“Hearing nuns’ confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.”
—Fulton J. Sheen, Catholic bishop, author, and television host
The upshot to having a weakness for retro fashion was that Quinn already had the perfect outfit for dining with a superfluity of Anglican nuns. It was another midi dress, this one in celadon blue, with a most charming Peter Pan collar. There were tiny fleurs-de-lis embroidered along the trim of the cream-colored fabric, which only served to complement her gold cross stud earrings.
When Quinn knocked on their door, one of the nuns answered, conducting a slow perusal, a hint of a smirk curling at the corner of her mouth.
“Nice touch with the cross earrings. The purse is even better, although Maria von Trapp was Catholic, but that’s just being petty now, isn’t it?”
She was talking about the book purse Quinn had in hand, another in her growing collection: an upcycled copy of The Sound of Music. Artist Melissa Mason—Etsy shop owner extraordinaire of Viva Las Vixens—had turned the hardcover book into a purse, this time with a short, carved bamboo handle.
Quinn was standing on the stoop where, just a few days before, Detective Harrington had carted away former police officer Wyatt Reynolds in cuffs. The difference in circumstances was jarring.
The nun’s small, dark eyes and sharp bone structure only added to the severity of the first impression she gave. “I am Sister Theresa.”
Quinn opened her mouth to introduce herself, but she was cut off.
“Oh, no need. I already know who you are.” She stepped back, holding the doorknob in hand. “This way, girl.”
As Sister Theresa allowed her to step into the foyer, Quinn marveled at how everything was in order, as if nothing had happened. The only remnants were the two bullets holes in the wall plaster.
“Follow me,” the nun said, closing the front door and proceeding down the hall. “I see you have a gift under your arm. If it’s not something all of us can enjoy, the Reverend Mother will give it back. She takes her vow of poverty quite seriously, as do we all.”
Chill, sister, I’ve got this. That’s what she wanted to say, but Quinn didn’t have the cojones to execute her usual sass. Daria had been telling her for the last couple of years that the nuns of her order didn’t suffer fools—or sarcasm—but it was still something else, witnessing it for herself.
“The gift is something to share,” Quinn told her, wondering where the sister was taking her. They had already passed the dining room. “Is Sister Daria around?”
Sister Theresa half-glanced over her shoulder, stopping at a closed door at the end of the hall. She knocked.
“It is open,” a voice called.
The sister placed her hand on the knob before turning to face Quinn. “The Reverend Mother will see you now.” Sister Theresa opened the door but stepped aside so Quinn could enter. As soon as she did, the door closed.
And there she was—a kind, weathered visage and warm, hazel eyes with bushy eyebrows that had gone gray before the rest of the hair on her head. With her rounded belly and drooping earlobes hanging low, she reminded Quinn more of the Buddha than the head of a Catholic order.
She waved Quinn into the room. “Come in! Come in! So good of you to come on such short notice.” She gestured toward the chair. “Please, sit down.”
The Reverend Mother was already seated in one of those old recliners that looked like it had been swiped right off the set of the TV show All in the Family. She had a small, cherry-wood side table next to her, covered with well-worn books, next to which was red wine in a simple glass. The room had wall-to-wall shelves, teeming with old books, the kind found in archive collections and libraries. Even though Quinn was well aware that the smell of old books emanated from lignin, a chemical utilized in cheaply produced paper since the 1840s, Quinn didn’t care: she still thought the smell was divine—and she helped herself to inhaling deeply.
“You’re like me,” the Reverend Mother said, chuckling.
“Really? In what way?”
“You are madly and deeply in love with books. I can’t get enough of them. I imagine it’s the same for you?”
“It is.” Quinn wanted to read each and every title, badly, but perusing books wasn’t why she had been invited, or perhaps summoned.
The Reverend Mother sported an impish grin, her eyes twinkling with amusement. She motioned again to the chair opposite her. “Sit. Please. I promise, I won’t bite.”
Quinn took the gift from under her arm and handed it over. “This is for you—and the order. You can share it is what I mean.” She sat down, smoothing her skirt down with the palms of her hands.
“Thank you.”
She wasn’t a delicate woman: meaty hands, a wide face, broad shoulders. But she had intelligent eyes and brisk, deliberate movements. Quinn had the impression nothing about the Reverend Mother was frivolous or haphazard.
As Quinn watched her, a small smile formed. “I like how you rip through the paper. Not being fussy about it, I mean.”
The Reverend Mother nodded, stopping mid-rip. “I quite agree. It’s more fun this way. Of course, when I was growing up, in a blighted town in the middle of nowhere that I’ve never missed, someone would’ve slapped my hands for being so wasteful.” She pushed the memory aside with a shake of her head. “I was so poor when I joined the order, I thought I was already in heaven: three squares a day, clothes and shoes replaced as soon as they wore out, clean water …” She sighed. “Pure heaven.”
Quinn stilled. “I can’t imagine. Where did you grow up?”
“Bill Clinton grew up in a place called Hope, Arkansas. I grew up twenty miles away in a town called Despair.”
She righted in her chair, mouth agape. “Really?”
Her eyes glittered. “Yes to Arkansas, but no, my town wasn’t called Despair. Old joke. Might as well have been, though.”
Quinn relaxed. “Oh, you almost had me there.”
“I know,” she chortled. “Now, let’s see what we have here. I need my reading glasses.” She reached into an inside chair pocket and retrieved them.
Quinn didn’t wait for the Reverend Mother to fully open the gift before explaining. “It’s a rare American first edition of Dorothy Sayer’s The Mind of the Maker. It’s not worth as much as, let’s say, a British first edition, but that’s not the point really. Her publisher, Bloomsbury Press, issued a handful of these. It’s a fine-condition, calf-skinned leather with marbled end papers, blind-stamped decorations, and gildings. I hope you enjoy it.”
The Reverend Mother had put on her reading glasses and was leafing through the book, letting the gold edges of the pages fan through her fingers. “What a delightful gift. Unnecessary, but appreciated.”
Quinn’s shoulders dropped. “You’re welcome. It’s my pleasure.”
She picked up her glass of red wine. “Please, help yourself. There’s one for you right there.”
Sure enough, Quinn gazed to her left, and there was a full glass waiting for her on a matching side table. She picked it up, holding it between her hands. The room was a bit warm, and she wondered if they had the air-conditioning on. The glass felt cool on her skin.
“Should we have a toast?”
Quinn hunched her shoulders up. “You lead the way.”
The Reverend Mother raised her glass. “Dignitas amicorum pie zeses vivas!” She leaned forward to clink.
Quinn held back her glass. “Wait—what does that mean?”
Her lips quirked. “I like that. Demonstrates you have your own mind and you’re not just toasting to appease an old woman.” She gave a little wink. “It means ‘Worthy among your friends. Drink so you may live, and may you live on.’”
“Well, that’s quite lovely.” She clinked her glass with the Reverend Mother’s, then had a tiny taste, surprised by a burst of berries, vanilla, and lavender flooding her senses. “Whoa, this is really good.”
“It’s a 2016 Chateau des Annibals.”
Quinn blushed. “I don’t know anything about wine except it’s probably not good to drink it from a box.”
“Don’t knock the box. A bad enough day sometimes requires a big box of wine.”
Quinn let out a soft laugh. “That’s true.”
“Over Christmas, people want to share in the joy of the holiday spirit—and want to ensure that we do too. In other words, we are gifted copious amounts of wine.” She took another sip. “I encourage it, of course. When you’ve given up money, sex, bearing children, and free will, it is important to savor the few allotted comforts.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Quinn allowed herself another couple of mouthfuls before putting her glass down. “I want to thank you for the invitation to join you tonight, but I have to admit, I’m curious as to why I’m here.”
Someone knocked on the door.
“Hold that thought.” The Reverend Mother put down her glass. “Come in!”
It was Sister Theresa again. “Everything’s ready. Dinner is served.”
The Mother clapped. “Wonderful!” After a couple of tries, she hoisted herself out of her chair, shooing Quinn away when she reached over, trying to help. “No, thank you, my dear. I’m only seventy-eight. My predecessor, Sister Angelina, lived to be one hundred and three, most of it with her wits intact and her joints as spry as an eighty-year-old’s. I plan on meeting that challenge.” She wove her arm through Quinn’s, leading her toward the dining room. “Before she died, I asked her the secret to such longevity. Can you guess what she answered?”
“I’m thinking a deal with the devil would be the wrong thing to say here.”
The Reverend Mother threw her head back and laughed. “That’s a good one. I’ll have to remember that one for the next retreat.” She patted Quinn’s hand. “Sister Daria did mention you shared her wicked sense of humor.”
Even though the dining room wasn’t far, the Reverend Mother moved at a snail’s pace. “Sister Angelina credited two hours spent daily in prayer and meditation, an hour walk each day—rain or shine—and thirty minutes, at a minimum, playing with the newborn puppies. Quite a delightful prescription, if you ask me.”
When they arrived in the dining room, the nuns were already standing by their chairs, including Daria, who was positioned next to the head of the table, which had been held for the Reverend Mother. There was a vacant seat on the other side of the Mother’s chair.
A woman of God flanked by Caine women. She imagined her uncle would have a field day over such an occasion.
Uncle Jerry would also get a kick out of her cousin being a quiet, anxious wreck. Quinn offered an encouraging smile, but she could tell it didn’t penetrate.
They all sat down at the same time, and then the Reverend Mother led grace.
“This is quite a feast.” Quinn dolloped a serving of morel mushrooms on top of a heaping pile of mashed potatoes. That was before the roast chicken made its way onto her plate. It smelled decadent—not as good as her mama’s, but tasty-delish nonetheless.
“Do y’all always eat like this every night? If so, you need to get the word out—hashtag grace and grub, on the house.”
“As if we want to court that kind of aggravation,” Sister Theresa muttered.
The Reverend Mother swallowed the bite in her mouth. “Oh, I almost forgot! Do you know everyone here?”
Quinn scanned the table. “Mostly.”
“Ah, well, everyone introduce yourselves.”
A tiny lady next to Daria offered an enthusiastic wave and a toothy smile. “Okay, I’ll start … Oh! Reverend Mother, may I start?”
The Mother waved a hand in the nun’s direction. “Yes, yes, of course …”
The sister answered with a series of seal-like claps. “Oh good! Well, hi, I’m Sister Cecilia, but everyone calls me Sister Ceci. I run the adoption program, and I’m a novitiate, just like your cousin. In fact, we’re roomies! Isn’t that great? Of course, she asked me not to speak before five AM, which is fair when you think about it—”
The Reverend Mother cleared her throat. “Remember, brevity is the soul of wit and, may I add, courtesy.”
Sister Ceci’s large, rounded brown eyes widened. “Oh! Yes!” She looked apologetic. “Sorry.”
The nun next to her offered a shy smile. “Hello, I’m Sister Lucy. I’m finishing veterinary school, and when I’m not in school, I help with all the dogs’ medical needs. I help choose which dogs make the best candidates for either the police K9 units or for the assisted disabled program.” Sister Lucy smiled but had trouble meeting Quinn’s eyes. “I’m, um, much more of an animal than a people person.”
This nun couldn’t be more different from the last.
“I loathe small talk too,” Quinn offered.
Sister Theresa flapped her hand to get her attention. “We’ve met already, girl. No need for a whole conversation. I do all the cooking and shopping and laundry. I’m like the wife around here. Next.”
“I can see what Daria was talking about. You are ‘the charming one.’”
Oh nooo, did I just say that out loud?
The room went dead silent, and her cousin’s face grew even paler, if that were possible. Quinn dared not move, not breathe … until Sister Theresa burst out laughing.
“That’s good. ‘The charming one’! I like that.” With her elbow leaning on the table, she pointed at Quinn with her fork in hand. “I think I may actually like you.”
Quinn offered a weak grin. “Um … thanks?”
A cherubic brunette was next. “I’m Sister Agnes Elizabeth. I run the kennels. Thanks for the dog food. It’s a big help.”
“You’re welcome.”
The only sister left was the one sitting to Quinn’s right. She had warm olive skin and startling pale green eyes.
“And last, but never least, I am Sister Margarita. I do whatever needs to be done. We welcome you here.”
“We also want to thank you,” the Reverend Mother chimed in, cutting into her chicken. “God bless you and Rueger. Without your quick thinking, our Sister Daria might not be here with us now, with barely a scratch.”
“Praise God!”
“Cheers to Quinn!
It was her turn to shake off the compliments. “No need to thank me. Rueger did all the hard work.”
“That’s true,” Sister Theresa threw in. “But he doesn’t have your table manners, so he can’t be here tonight.” The others chuckled and she laughed at her own joke. “See? Charming!”
Most everyone commenced eating, and so did Quinn until she realized the Reverend Mother had stopped. She seemed to be assessing, the wheels turning behind her eyes.
Quinn swallowed her food, placing her fork and knife down. “Is everything all right, Reverend Mother?”
She gave a slight nod, her gaze volleying between Quinn and the others at the table. “As you can tell from everyone’s description of what they do, each of us plays a vital role in the running of this order. No one is more important than another, which means every individual is crucial to the whole.”
“I think Karl Marx said the same thing about Mother Russia.”
Crap. I really shouldn’t drink wine on an empty stomach.
Daria kicked her under the table. Hard.
“Ow! That was unnecessary.” Quinn rubbed her shin.
Her cousin glared and pleaded in one look. “Quinn, I’d hardly compare our order to the Communist Party.”
Reverend Mother wasn’t bothered in the slightest. “Actually, your cousin makes an apt comparison. There’s a compelling argument to be made. Both require officiants to consider the needs of the collective over their own, to eschew a life of luxury and privilege, to surrender their own will in service to others. Your cousin is a thinker. I appreciate such qualities, especially in young people.”
Quinn gave a tight smile. It was affirming that the Reverend Mother thought her wine-soaked brain was, at the very least, entertaining, but it was obvious she had upset her cousin, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.
“I appreciate your kind words, but Daria is right: I was out of line. I use humor as a coping mechanism. Really inappropriate humor.”
Sister Daria’s shoulders dropped, her demeanor relaxed.
But the Reverend Mother had a different reaction. With elbows resting on the arms of her chair and the fingertips of both hands meeting in an inverted “V,” she seemed to be turning something around in her mind.
“Your cousin is more like a sister to you, from what I’m told. We are also her sisters. Different, but the same. As her family, we want what is best for her. Agreed?”
Quinn nodded. “Of course.”
With a soft touch, she tapped both forefingers together in a steady rhythm. “Sister Daria is trying to balance her new life with her old one, admittedly a challenge I myself didn’t have to face. You see, back in my day, we didn’t have such an option. When a novitiate took her vows, she left her family of origin behind, only granted permission to visit maybe once a year. Less often if she lived far away. Letters were allowed, of course, but phone calls were a luxury.”
Quinn couldn’t even begin to imagine the hardship of being cut off from her family. Even when she was across the world, assigned to towns with only the most basic of necessities, they wrote letters, sent emails, even Skyped once a week. And even with the conveniences modern technology afforded her, she still remembered many, many times going to bed aching for home.
The Reverend Mother wasn’t done. “When I regard Sister Daria, I see a life on the edge of a precipice. Sway too much one way or the other, and each side suffers. The balance is lost, and so is the novitiate.”
The tension in the air thickened. The few who were still eating stopped. Quinn felt a droplet of sweat roll heavily down the back of her neck.
“When Sister Daria first came to us, my inclination was to refuse her. So many red flags signaling to me: a broken heart unable to heal, her cousin far away, a youth spent rebelling for the sake of rebellion, unfocused in her professional life. But I took a chance, and not because our numbers are diminishing, which they are. I decided to put my faith in her the way the Father bestows His Grace upon us: unproven, unearned, yet so needed. Like Him, I saw a young woman”—she turned to Daria—“I saw you, Sister, a brilliant, compassionate, angry, lonely soul, thirsting to share exactly who she is with this world. I wanted to give that to you, and that’s what we’ve tried to do here at Guinefort House.”
Her cousin’s hand covered the Reverend Mother’s. “You did—you have! I’m so grateful to be here.”
The Reverend Mother patted Daria’s hand in reassurance. “I know, dear. But your cousin and your family are not happy you’re here. That is understandable. Many dreams they had for you are dying, just as many you have for yourself are blooming.”
Everyone turned to stare at Quinn.
What the heck was she supposed to do now?
There were two ways to handle the situation at hand. Either she could play dumb, or at least innocent, saying what they all wanted to hear, that whatever made her cousin happy would be enough for her. Or she could tell the truth, finally share all the questions and doubts she’d harbored ever since she’d received that first letter while in Cambodia.
She locked eyes with her cousin. “It did seem to come out of nowhere. I mean, before I left, I could probably count on two hands the number of times you went to church.”
Daria’s cheeks reddened. “All right. That’s fair. What other questions have you been holding onto?”
Quinn glanced around. All eyes were on her.
“Well, since you asked … whatever happened with you and Raj?”
Her cousin bristled. “You know what happened.”
“Actually, no, I don’t,” Quinn countered. “You two were together for, what, three years? He was practically a member of the family. And then you show up solo, two hours late to my going-away party, talking about how the two of you decided it ‘just wasn’t working out.’ That was it. No more discussion. No deeper explanation. And every time anyone tried to bring it up, you’d walk out of the room.”
Her cousin folded her arms tightly across her chest. “Actually, that sounds like a really good idea right about now.”
“See?” Quinn tossed her hands up in exasperation. “You keep running away. It’s like you don’t trust me or something, which, I’ve got to say, hurts.”
The veins in Daria’s neck pulsed. “What? Like you tell me everything going on with you?”
Quinn’s head jerked. “What do I have going on that you don’t know about? It’s not like I have a life!”
Whoa, that felt strange to say that out loud.
But Daria wasn’t hearing her. Not really. “How about your decision to go teach across the world? We were supposed to get an apartment in the city that summer, but you bailed. Why? To teach English? If you wanted to truly help disenfranchised children you could have accomplished that in Southeast D.C., South Arlington—you didn’t need to leave everything behind and go to the other side of the globe!”
Holy cow, she’d had no idea her cousin was this angry.
“You’re right, I could have, but I wanted an adventure. Can’t you understand that?”
Daria’s eyes gentled from anger to sorrow. “Of course, I understand, and this, here, is my adventure. More than that, it’s my calling.”
She didn’t believe her. “If that’s true, how come I hardly hear you talk about the work you do here? I think you spend more time with me than you do at the abbey.”
Daria huffed. “Because you came back! I’ve wanted to enjoy my cousin and best friend finally being home!”
Quinn had gotten so caught up in their “discussion,” she had forgotten they had an audience. She shrank back. “Reverend Mother, Sisters, I apologize for airing all this ugliness at your table. I’ve been a horrible dinner guest.”
Daria grumbled. “That’s for sure.”
The Reverend Mother raised a hand. “We are her family, and you are her family. We broke bread together, and we share the contents of our hearts and minds together. Like Sister Theresa, I too abhor ‘small talk.’”
“As usual, you are being too kind, Reverend Mother.” Daria laid her palms flat on the table, taking a deep breath. “Quinn, I know you think you’re looking out for me, but you have disrespected me and this house. I think it’s best you leave.”
Quinn’s mouth gaped. “You’re kicking me out?”
“If you want to phrase it that way, then so be it.” Daria stood, clearing her plate and utensils. “Maybe this relationship isn’t as healthy as I thought it was.”
Her ears started ringing and her throat tightened. Quinn felt like someone was breaking up with her. Actually, it was worse.
“Y-you can’t mean that.”
“I do.” Daria’s eyes blazed anger, pain, determination. “Go, Quinn. And don’t come back unless you can support my decision.”