I scrambled to my feet, while Mother continued to sit on the ground. The monk looked down at her. He had to be at least six-one or-two and had the lean, possessed look of an athlete, a swimmer perhaps, or a long-distance runner.
“Nelle?” he said. “Are you all right?”
He didn’t ask what we were doing sitting on the ground in the dark with a soup ladle, an empty Hellmann’s jar, and a fresh mound of dirt.
“I’m fine,” Mother told him. “I came to see the saint, that’s all.”
He pushed back the cowl from his head, smiling at her, such an easy, infectious smile, and I saw that his hair was dark and impeccably short.
He glanced at Mother’s bandaged hand. “I’m sorry about your injury. We prayed for you at mass.”
He turned toward me, and we stared at each other for several seconds. In the sharp light of the moon, I noticed that his eyes were pale blue and his face deeply tanned. There was an irresistible look of boyishness about him, but something else, too, that struck me as serious, intense.
“Brother Thomas,” he said, smiling again, and I felt an odd catch in my chest.
“I’m Nelle’s daughter,” I replied. “Jessie Sullivan.”
Later I would revisit that encounter again and again. I would tell myself that when I met him, all the dark little wicks in the cells of my body lifted up in the knowledge that here he was—the one you wait for, but I don’t know if that was really true, or if I only came to believe that it was. I’m sure I’ve burdened our first meeting with too much imagining. But I did feel that catch in my chest; I saw him, and something happened.
Mother struggled to get to her feet, and he offered her his hand, tugging her up, and didn’t let go until she had her balance.
“Who’s cooking your meals?” she asked him.
“Brother Timothy.”
“Oh, not him!” she exclaimed. “I think he’s a very good refectorian—he does a good job setting out the dishes and filling the milk pitchers—but he can’t cook.”
“Of course he can’t,” said Thomas. “That’s why the abbot chose him. He made a very mysterious casserole today. We’ve all been forced into a Lenten fast.”
Mother gave him a playful shove with her good hand, and I caught a glimpse of the affection the monks had for her. It surprised me. I’d thought of her as the nettlesome monastery mascot, but perhaps she was more to them than that.
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “I’ll be back in the kitchen in a few days.”
“No, you won’t,” I said, too abruptly. “It could take weeks for your hand to heal.” Her eyes flared at me.
Thomas said, “Weeks! We’ll all be starved by then. We’ll be sanctified and purified from fasting, but we’ll be completely emaciated.”
“I’ll bring Jessie with me,” Mother said. “She’ll help me do the cooking.”
“No, no, you take your time getting well,” he said to her. “I’m only teasing you.”
“We need to get back,” I muttered.
I followed them through the wrought-iron gate, down the path toward the house, Thomas holding Mother’s elbow, guiding her along. She was chattering to him. I held the jar and ladle in one hand and aimed the flashlight with the other.
He walked with us all the way to Nelle’s Gate. Mother paused before slipping through it. “Give me a blessing,” she said.
He looked unnerved by the request, and I thought, What an uncomfortable monk he is. He raised his right hand over her head and traced a clumsy cross in the air. It seemed to satisfy her, and she strode off across her yard toward the house.
I stepped through the gate and looked at him from the other side of the wall. It was made of brick and came to my waist.
“Thanks for walking back with us,” I said. “You didn’t have to.”
He smiled again, and the lines on either side of his mouth deepened. “It was no trouble. I was glad to.”
“You must be wondering what Mother and I were doing out there.” I set the jar and the dirt-crusted ladle on top of the wall, then put the flashlight down, too, pointing the stream of light off into the trees. I don’t know why I suddenly felt compelled to explain things, probably out of embarrassment.
“She wasn’t just visiting St. Senara. I found her on her knees beside the statue, trying to bury her finger in the dirt. She was so bent on doing it that I ended up digging the hole for her myself. I have no idea whether that was a good idea or not, whether I was helping her or making things worse.”
He shook his head a little. “I probably would’ve done the same thing if I’d found her there,” he said. “Do you think she was offering her finger to St. Senara?”
“To be honest, I don’t know anything anymore when it comes to my mother.”
He let his gaze settle on me, the same absorbing stare as before. “You know, a lot of us at the monastery feel like we should’ve seen what was coming. We’re with Nelle every single day, and not one of us had a clue she was so…”
I thought he was going to say crazy. Or demented.
“Desperate,” he said.
“‘Desperate’ is putting it mildly,” I told him.
“You’re right, I suppose it is. At any rate, we feel bad about it.”
There was a moment of silence when the chilled air rose up around us. I looked back for Mother. Yellow light poured out of the windows, drenching the air around the house. She had already climbed the back stairs and disappeared into the kitchen.
I realized I didn’t want to go inside. Arching my neck, I looked up at the sky, at the milky smear of stars, feeling a momentary sensation of floating, of becoming unmoored from my life. When I looked back down, I saw his strong, browned hands resting on the bricks inches from my own and wondered what it would feel like to touch them.
“Look, if you need anything, if we can help somehow, call us,” he said.
“You’re only a wall away,” I responded, and patted the bricks, trying to make a little joke, to ease how self-conscious I suddenly felt.
He laughed and pulled his cowl up over his head. His face disappeared into the dark pocket.
I gathered up the objects on the wall, turned quickly, and crossed the lawn, hurrying. Not looking back.