On Saturday I drove to St. Stephen’s. It was nearly two weeks since I had had my talk with Mother Joseph, and now I had to tell her both that she had been right and that the twins were gone. I had once entertained the idea of getting the three of them together, since Joseph was so largely responsible for the twins’ reunion, but so soon it was too late.
I arrived at two, a quiet afternoon in summer. A novice walked across the grass near where I parked, her head down, her arms crossed, her hands tucked into her sleeves. Her life at St. Stephen’s lay ahead of her. Today I knew that mine was behind me.
I went to the Mother House, saying hello to Grace, who was on bells. She called upstairs to tell Joseph I was coming.
The room looked exactly as it had at the time of my last visit. I was almost sure the same papers were atop the same piles on the long table. Joseph’s office was like the constancy of the church. It irritates sometimes, but it can always be relied on.
She had coffee for us in one of those silvery pitchers that keep things warm, and she poured it into two rather lovely china cups. Then I told her the story.
I thought at times that I was dragging it out, prolonging it with too much detail, but each time I tried to rush through something, she slowed me down. I was in tears when I finished, and she came around the table and patted my back.
“Have you ever seen our view of the river?” she asked, her hand resting on my back.
“The legend of St. Stephen’s?” I said, patting my eyes with a tissue. “Only in my dreams.”
She opened the door to her closet and pushed back a raincoat and a couple of empty hangers. Then she said, “Follow me,” and walked right into the closet.
It was fairly deep and lined with shelves behind the bar that held the hangers. On the shelves were paper, paper clips, ink, and other office supplies. At the rear of the closet was another door. Joseph pulled it open and passed through.
Following her, I came to a narrow set of stone stairs along the outside wall of the building. It was a long flight—her office had a very high ceiling, which I had taken to be; directly underneath the roof—and at the top was a door. Joseph pushed it open and we entered a small room under the eaves with a floor of unfinished pine boards and walls of stone. Inset in the stone were two deep grooves that looked like gun emplacements in old forts.
I walked over to one and peered through it, and sure enough, there it was, the mighty Hudson in all its glory.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, something I could not have said six months ago. “It’s true then.”
Joseph was smiling. “Great truths sometimes become great myths. Not many people have come up here. You’re probably one of the few who wasn’t a superior. But since you turned one myth into truth, I thought you deserved to see another.”
“Thank you.”
“Well deserved,” Joseph said.