Sister Scholastica opened the timeworn wooden box, and counted the number of white and black balls inside each labeled slot, one slot for each postulant, while Pip wrote down the tally next to each name. This year’s class of ten was the largest they’d had in ages, and so far, they’d all been accepted.
Voted to the Council the prior year, Pip was the youngest current member. Ironically, she’d been elected to take one of the slots vacated by Sister Beatrice. That rancor had not abated at all over the years, though Pip had long ago stopped caring.
“Why agonize over what you can’t change?” Sister Nicola had asked her years ago. “She’s the one who has to live with whatever poison is inside her. Don’t let it poison you.”
This annual task, that of the community voting whether to admit the postulants to the Novitiate and the second-year novices to their simple vows, was her least favorite. Thus far in her time on the Council, she’d witnessed three candidates being told they’d been judged unfit to continue at St. Bridget’s. It made her heart ache, but she also agreed those three weren’t suited for contemplative life. She was grateful for Sister Thomasina’s gentle way of breaking the news to them, suggesting perhaps another order might be a better fit. Mother Benedicta had made a wise choice in keeping Sister Thomasina on as prioress.
“This way,” she’d said to the Council, “I can be the bad guy and Sister Thomasina can soothe the hurt feelings.”
Mother Benedicta had shepherded the monastery through some turbulent times. Though the political and social upheaval of the 60s and 70s had calmed down, there’d been new pressures to modernize the abbey, become more open to the nuns taking on outside work, revisit the call to go to an abbreviated version of the Office. She had staunchly defended the monastic traditions, “and kept us on our path,” the older nuns had said with a collective sigh of relief.
Sister Scholastica had been a steady voice for keeping to their traditions, even advocating for going back to strict fasting on Fridays all year-round, and cost-cutting measures such as keeping the furnace off later into the winter. “We’re supposed to lead a life of deprivation, not luxury!” she’d declared.
“I hardly think starving ourselves and catching pneumonia on top of it will enhance our spiritual lives,” Mother Benedicta had countered.
When the votes were tallied for both the postulants and the novices, the Council gathered. Sister Thomasina took over, congratulating nine of the ten, and consoling the one who would not be going on. Silently, Pip watched the young woman’s eyes narrow, not in an attempt to stem heartbroken tears, but in anger. And that, she thought, is why you got twelve black balls.
The novices all sailed through, but with just the same jangled nerves that Pip recalled sympathetically. When Sister Thomasina adjourned them, the Council stood to go.
“Sister Theodora,” Mother Benedicta said, “would you stay for a moment, please?”
Pip suddenly felt as nervous as if the community were voting on her again. She sat back down. Sister Thomasina also stayed. A few of the Council cast curious glances in their direction, but Mother waited until they’d left and closed the door.
“Sister,” Mother began, “you may have heard that Sister Constance has had some health issues.”
“Nothing serious, I hope,” Pip said. The entire community loved Sister Constance, who was one of the kindest women Pip had ever known.
“Serious enough that we feel she must be given less responsibility.”
Alarm bells clanged in Pip’s head. “Please, no.”
Mother Benedicta smiled, but Pip recognized the resolve behind that smile. “I’m afraid so. Beginning with the incoming postulant class who will be arriving at Easter, you will be the new postulant mistress. It would be advisable for you to come by the office sometime this week to study their files and familiarize yourself with your new charges.”
“And just like that,” Pip complained to Sister Isadore the next day, “my life was turned upside down.”
Clapping a hand on her shoulder, Sister Isadore said, “That’s what you get for being so responsible.”
“Me? Responsible? Where’d you get that?”
Sister Isadore stared at her. “You’re joking, right?”
Open-mouthed, Pip shook her head.
Sister Isadore rolled her eyes. “We’ve been professed for seventeen years, and you still haven’t figured this out. You keep your head down and plow ahead with whatever you’re asked to do. No matter what it is, you seem to do it well, whether it’s baking the abbey’s bread or keeping the accounts. And you wonder why they give you responsibility. You need to learn to mess up now and then.”
A week or so later, Pip stood nervously in a small room adjacent to the Chapel, awaiting her new charges, knowing it was too late to mess up, when these young women’s futures were now in her hands.
The eight postulants filed in, looking more nervous than she was. “Good morning. Welcome to St. Bridget’s. I’m Sister Theodora, your postulant mistress. I’ll let you in on a secret, though. I’m brand new at this, so we’ll be learning together.”
Forcing a brave smile, she said, “Let me show you how to wear your veils.”
Though very little had actually changed—just one nun stepping in for another—it felt to Pip as if everything had changed. “I feel like I’m finally a grown-up here,” she admitted to Sister Stephen one afternoon when the postulants’ Latin lesson concluded and Sister Scholastica took over their Church history class.
Sister Stephen chuckled. “I don’t think it matters how long we’ve been under vows, being put in charge of any aspect of bringing the juniors along makes it feel weightier somehow.”
“Exactly.” Pip glanced at her sheepishly. “I’m still afraid of you.”
At that confession, Sister Stephen rocked with laughter. “I’m only five years older than you.”
“You know what I mean. It’s that student-teacher relationship. It sticks.”
“I do know what you mean.” Sister Stephen nodded. “I feel that way about Mother. Not because she’s abbess now, but because she was a very strict teacher when I was a junior.”
She eyed Pip. “Any of the postulants giving you trouble?”
Pip considered her reply. “Not trouble, exactly, but… Julie. There’s just something about her, she instigates little arguments among the others, then pretends she knows nothing about it. There’s something… sneaky about her.”
“Yes.” Sister Stephen nodded again. “She’s a pot-stirrer for certain. It’ll be interesting to see if she lasts.”
Already, Pip was learning the lesson of being wary of having favorites. “What about Sarah?”
“Oh, that one’s a keeper. Sharp mind, though I had to ask her to repeat things three times the first few weeks, that Scottish burr of hers.” Sister Stephen rolled her eyes. “And what it does to her Latin pronunciation.”
Pip laughed. “I know. I really like her, and I have to be careful not to show it.”
“Probably the hardest thing we do as we teach them,” Sister Stephen agreed. “It’s difficult not to like the ones who try so hard, but it makes the ones like Julie twice as bad. Our job is to stay as neutral as we can.”
“I will.”
Pip prayed frequently for the ability to love—or at least like—them all equally, but it made her wonder anew if perhaps she had done something, something completely innocent and unknown to her, that had set Sister Beatrice against her.
Even after all these years, that dislike was there on Sister Beatrice’s face, whenever they happened to be in proximity to each other. For the most part, Pip was able to ignore it, but there were times when she was certain she saw a gloating gleam in Sister Beatrice’s eyes, and Pip knew she was thinking about that retreat. It felt to her as if that one week, all those years ago, had given Sister Beatrice a secret weapon, a window into Pip’s fatal flaw.
Don’t be so melodramatic, she told herself.
But remembering that, Pip redoubled her efforts to reach Julie, singling her out with extra bits of praise—but be careful not to overdo it—or putting her in charge of small projects such as getting the vegetable garden planted while Sister Michael was busy with the veterinarian and a sick calf.
Pip left them to it for most of the morning work period, but when she went back out, deliberately staying out of sight behind the corner of the barn until she could check on them without being seen, she observed Julie sitting in the shade while the others dug and planted. With a loud cough, she walked into sight. Julie jumped up and began digging away with her hoe. Pip couldn’t miss the rolling eyes and sullen expressions of the others.
Fighting her urge to immediately chastise Julie, Pip surveyed the garden, giving herself time to think. “Not a bad start. It’s almost time for the bell. Julie, you’ll come back out this afternoon by yourself to finish getting those seedlings planted. And if you don’t finish today, you’ll continue tomorrow.”
“That’s not fair!” Julie said with a mutinous expression.
“No, it isn’t.” Pip turned to her, carefully modulating her voice. “But when you’re put in charge, it’s your responsibility. It didn’t get done, so now, you’ll finish.”
She turned on her heel and led the way back to the abbey, listening to the amused murmurs of the other seven. Later that afternoon, she sought out Sister Constance in the common room.
“How’s it going?” Sister Constance asked, but the barely concealed smile told Pip she knew exactly how it was going.
Pip plopped down beside her. “Whatever I did to deserve this, I am heartily sorry and pledge to never do it again.”
Sister Constance laughed and patted Pip’s knee. “Don’t fret. The first year is always the hardest. Except for maybe the second.” She frowned as if in deep thought. “Or the third.”
“Oh, you’re hilarious.”
As slowly as the year seemed to creep by, Pip was astounded to suddenly find that Ash Wednesday was coming up in a week. The same had happened with Advent and Christmas—“I blinked,” she told Sister Fabian, “and suddenly, it was time to decorate the Chapel and help Sister Olga come up with a theme for the juniors’ Yuletide concert. Luckily, she’s been novice mistress for a few years, so she already had some ideas.”
With the beginning of Lent, the postulants would soon be making their retreats. The Council met to discuss who should be paired with whom. The list of trained retreat advisors still included Sister Beatrice, and when Sister Veronica suggested pairing her with Julie, Pip had to speak up.
“I’m sorry,” she interrupted. “But I don’t think that’s a good combination.”
“Oh?” Sister Thomasina’s eyebrows raised.
Pip’s mouth opened and closed as she tried to find a tactful way to say those two would be a toxic pairing when Sister Olga said, “I agree with Sister Theodora. Julie is a bit manipulative, and I think she should be placed with someone who knows how to see through that. Perhaps Sister Xavier.”
Pip heaved a sigh of relief and nodded. “That would be preferable.”
So when she met with the postulants to give them their cell numbers and explain the retreat process, it was with the feeling that she had almost reached a kind of finish line.
“I should have known better,” she bemoaned a couple of days later.
When the postulants were sleeping in the tower dormitory, she’d been in the habit of checking in on them one last time before lights out. This was harder with them in cells, but the night before their retreats were to begin, she wandered slowly along the corridor where their cells were, listening and, sure enough, there were quiet sobbing sounds emanating from one of the rooms.
She knocked softly. “Sarah, are you all right?”
The crying stopped abruptly, and a moment later, the door opened. Sarah stood there wiping her eyes, her short veil askew from jamming it quickly on her head.
“Do you want to talk?” Pip asked.
Sarah nodded. Pip left the door open and took the desk chair while Sarah sat on the side of her bed.
“What is it?”
Sarah jutted her chin at the desk, where a letter lay open. “My family’s going back to Scotland. My gran is doing poorly, and my mum needs to be with her.”
“Your father is retired from the Air Force now?”
Sarah sniffed. “In December. So he’s free to go with her. My brother’s squadron just got word that they’ll be posted to Germany. They’ll be here for my Clothing, but then…”
She dropped her face into her hands, her shoulders shaking. Pip longed to hold her and offer what comfort she could, but she stayed where she was.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know… if I…” Pip leaned forward to try and catch the words between the sobs. “If I can stay… with them… so far away.”
Pip’s hands were tightly clenched in her lap as memories washed over her. “I know what it’s like to be faced with that choice.”
Sarah lifted her face. “You do?”
Pip handed her a handkerchief. “Yes. It feels as if you’re being ripped in two, choosing between your family and your vocation.”
“How do you choose?” Sarah asked, dabbing at her eyes.
“With great difficulty. Use your retreat to try and discern where you belong. You could always join them and enter an order in Scotland. There is no wrong answer, Sarah. Just listen.”
She stood and, in the only gesture she would permit, laid a hand on Sarah’s head. “I’ll pray for you.”