Pip snuck a sideways glance across the church aisle to where Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery sat in their usual pew with their two youngest. Celeste was gone. Off to college now, without Pip having seen her for real.
She hadn’t seen anyone. What with the flurry over Patrick’s heart attack and the bed rest the doctor ordered when he was allowed home, the entire house had been turned upside-down. Marie ran the house as if she were a general commanding troops. Felicia helped her look after Patrick. Pip had barely seen him, barely spoken to him, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t all talked and decided what to do with her.
Garrett drove her to work each morning—to the mill—where she stayed in the office, taking care of orders, payroll, some of the bookkeeping. It was Garrett who now went to the warehouse to oversee progress on the bakery. She didn’t dare ask if Toni went with him. She hadn’t had any contact with Toni since that night, and there’d been no mention of it at home. Marie pretended it hadn’t happened, except, of course, it had. And Pip knew she’d never be the same.
Josie shifted beside her in the pew, playing with the charms on her bracelet. Going to church was another change Marie had insisted upon. Not that they hadn’t gone before, but not every Sunday, not like this.
“This family has strayed too far from God,” she’d declared. “We ’ave been punished for our insolence.”
Just this past week had been the first time Patrick had ventured downstairs to sit in his chair in the living room and join them for meals. He was sickly pale and shaky, but Pip privately thought that was from lying around so much. It seemed to her that he needed to move, to walk. But the one time she’d ventured to suggest such a thing, her mother had whipped around.
“We do not need your opinion. You are not a doctor. You’re not anything.”
Tears stung Pip’s eyes now at the memory.
Leave. You could just leave.
She must have huffed aloud at the circular argument that had played over and over in her head because Josie glanced up at her. And where would I go? What would I do? I got myself a foot in the door at the mill, and now that door has closed behind me. I’m locked in.
She felt so restless, she could barely sit through the rest of Mass. Afterward, she was the first to stand.
“I’m going to walk home.”
Marie opened her mouth to argue, but narrowed her eyes instead. “Very well. But I’ll expect you ’ome before brunch.”
Pip gave her a curt nod and hurried from the church. Outside, the sun was shining, though it was chilly for early September. She yanked the bobby pins fastening her veil and shoved them all into her purse, running her hand through her hair to free it. All of her, every inch, felt constrained, tied down. Sometimes it was all she could do not to scream in frustration.
Glad she’d decided to wear flats, she strode off before her mother could change her mind. Muttering to herself as she walked, she rounded the corner at the end of the block and nearly tumbled over a figure crouched on the sidewalk.
“I’m so sorry!”
The figure stood, and Pip found herself looking into the red, sweaty face of a nun. “No, it’s my fault.”
Even as she spoke, the stack of books she’d tried to pick up slid sideways and fell back to the sidewalk, where half a dozen more lay.
“Oh, sh—I mean, darn.”
The nun closed her eyes for a moment while Pip tried not to laugh.
“Need a hand?”
The nun opened her eyes. “It would appear I need several.”
“Well, I only have two. Will that do?”
“Thanks.” The nun squatted back down to stack about ten books. “Think you can take these?”
“Sure.” Pip accepted the stack and waited while the nun piled the remaining books and picked them up.
“This way.” The nun led the way down the sidewalk. “I’m Sister Ruth, by the way.”
“Pip Horrigan. Where are we going?”
“Just here.” Sister Ruth backed through a cast-iron gate in the fence that surrounded the parish school. “My classroom is on the third floor.”
“Of course it is.”
Sister Ruth shot a startled glance in her direction and then snorted a laugh. They climbed the granite steps to the massive oak doors. Sister Ruth balanced her books in one arm while she fished a heavy ring of keys from some hidden pocket in her habit. One by one, she tried them, grumbling each time. Pip in the meantime, had set her stack on the railing to rest her arms.
“Got it!”
Sister Ruth pushed the door open and held it with her shoulder for Pip, who headed for the worn marble stairs.
“Didn’t think I’d be climbing these again so soon.”
“You graduated from here?” Sister Ruth asked.
“Sure did. Just a few months ago.”
By the time they reached the third floor, they were both breathing hard. Pip craned her neck to read the spines of the books in her arms.
“History? You’re in old Sister Hilary’s classroom?”
“Yes.”
Pip led the way to the familiar classroom, sunlight streaming in through the tall windows. She dropped her books on the desk with a thump. Looking around, she recognized most of the same framed photos of historical figures hanging in rows on the wall.
“Hasn’t changed much.” She pointed to a photo of Martin Luther King, Jr. “Except that. It’s new. Not very historical, though.”
Sister Ruth set her stack on the desk also. “But it is. History isn’t always in the past. Sometimes we’re living right in the middle of it. Just wait.” She nodded. “He’s going to be one of the most important people in our lifetimes. I know it.”
She turned to Pip. “Thanks so much. Not sure how I thought I was gonna get all those up here.”
Now that she was able to get a good look, Pip saw that Sister Ruth was young. Not like most of the old nuns who taught at this school.
“Where did you come here from?”
Sister Ruth used her sleeve to blot some of the sweat from her cheeks. “Syracuse. We’ve got a couple of churches and schools there. When Sister Hilary retired—”
“Nuns can retire?” Pip interrupted.
“Well, we do get old.” Sister Ruth sat at one of the student desks, inviting Pip to take another. “She has terrible arthritis in her knees and hips from what I’m told, and it was getting to be too much to climb the stairs and stand most of the day. She’ll go to the motherhouse, where they’ll find something more tolerable for her.”
Pip had never thought about any of those things. “Where’s your motherhouse?”
“Outside of Albany. But our order has convents all over New York.”
“How old are you?” Pip blurted. “Sorry, that was rude.”
“It’s not rude to ask. I’m twenty-five. I finished my education degree while I was a novice, and here I am.” She got up to open a couple of windows. “How about you?”
“I’m eighteen. Nineteen next spring.”
“Going to college?”
“No.” Pip heard the bitterness in her voice. “I mean, I decided not to go. I’m working in my family’s business. A mill. And a bakery.”
Sister Ruth sat down again. Pip could feel the weight of her gaze as she ran a thumbnail along initials carved in the desktop before her.
“Is it not what you want to do?”
“No. I mean, yes.” Pip closed her eyes. “It’s complicated.”
Sister Ruth smiled. “I’m a good listener.”
“It’s nothing, really.” Pip gave an embarrassed laugh. “It’s just… I had some ideas for this bakery, and then I ran into Theodore Wasserman and we went into partnership with him, but my brother…”
She stopped abruptly. “You don’t really want to hear all this.”
“Sure I do. But wait here.” Sister Ruth got up and left the classroom, leaving Pip to stare after her in bewilderment.
She returned a moment later with two cold bottles of Coke. “I think this calls for refreshment.” She handed one bottle to Pip and sat back down. “You were saying?”
Forever after, Pip would think of that serendipitous meeting as one of the great blessings of her life. Completely aside from the fact that she really liked Sister Ruth, she offered the only social outlet Pip could enjoy with Marie’s blessing.
“A nun?” Marie’s nostrils had flared when Pip had arrived home—late for brunch—as if she could sniff out the truth. “Well, that is acceptable, I suppose.”
It wasn’t long before Pip was stopping by the school two or three evenings a week after work. Sister Ruth was usually still in her classroom, grading papers or making up new assignments.
She asked Pip to scour the newspapers for her, cutting out anything related to the upcoming election or the civil rights protests taking place all around the country.
“They won’t be big headlines now,” she said, “but they will be. Someday.”
Pip had shared everything—well, almost everything—about how the bakery idea had started to come to fruition, and how her father’s heart attack had changed everything. She still didn’t know what had happened with Toni. Sometimes, she was tempted to drive by the hotel to see if she was there.
But what would I say if I did see her?
She couldn’t even think about that night at the bar without a telltale blush burning her cheeks. But the quickening of her heart was squelched by recalling the mortification of her ignominious confrontation with her mother.
Sister Ruth seemed to sense there was something else going on, but she never probed or pushed. She often paused her grading to talk.
“What do you talk about?” Josie asked curiously. “It’s weird to hang out with a teacher. Especially a nun.”
“Just anything,” Pip replied. “Politics, sports, books. And it doesn’t feel weird.”
“Only because you graduated,” Josie grumbled. “You don’t have to be there. The seventh grade nuns are so mean.”
Pip supposed things did look different to her now that she’d graduated. She’d never felt any desire at all to strike up a friendship with any of her other teachers, nun or not.
“What made you want to be a nun?” she asked one day as she snipped articles from the paper, hoping it wasn’t rude to ask.
“Lots of things, I suppose.” Sister Ruth set her pen down and sat back. “I have an uncle who’s a priest in Haiti. And a cousin who’s a nun.”
“In your same order?”
“No. She’s in a contemplative monastery.”
“What’s that?” Pip propped her elbows on the desk.
“They don’t teach or nurse, like we do. They pray.”
“What? All the time?” Pip’s mouth fell open as she tried to imagine this.
Sister Ruth nodded. “Prayer is their job. It’s called the Divine Office. Orders like ours only do part of it, usually Vespers in the evening. But they’re cloistered.” Before Pip could ask, she added, “That means they don’t leave the abbey.”
“Ever?”
“Only for urgent things like medical visits, hospitalizations.”
“Wow.” Pip’s brow furrowed as she thought about this. “Are you allowed to visit her?”
“Oh, sure. They have a little chapel for visitors, and there are parlours for receiving visitors. But it usually has to be arranged in advance and permission given. We write often.”
“No telephone?”
“They have one. For emergencies. But it’s not monastic to talk. They embrace silence most of the time. So writing is a better fit with their lives.”
“Wow,” Pip repeated. She returned to her newspaper, and Sister Ruth resumed grading.
“Where is it? This abbey?” Pip asked after several minutes.
“St. Bridget’s is outside a small village called Millvale. About an hour from Syracuse.”
“St. Bridget’s,” Pip echoed. “I’d like to see it some time.”
“Really? I’ve been meaning to go visit my cousin. I’ll write her. Maybe we can go in a few weeks.”
She was as good as her word. A couple of weeks later, she said, “I heard back from my cousin. Want to take a drive to St. Bridget’s this weekend? Only, I checked, and I can’t get our convent car.”
“That’s all right,” Pip said eagerly. “I can drive.”
It took a little wrangling to get Marie to agree. “I suppose it would be all right,” she said at last, her sharp eyes probing in a way that told Pip it wouldn’t be quite that easy. “If you take your sister.”
“But, Mom—”
“I didn’t say I wanted to spend a day hanging out with nuns!” Josie protested.
Marie shrugged. “That is the only way I give my permission.”
“Fine,” Pip spat, her own nostrils flaring in a very good imitation of her mother if only she’d known it.
Josie’s expression became sly. “What’s in it for me?”
In the end, Pip had promised to take Josie shopping the following weekend. In truth, Pip couldn’t have explained why this visit to St. Bridget’s felt so important. She only knew that since Sister Ruth had mentioned it, something about it had grabbed her. She’d been slipping down to the school library, looking for books about the Divine Office and monasteries. There weren’t many, and the ones she could find were mostly biographies of saints like Benedict and his twin sister Scholastica.
Saturday dawned sunny and perfect. Pip had the Fairlane fueled up and washed while Maggie packed a large picnic basket with sandwiches, several slices of cake, apples, one Thermos of coffee, and another of tea.
“Mags, you’re the best,” Pip said, flinging an arm around her in an impulsive hug.
Even Josie seemed more excited now about the prospect of an outing. “But I brought a book in case this is boring.”
Sister Ruth was ready and waiting when Pip pulled up. She did seem an unusual figure, standing on the sidewalk in her black habit with a medium-sized cardboard box at her feet.
“Back seat,” Pip ordered. Josie scowled, but slid into the back. “And stay out of the picnic basket.”
Pip placed Sister Ruth’s box on the back floor behind her seat and made introductions. Whatever worries she might have had about the dynamics of the trio in the car disappeared as Sister Ruth engaged Josie immediately in a debate about Elvis versus Buddy Holly, arguing that Holly would have eclipsed everyone if not for the plane crash the previous year. They found music stations on the radio and sang.
Josie began complaining about her empty stomach, so they stopped in Seneca Falls to dive into the picnic basket. In addition to her ham sandwiches, Maggie had packed a half-dozen of her homemade yeast rolls, already buttered in the middle and spread with strawberry jam.
With bellies full, they continued the drive with Sister Ruth behind the wheel, admiring the scenery as they passed by a few of the Finger Lakes. Sister Ruth navigated smaller and smaller roads as it seemed they headed into the middle of nowhere.
A high, cast-iron fence ran alongside the road, protecting the expansive grounds beyond. Suddenly, an enormous stone building—or rather several buildings combined—came into view.
“Is this some kind of mansion or something?” Josie asked.
Sister Ruth chuckled. “Or something.”
She turned into a long, winding drive over which “St. Bridget’s Abbey” arched in large bronze letters.
When they parked and got out, Sister Ruth held up a hand. “Listen.”
Josie stopped talking and Pip heard it. Voices gently singing in Latin. Words she didn’t know then, a melody she’d never heard, but “it was as if I’d always known it,” she would say to Mickey one day.