quit? Didn’t she want to be our teacher anymore?” Lucy said, her young face showing disillusionment.

  “Honey, being a nun means much more than being a teacher. I’m sure there were other reasons she left.”

  “Like what?”

  “Honey, I can’t tell you that because I don’t know.”

  “You mean it’s like a secret?” Lucy asked.

  “Sort of, yes. Her secret. Her reasons are private.” Anne’s face looked troubled as she tried to puzzle it out. “But, Daddy, it’s... how come... I mean... I didn’t think they could do that. I thought they had to stay nuns for the rest of their lives.”

  “Well, when they start out that’s what they intend to do, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Just like... well, just like...” He couldn’t come up with an equation.

  Lucy asked, a little sheepishly, as if doubting it was okay to ask questions about a creature who was only one step lower than angels, “Doesn’t she get to wear her black dress anymore?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Or her veil neither?”

  “No. I suppose she dresses just like other women now.”

  “But...” Lucy cocked her head to one side and thought for a moment, then beckoned with a finger so he’d lean down. Into his ear she whispered, “But nuns don’t got no hair.”

  He hid his urge to laugh and asked, “How do you know?”

  Lucy shrugged protractedly in reply, her eyes skimming other things in the room than him.

  Anne spoke up again, more soberly than her sister. “Won’t we ever see her again, Daddy?”

  He thought, If I have my way, you will. But he decided it was best to answer, “I don’t know.”

  ________

  He counted the weeks since she’d left, cautioning himself that he must not rush. Three weeks and he got the letter. Another week and the children were out of school for the summer. Six weeks and the feast of Corpus Christi came and went. Seven weeks and the bare spots on the playground were beginning to fill in with grass. How long should a man stay away from a newly released ex-nun in order to keep her free from gossip? There was no protocol for this kind of thing. The minute he showed up at that farm, speculation would run rampant through her family and probably through the Catholic community as well.

  He waited two full months, and on July eighth, a Sunday, he finally ran out of patience. But he decided it would look better if he took the girls along.

  After church he asked them, trying to sound casual, “How about if we all take a ride this afternoon?”

  “Oh yeah! Where to, Daddy?”

  “Well, I thought we might go over and visit Sister Regina.”

  “Reeeally?”

  “Now, we don’t know for sure that she’ll be home. We’ll just drive over and take a chance.”

  He wasn’t sure who was more impatient to see her, himself or his kids. He went home and recombed his hair, and debated about what to wear. In the end, he stuck with the dress trousers and white shirt he’d worn to church, rolling his sleeves to the elbow but leaving his tie and jacket behind.

  The girls wanted to know how he knew where to find her, and he reminded them he’d given Sister a ride home at Christmas.

  Halfway there Anne asked him to stop the truck so she could pick some wild roses for Sister. Then she corrected herself and said, “...I mean, for Jean.”

  It sounded foreign to all of them.

  Three-fourths of the way there Lucy asked, all seriously, nearly whispering, “What if she doesn’t have hair, Daddy?”

  Less than a mile from her folks’ house he found himself with a stomachache so mighty that for a minute he thought he’d have to stop the truck.

  Horror of horrors, about a hundred yards from her folks’ farm he saw that they were having a family picnic. Cars and trucks all over the place, and tables out on the lawn beside the apple trees, and people stretched out on their backs in the shade, and standing in clusters visiting, and kids in shorts splashing in and out of a washtub full of water.

  Well, he couldn’t stop now. Nor could he drive on past. Every eye at that picnic would look up to identify who was rumbling by on their quiet country road. Besides, the girls would raise a stink.

  What could he do but pull into the driveway?

  ________

  He couldn’t identify her at first amongst all the strangers—too many people scattered over too much space. Some quit what they were doing and ambled over to see who it was as soon as the truck doors slammed. A horseshoe game stopped. Children stood in place and stared. Then a girl who was just getting ready to pitch a horseshoe looked over and saw the familiar truck and dropped the shoe on the ground at her feet. Waving exuberantly above her head, she hurried toward them.

  “Hello!” she called, smiling as she came. “Anne, Lucy...” She reached them and squeezed both of Anne’s hands, wild roses and all, then both of Lucy’s, leaving dirt on each of them. “What a surprise! My goodness, this is just wonderful!” Her smile was brilliant as she continued to grip Lucy’s hands, like a skater getting ready
to spin. “You’re both here. I’m so happy you’ve come!”

  The girls stared at her, mesmerized, trying to equate this woman with the nun they’d known. Her hair was the color of a peeled apple left out in the air, neither gold nor brown, cropped rather short and left to its own slight natural curl. At her temples the hair was damp with sweat and stuck together in little spears. She was wearing a wrinkled cotton dress of pink and white lattice design, and over it a soiled white apron. Her feet were bare.

  Eddie stared, too, and felt his throat knot and his face flush.

  Finally she dropped Lucy’s hands and centered herself before him. “And Mr. Olczak... how... how nice to see you again.” She spoke much quieter to him than to the girls, offering her hand more sedately. He gripped it as if to exchange a handshake, but it never quite developed into such. Just a squeeze while she smiled up and he tried to catch his breath and get his fill of the look of her so he could remember it later. Quickly she spun and called, “Look, Mama and Daddy, it’s Mr. Olczak! And he’s brought his girls!”

  Frank came over from the far end of the horseshoe court, and Bertha rose from a lawn chair, where she’d been visiting with some other ladies.

  Frank gave Eddie a firm handshake. “Well, hello again, Mr. Olczak. Nice to see you.”

  Bertha lingered a step farther away, reserving her smile and enthusiasm. “Hullo.” It was easier for her to be civil to the girls than to Eddie. “So these are the girls we been hearing about. Which one of you wrote that letter to Jean?” Anne raised her hand, keeping her elbow clamped to her side. “I did.”

  “Well, that was some nice letter. Made her real happy, don’t y’ know.”

  Jean interrupted. “Come and meet some of the others. This is my brother George, and my brother-in-law Curt, and my mama’s sister Bernice...” Eddie lost count of how many family members he shook hands with. One, with an especially warm smile and handshake, Jean introduced by prefacing, “...and this is my very special sister Liz. She’s closest to me in age.”

  Liz said quietly, “Hello, Eddie. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  She has? Eddie thought, but hadn’t time to dwell on it, because just then someone said, “Have you eaten? We got more fried chicken, haven’t we, Mother?” Then someone else said, “There’s beer in the watering tank by the well. How ’bout a beer, Mr. Olczak?”

  His kids stuck close and Jean paid them much more attention than she did him. She asked them if they were hungry and they both said no.

  “Well, how about a piece of cake?”

  They looked up at Eddie for permission, and he said, “It’s okay.”

  “Come with me,” Jean said, and took them off to a table in the apple shade where white dish towels kept the flies off the leftovers.

  The men occupied Eddie with talk after that, and he was taken down by the big galvanized watering tank, where a cold beer was plucked from the water and put in his hand. They talked about the crops, and Truman lowering the draft age, and all the Communists who were being indicted in America, and about how Frank and Bertha’s granary needed a new roof and they’d all get together and put it on in the fall after the crops were in.

  Eddie tipped up his chilled beer and tried to pretend interest in all the man-talk, but his attention kept wandering to Jean, across the yard, while she accepted the wilted roses from his children, lovingly put them in water, then fed the girls and eased them into the established society of her own nieces and nephews. He couldn’t take his eyes off her hair and shape. She had a waist now, like other women, and curves above and below, and legs that had a bit of suntan on them above her anklet line. And those bare feet! What a gol-dang surprise! Her face looked different, too, without all that stiff white starch around it. All in all, it was like looking at a different woman.

  In an extension of how she used to play with her students on the playground, she organized the whole tribe of youngsters into some running game, and only when Lucy and Anne were happily involved did she find a moment to glance over at him. Discovering him watching her, she dropped her gaze to the grass, then began slowly crossing the yard toward him.

  He wondered if he’d choke before she got there. It felt as if he might. She was careful not to act too anxious in front of her whole family. On her way past a table she grabbed a small empty glass, and reaching the group at the tank, said, “Could I have a little of your beer, Daddy?”

  While her father obliged, she washed her hands in the tank, never looking at Eddie, then used her skirt as a towel.

  “Thanks, Daddy,” she said, taking the jelly jar from Frank.

  Finally she turned her full attention on Eddie and asked, “Would you like to sit down and talk? I’d love to know how the girls are doing. Anne had her First Communion, and Lucy’s taking swimming lessons out at lake Charlotte, she tells me.”

  He didn’t think all the color in her cheeks was from the sun alone.

  “Sure,” he said, following her, studying her spice-colored hair from behind, trying to get used to the fact that she was now as approachable as other women.

  They sat on the grass in the shade of some birches, not far from where the children were playing and the women were talking gardening. She settled down Indian-style, tucking her feet beneath the latticed skirt of her dress, which now had patchy damp spots near the hem. They talked about his children, and Browerville, and the piano recital the last week of school, and she asked after all of his relatives, and if a permanent replacement had been found for her at the school.

  He sat at her left, facing the same direction as she. She wasn’t even looking at him when she remarked, quietly, “You’re staring at me.”

  “Oh!” He snapped his attention across the yard and felt his face flare. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. I guess I’ve come to expect it.”

  “Well, you do look different.”

  “Yes, I know. It takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?” He took a swallow of beer from his bottle and wondered just how casual he could get with her. He decided to tell her, “Lucy wanted to know what we’d do if you didn’t have hair.”

  She laughed and pulled a few blades of grass, then took a tiny sip from her glass.

  “Now, there you sit, and not only do you have hair, you’re drinking beer and going barefoot. Can you blame me for staring?”

  “No, but my mother is watching us.”

  He glanced toward the women, and sure enough, Bertha was doing exactly that, and scowling to boot.

  “Mama isn’t accepting all of this very well.”

  “How about your dad?”

  “Much better.”

  “And you?”

  “It’s... taking a while. I’ve lived in a convent of one sort or another for eleven years. Those are old habits to break.” He couldn’t resist studying her profile, whether her mother was watching or not. “At times I feel as if there’s really no place for me anymore.”

  “Are you sorry you quit?”

  “No,” she answered without pause. “But, you see, that was my home. That was my routine—and believe me, when you live in a convent your life is totally regulated by routine. But there’s something very soothing about it. No decisions, just follow the rules and life flows on. Now I don’t really have a routine anymore, or a home. I have my family, but I feel as if I’m here on sufferance.” “I’ll bet they don’t feel that way.”

  “No, I suppose they don’t. It’s just me. But it’s odd to be a full-grown woman moving back into your parents’ house.”

  He considered awhile, then said, “Your letter said you’re going back to school in the fall.”

  “I’d like to. If the money can be arranged.”

  “I thought you’d teach.”

  “They won’t let me, not in a Catholic school, and I’m not sure I want to teach in a public school.”

  “They won’t let you!” he exclaimed in surprise.

  “Bad influence, you see.”

  He bristled. “You? A bad influence? Who t
he hell makes decisions like that? Oh, sorry, Sister. I mean...”

  “Not on the students. On the other nuns.”

  “Oh, I get it. Some of them might decide to quit, too.”

  “Preservation of the Order, it’s called.”

  “Pardon me, but that’s stupid.”

  “It’s why there was so much secrecy surrounding my leaving. They didn’t even give me any notice. Mother Agnes just came into my schoolroom that day and said I should go over to the convent and pack my things and that my dad was coming for me.” She turned to meet his eyes. “I wanted to find you and—”

  “Hello. Mind if I join you?” They’d been so intent on their conversation they hadn’t seen Liz approaching. Eddie felt as if he’d jumped from a tree limb and caught his suspender on a branch. There he hung, suspended in midair with Jean’s emotions only half-revealed.

  She could do nothing but conjure up a smile for her sister and invite, “No, please... sit down.”

  Liz sat, bracing a hand on the grass and studying Eddie without pretending to do anything else. “So this is the man Jean talks about all the time.”

  Eddie and Jean both spoke at once.

  He said, “Oh, I doubt that.”

  She murmured, “Liz, please.”

  Liz’s eyes perked with interest as she watched them respond, then she added, conversationally, “I’ve been talking to your kids. They’re delightful.”

  With the dialogue turned to a safer subject the tension eased. Liz stayed, and they talked and talked, and Eddie saw what it was that made Liz Jean’s favorite sister. She asked questions, then listened attentively to the answers. You knew exactly where you stood with Liz because she didn’t play games with anyone’s emotions, including her own. She could praise herself and admit she was wrong with equal zealousness. Most important, she really loved Jean and wanted her to be happy, whatever it took.

  In time some other family members joined the group, and before he knew it, Eddie realized the afternoon was waning and he should start for home.