Adjusting her work light, Lauren bent over her latest restoration project—a child’s christening gown, dating back to the 1780s. The material was yellowed in places, and she was trying to gently clean the stains. Ruffles of elaborate lace sewn to the collar and the edges of the sleeves were brittle and torn. The holes in the lace, she would be able to patch, but she’d decided to save those for last.
As she worked, half of her thoughts were on Gail. From long practice, Lauren had prayed as she worked in the abbey’s vestment room, especially during those times when she was directing a retreat. She’d been as surprised as anyone when she’d broken out of her typically reserved shell to volunteer to train as a spiritual advisor. The postulants were always required to make a seven-day silent retreat prior to their Clothing, and other nuns periodically chose to make retreats, usually during a time of struggle.
But Gail’s situation was unlike any Lauren had previously guided. Her doubts, her questions, her anger—Lauren sat back with a sigh.
“This isn’t about you,” she reminded herself. Except it was.
Everything Gail was experiencing was having the unintended effect of dredging up emotions Lauren had thought were buried in the past—and she wanted them kept there.
She pushed back impatiently from her worktable. “It’s not a good day for this,” she said to Kyrie.
Instead, she spent a half hour boxing up supplies for the next class she’d promised to do for Jamie’s high school students when the spring term got underway in a couple of weeks. With the boxes packed, she went back to the house to eat a quick lunch. When she could stall no longer, she retrieved her Bible and tried again to pray for a few minutes before driving to the retreat house.
“Wish me luck,” she said as she sat to lace up her boots. Kyrie gave her a squeak. Lauren reached for her jacket. “Thanks.”
A couple of inches of fresh snow had fallen. She quickly brushed the car clean while the engine warmed. A few minutes later, she pulled up beside Gail’s Hyundai and parked.
When she knocked on the door of the retreat house, she heard a distant call of “Come in.”
Sitting on the floor of the foyer was a suitcase. Lauren reached over it to hang up her coat, and she toed off her boots before going back to the kitchen where Gail was setting out a plate of oatmeal cookies.
“It’s not shortbread, but I made them yesterday.”
“Are you okay?” Lauren tipped her head, but Gail turned away.
“I’m fine. You probably saw the suitcase. Sister Lucille told me they have a retreat booked for here the first week of January.”
“But that’s several days from now.”
Gail busied herself pouring hot water for both of them. Lauren waited until, at last, Gail set the kettle down and faced her.
“I’m going home to Binghamton tomorrow.”
Lauren tried to keep a neutral face as she picked up her mug. “Let’s sit down.”
Gail brought the cookies to their usual room.
“Are you ready to return?” Lauren asked.
Gail stared into her tea. “Doesn’t really matter whether I’m ready or not. My time here is about over. I need to get back to my real life.”
“I see.” Lauren sipped her tea. She picked up a cookie and sampled it. “This is good.”
The silence between them stretched on until Gail blurted, “I’ve taken up enough of your time. I can’t impose on you or the abbey any longer.”
“I don’t recall having complained, and, as I said, the abbey won’t need this house for a few days yet.”
Gail glared at her. “We’re not getting anywhere. I’m not getting anywhere.”
Lauren nodded slowly. “You came here looking for the answers your sister was asking for. Have you found them?”
Gail remained stubbornly silent, clutching a cookie in her fingers, dropping the crumbs into her tea.
“What if there aren’t any?” Lauren asked. “What if there are never any.”
At the bitterness in Lauren’s voice, Gail raised her eyes. “Lauren… are you all right?”
This time, it was Lauren who couldn’t reply.
Gail set her mug down and shifted forward in her seat. “Lauren?”
Lauren closed her eyes for a moment. “Gail, your coming here… however unplanned and serendipitous as it seems…” She opened her eyes. “I know what it’s like to demand answers that never come. And then when you think the questions have finally been tucked away… something happens, and they’re right there again, dangling. Unanswered. Unanswerable.”
“I’m sorry, I should never have—”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” Lauren took a shuddering breath and composed herself. “I think… I’d like to offer you… I have an entire upstairs level to my home that no one uses. You’d have privacy there. We could continue to meet daily if you like. Or you can be as alone as you’d like. I have several acres you can wander, plus miles of road you can safely walk.”
Gail frowned as if she had trouble making sense of what she’d just heard. “You’re inviting me to stay with you.”
“Only if you’re not really ready to go back yet.”
Pushing to her feet, Gail went to the window, her hands jammed into the back pockets of her jeans. “This would be a huge imposition on you.”
“Not really. As I said, no one uses the upstairs at all.”
Gail turned. “How could I pay you?”
Lauren shrugged. “Help with the cooking, if you’re willing.” She picked up a cookie. “I already know you can bake.”
Gail gave a funny kind of hiccup and pressed a hand to her mouth. “I’d like that,” she murmured when she could speak.
Lauren nodded. “I don’t think we’ll get any praying done this afternoon. Let me help you clean up here so there’s less for Sister Lucille and the postulants to do. Then, as you’re already packed, we’ll go.”
Weak winter sunlight spilled across the table in the Council’s meeting room. Though it was only Mother Theodora with Sisters Gertrude and Josephine, the large oak table gave them room to spread out the abbey’s old-fashioned ledger, bank statements, and several other sheets of paper with figures covering them.
As Sister Josephine read out the abbey’s income and expenses for the last quarter of the year, Mother and Sister Gertrude double-checked her arithmetic.
“With Sisters JoAnne and Sherry taking their final vows this past spring,” said Sister Josephine, “we have moved their donations to the abbey out of escrow.” She slid a separate statement across the table for the other two to inspect. “Sister JoAnne was especially generous. She owned a house she’d inherited, and so had no mortgage to pay off. She gifted us the entire amount.”
“That is generous,” said Sister Gertrude, adjusting her glasses and sliding the paper back and forth a few times until she could focus on the small print.
“It is indeed,” Mother agreed. “This will help to offset some of the new ones who can’t afford much. Not like the dowries we brought in the old days.”
She shuffled a few papers. “How much did we bring in from the farm this past year?”
Sister Josephine found the right sheet and showed her a different set of figures, indicating the abbey’s income from selling its cheese, peaches, apples and apple butter, and the other things the farm produced.
“Don’t forget the sale of the steers,” Sister Gertrude reminded them. “Though it always makes me sad to sell off the boy calves.”
“If you can figure out how to get them to produce milk, we’ll keep them,” Sister Josephine teased. “We could make more if we sold the produce through our own store instead of local farm markets,” she added, not for the first time.
“I know,” Mother said with a heavy sigh. She took her own glasses off to rub her eyes. “But then, we’d have to staff it, which pulls more of us away from our primary duty. I think it’s best we continue as we have been, keep our focus where it belongs.”
She slid her glasses back onto her face and stacked a pile of papers. “For a community of women vowed to poverty, we spend an inordinate amount of time talking about money.”
“I would hazard a guess that poor lay people do the same thing,” said Sister Gertrude.
Mother gave a half-laugh. “You’re probably right.”
“And we’re not truly poor,” Sister Josephine reminded them. “When do you present our finances to the bishop?”
“At the end of January.” Mother drummed her fingers on the table. “As much as we try most of the time to forget Lauren’s gift to us, the diocese never forgets. They’ll be after us again to share it more broadly.”
“But surely the fact that we’ve helped St. Dominic’s will negate that argument,” Sister Gertrude said indignantly.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Mother said with a tight smile. “The cardinal frequently reminds me of Matthew 6:26.”
“He can lecture of sparrows not sowing or reaping all he wants,” said Sister Josephine tartly. “Where was the diocese all the years our furnace broke down three times every winter?”
“I know we’re supposed to rely on God and providence to provide for our needs,” Mother said. “But I have to admit, with such a large, old building to keep up, it is a comfort to know the money is there should we need it. But that’s the problem. That’s not true poverty, is it?”
“Lauren’s gift is providence,” Sister Gertrude said matter-of-factly.
Mother Theodora thought about this for a moment. “I suppose it is,” she agreed. “I’ll remember to point that out to them when we meet.”
“Good luck with that,” Sister Josephine muttered.
They all turned at a knock on the door. Sister Lucille opened it to peek into the room. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but Reverend Gail has checked out of the retreat house and left this for you, Mother.”
She held out an envelope.
“Thank you, Sister.” Mother slit the envelope open and tugged out a note. When she unfolded it, another piece of paper slid to the table. “A check.” Her eyebrows shot up. “A very generous check.” She slid it across the table to Sister Josephine. “I think we’re done here.”
“Would you like me to prepare our financial summary for you, Mother?”
“That would be wonderful, Sister Josephine. Thank you.”
Mother waited until she was back in her office before reading the note more carefully. So surprised was she that she read it three times before sitting back, the note lying in her lap as she gazed out the window.
“Well, well,” she murmured. “You do work in mysterious ways, don’t you.”
Gail listened for the sounds of Lauren stomping her snowy boots out on the porch. She pointed when the door to the kitchen opened. “There’s a fresh cup of coffee at your place. Breakfast will be up in a minute.”
“You don’t have to do this, you know.” Lauren scooped some food for Kyrie, who was busy trying to trip Gail at the stove.
“Yeah, I do.” Gail flipped four pancakes sizzling on the griddle. “You have no idea how much it means that you opened your home to me.”
She slid the pancakes onto two plates and set them on the table where butter and warm syrup waited.
“You’ve already thanked me a dozen times.” Lauren buttered her pancakes. “And when I asked you to help with the cooking, I didn’t mean for you to do all of it.”
Gail shrugged. “You’re working and I’m not.”
“But you are, just not your regular work.”
Gail paused with the syrup suspended over her plate. “Come to think of it, this is much harder than my usual work.” She scowled. “Slave driver.”
“If you wanted easy, you came to the wrong place.” But Lauren smiled around her pancakes as she chewed. “Speaking of which, I won’t be able to meet with you at our usual time. I’m spending the day with Jamie at the high school, teaching his students how to weave. Can we meet this evening? Perhaps after dinner?”
“Sure.” Gail studied Lauren, her hair varying shades of gold and honey as it caught the light. “At Christmas, when he showed me his work out in the barn, I got the feeling he misses being creative.”
Lauren nodded. “I think you’re right. He used to work all night if he felt like it, was doing shows in the city, building up quite a following. But a family to take care of changed that.”
“How would you feel, if you couldn’t create your art? If you had to work an office job or something that offered benefits?”
Reaching for her coffee, Lauren thought. “For several months, after I left the abbey, I couldn’t weave, couldn’t create. I was tied up with… family matters. It was as if a part of me had died. When I came back here and found that Mickey had built an entire space for me—”
She paused for what Gail had come to realize was an effort to collect herself, something she had to do nearly every time she spoke of Mickey.
“I’m sure it’s hard for Jamie,” Lauren continued. “I hope he can find a compromise.”
When they were done eating, they cleaned up together and then Lauren went to shower. Gail helped her load the boxes she’d prepared into the back of her SUV and waved her off.
Inside, Gail called her dad to catch up on how Christmas had been. He was accustomed to her not being able to come home for Christmas, but she still felt guilty. At least her sister had made it to Ogdensburg. She promised to visit soon and hung up.
With her Bible in hand, she trudged up the hill to the gazebo Lauren had shown her, the place she still went to pray every morning. She’d invited Gail to join her, but Gail felt certain it was only to be polite. Lauren was accustomed to her solitude and her privacy. Gail was determined not to intrude any more than she could help.
Sitting inside the screened gazebo, she gazed out over what she now knew was the abbey’s farmland. She wondered if Lauren might have seen her walking from up here. Opening her Bible, she spent the next hour praying with some of the Scripture passages Lauren had given her. She was no closer to finding the answers she knew didn’t exist. There was only a grudging acceptance that there were some things that would always be unanswerable. It didn’t ease the pain of her sorrow, though. She now understood how empty and meaningless were the platitudes she’d offered others over the years.
“Someday, we’ll understand” and “We have to trust that God has a plan” and “I’ll pray for you” didn’t mean shit when a family was left with gaping holes where loved ones had been.
She stayed until she was shivering with cold, doing her best to focus. She hated coming to her sessions with Lauren bearing only lame excuses for what she’d accomplished. Back at the house, Kyrie lifted her head from where she was stretched out on top of the couch in the sunshine streaming through the window. Gail paused to stroke her soft fur.
On her way upstairs to shower, she paused at the bookcase. The house was decorated with art—landscapes, some of Lauren’s wall hangings—but there was only one photo so far as Gail had seen. It was an image of a redheaded woman who must have been Mickey, she looked so like Jamie. She was standing between a teenage Jennifer and a woman who could have been her twin. So this was Mickey’s first partner, Alice. Gail stood, mesmerized as she looked at Mickey’s laughing face. This was the woman Lauren had fallen in love with, had left religious life for.
Gail wanted to dislike her—she didn’t want to examine too closely why that was—but she knew, without a doubt, that she would have become good friends with this woman. Mickey’s face was honest, real. Even in a photo, her goodness shone through, and Gail stepped back with a sigh.
“How can anyone compete with that?”