A front of cooler weather pushed down from Canada, bringing a line of storms for a few days, followed by gloriously cool weather, with not a hint of humidity.
“This weather is perfect, if it lasts,” Lauren said as she shook out a freshly laundered sheet.
Gail caught the other side and helped her make the bed that she’d formerly used. Behind her, the curtains fluttered in the breeze that blew in through the open window. Before they could tuck the corners of the fitted sheet onto the mattress, Kyrie had jumped up, forming a cat-shaped lump in the middle of the bed.
“Get out of there.” Lauren flipped the sheet over and reached for the cat, dropping her unceremoniously on the floor, where she glared up at the humans and then turned her back on them to wash herself.
They quickly made the bed up with the clean sheets and a brightly patterned spread. They placed clean towels and toiletries in the bathroom.
“Kind of fun, playing inn-keeper, isn’t it?” Gail joked.
“Is there anything we missed?” Lauren asked.
“Maybe some fresh flowers, but wait on those. We’ll put them out at the last minute.”
“Good suggestion.”
As they walked toward the stairs, Gail paused at the door to one of the other rooms, which now held a desk and laptop.
“Let me check our email. See if they sent any updates.” She started to sit down. “Actually, you should do this.”
“I don’t know—”
“Yeah,” Gail cut in, holding the chair. “You should.” When Lauren sat down, Gail talked her through how to open her email and look for new messages.
“I’ll never remember how to do all the things you showed me.”
“You will. You just have to do it a few times. I never learn by having people tell me what to do. I have do it myself, or it never sinks in.”
Lauren checked. “Nothing since last night. If they’re on schedule, they should be here within the hour.”
Downstairs, they began peeling and chopping potatoes and onions to roast for dinner. With the potatoes in the oven, the steaks and chicken marinating in the fridge, and a couple of different kinds of salads made up, there was nothing left to do.
Lauren cut some flowers from the plants outside—lilies and hydrangea and a few roses—and arranged them in a jam jar to place on the dresser in the guest room.
Outside, the Stewarts pulled up, and Michele tumbled out of the back seat to run over for a hug. Jamie and Jennifer got the twins unbuckled from their car seats and set them down in the grass, where Gail had strategically placed a few balls and other toys along with several lawn chairs to corral them.
Jamie opened the hatch and hauled an ice-filled cooler out. “Drinks of all kinds. Water, soda, beer, hard cider, fruit juice. And milk.”
He reached inside and handed sippy cups to each of the twins. “What do you want, Michele?”
She stood for a moment, her finger pressed to her lips as she considered her choices. “Apple juice.” She accepted the bottle and climbed into Lauren’s lap.
He passed a can of cider to Jennifer and two Cokes to Gail and Lauren before popping open a Harp’s for himself. “How are things in Binghamton?”
“Okay.” Gail took a drink. “Got the house on the market. I’ll finish with St. Philip’s at the end of August, and start at Tapestry House after Labor Day.”
“I can’t believe how this has all played out,” Jennifer said, beaming. “It’s almost like we had divine intervention.”
“Maybe we did,” Gail agreed, smiling in Lauren’s direction.
Their attention was diverted by the arrival of a mustard-yellow Volvo station wagon. When it pulled to a stop, Josie and Jim climbed out. Everyone got up to greet them, Lauren making the introductions.
Jim opened the rear door of the wagon and handed a large rattan basket to Jamie. “Enough bread and rolls to last for weeks.”
Gail and Lauren helped Josie carry their bags upstairs to the room they’d prepared.
“What a lovely house,” Josie said, glancing around. “You could start your own B&B.”
“No, thanks,” Lauren said fervently. “Friends and family only.”
Outside, Jamie had doused the charcoal briquettes with lighter fluid and got them lit. Jim had unloaded a guitar and was showing a fascinated Michele how to strum while he played the chords. He got everyone singing while they waited for the grill to heat up.
Josie plunked herself down on the grass with the twins, letting Chelsea climb into her lap and tossing a plush ball to Chad. Gail started poking at the charcoal, trying to speed it up.
Jennifer wandered over to where Lauren sat watching it all with a foolish grin on her face. “What a crew, huh?”
“Indeed.” Lauren’s heart was full to bursting. “I never thought I could be this happy again.”
Jennifer wrapped an arm around her. “Mickey would have loved this.”
Lauren’s vision blurred as happy tears filled her eyes. “Yes, she would have.”
In the distance, a bell tolled. The sun was not quite over the horizon, though the eastern sky was getting lighter. Lauren, sitting in the gazebo, heard soft footsteps on the boards, then a squeak of hinges when the screen door opened and closed. Josie took the seat beside her, a coffee mug in her hand.
“Is that bell theirs?” Josie asked, staring in the direction of the abbey.
Lauren nodded. “Yes. Sometimes, when the air is just right, I can hear them singing.”
Josie turned to study her. “You left, but you want this kind of closeness? This kind of reminder?”
“I left the place,” Lauren said slowly. “After falling in love with someone, I didn’t really fit there anymore. But that abbey and the nuns in it were an enormous part of my life. I spent twenty years among them. I didn’t leave them. Or the spiritual side of myself. I don’t keep all the hours of the Office as I did there, but it still forms a kind of framework for my life.”
Josie thought about this as she sipped her coffee. “But Pip stayed. Even after she fell in love.”
Lauren nodded again. “She did. I don’t know all her reasons, but I think she felt a sense of duty that was stronger even than that love.”
“Stronger than family, too.”
Lauren glanced at Josie, startled again by the similarity in profile, in the eyes. “I never realized until… until she stayed with me and we traveled north, just how deeply that loss injured her.”
“Injured a lot of us.”
“Are you going to be okay, going there this afternoon?”
“I don’t know,” Josie admitted. “I swore I’d never go back to that place. Then you and Gail brought my sister back into my life.” She paused to take another sip of coffee, but seemed to have a hard time swallowing. “I don’t know.”
“You’ll have Jim and us there with you.”
Lauren reached for her hand, and Josie squeezed it hard.
“You know,” Josie said, “you and Gail are good together.”
“I swore there would never be anyone else.” Lauren smiled. “Maybe we should both give up swearing.”
“This is ridiculous.”
Mother Theodora peered out her window at the enormous marquee that had been erected on the monastery’s lawn, large enough to cover a couple hundred people. It was filled with rows of folding chairs now, but tables were stacked nearby, ready to be set up after Mass.
“The cost of all this. It’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not.” Sister Isadore, obviously anticipating an argument, had come by with a very transparent excuse of needing to ask her about the next Council meeting. “I told you, anonymous donors are paying for all of it: the tent and chairs and tables, the catering. Everything. And you, my dear abbess, need to remember that this is not about you.”
Mother whipped around to stare at her.
“It’s been a long time since we had an abbess reach this milestone. This is for the community,” Sister Isadore added more gently.
Mother blushed. “And I forget sometimes, it’s your jubilee, too. And Sisters Nicola and Fabian. And the twenty-five year class. How selfish. Forgive me.”
Sister Isadore rubbed her shoulder. “You know there’s nothing to forgive. Just enjoy the day.”
Mother Theodora tried to remember those words of advice as the community processed outside, singing the Introit. They occupied the first several rows. Father Andrew and Bishop Marcus stood behind a table serving as the altar to co-celebrate the Mass. Behind the nuns, the remaining seats were filled to capacity with family and friends.
As she’d walked up the aisle, Mother had spotted Josie and Jim seated with Lauren and Gail and the entire Stewart family. A little thrill of nerves jangled to think her sister was here for the first time since… She closed her eyes, feeling the enormity of all that had happened in those intervening years. Life happened. Hers, yours. Separate all that time. But together now. Maybe.
The Mass was beautiful. Following the Eucharist, Bishop Marcus called forward the six nuns celebrating their Silver Jubilee. “We thank these dedicated sisters in Christ for their twenty-five years of love and service.”
Those in attendance gave a hearty round of applause, the nuns’ faces red at the unaccustomed attention.
Then Bishop Marcus called Mother Theodora and her cadre to the front. “It is with extra joy this year that we celebrate the Golden Jubilee of these sisters in Christ, because your abbess is among them.”
The standing ovation that followed was thunderous and seemed to go on and on. The community stood and applauded as well, the nuns beaming.
The priests concluded the Mass, and everyone milled about outside while the catering crew set out the tables and rearranged the chairs around them.
The jubilarians were each surrounded by loved ones, but Mother’s circle was massive—she’d had no idea so many people had been invited, and, as she spied Sister Isadore’s head close to Sister Anastasia, the two of them whispering together, she suspected the culprits behind it. It was heady, though, seeing people she’d been corresponding with for ages, meeting some in person for the first time.
Like Mother Benedicta before her, her correspondents included some well-known people—politicians, philanthropists, even stage actors, prompting a few gasps from others when they were recognized, but “that is not what this day is about,” said one actor, a woman who had been writing Mother for many years when someone approached her for an autograph.
Mother watched, bemused by the difference—the deference—paid to them once they were recognized, “which is why,” each of them would have said, “we have cherished our friendship with you.”
Once the tables were set up, the crowd shuffled back under the tent, at least most of them did. Several children, full of pent-up energy after sitting quietly through Mass, ran around in a game of tag.
Someone had made sure that Mother’s group was seated together, though it took two tables to fit everyone.
“It’s like Christmas on steroids,” Jamie said to Mother as they shuffled through the buffet, filling plates.
“It is indeed,” she said, smiling.
“This place is beautiful,” Jim said. “And you said you have a dairy? And an orchard? Is it organic?”
Mother paused for a moment. “Oh, you mean sprays and things. No, we don’t use those. We accept some responsibility for feeding God’s other creatures. Deer and rabbits and bugs do have to eat, after all. But Sister Regina is creative in finding ways to discourage them.”
He looked around. “Which one is Sister Regina?”
“Oh, jeez.” Josie shook her head. “If he gets her ear, he’ll be talking farms for hours.”
Mother chuckled. “I’ll make sure I point her out later.”
The catering staff circulated, refilling cups with tea or water or punch, taking away empty plates. All around, people visited and laughed and ate some more.
“Walk with me?” Mother asked her sister. Josie got to her feet.
“This is impressive,” Josie admitted grudgingly as they strolled, some of the kids using them to dodge being tagged.
“It is,” Mother agreed. “I doubt I could have pulled it off.” She glanced at her sister. “Thank you for coming. It means… it means the world to me.”
Josie met her eye. “It seems you’re a pretty important person.”
Mother felt her cheeks burn. “I wouldn’t say important, but there’s no getting around the fact that the title puts me in the middle, whether I like it or not.”
“Do you?”
“I’ve… accepted it.”
“When you were with us,” Josie said, “I thought, maybe, you were thinking about leaving.”
Mother paused. She turned around, surveying the monastery, the bell tower, the rise of hills beyond where the farm and orchard stood, nearly ready for harvest.
“For a little while, I guess I did.”
“But you won’t.” It wasn’t a question. “You’ll do your duty, even if it’s not what you want.”
Mother opened her mouth to reply, but hesitated. “It may not always be what I want, but I couldn’t be happy if I ignored my duty.”
Josie searched her eyes for a long moment before nodding.
By the time the sun began to set, the lawn looked as if nothing had happened. The tables and chairs and marquee had all been loaded into the trucks, all the garbage as well. The leftover food had been packed into the monastery’s refrigerators, to Sister Cecilia’s delight.
“We won’t have to make lunch or dinner for days!”
They still didn’t know who had paid for it all, but Mother had issued a general thank-you to everyone before the crowd dispersed.
It was with a bittersweet mix of relief and sadness that the community said farewell to their visitors. Gail and Lauren lingered, waiting until everyone else had left so that Mother could say a private good-bye to Josie and Jim, who had promised they’d come back at Christmas.
She pulled Lauren and Gail aside. “There really are no words to thank you both. For bringing my sister back into my life. For helping me to find closure with Jacqueline.”
She took each of their hands in hers, then placed them over top of each other, clasped between her own. “Hold onto this.” She looked from one to the other. “No matter what, don’t lose what you’ve found.”
Lauren flung her arms around Mother before rushing to the car.
“I’ll see you in a few days,” Gail said.
Blinking back tears, Mother waved them off.
As their car pulled away, she let herself in through the public door of the Chapel, locking it behind her. The last rays of the sun caught the stained-glass windows on the west side, casting jewel-toned light across the stone wall opposite. She was thumbing through her keys to unlock the grille when her eye was caught by a book lying on one of the pews. She shuffled in and picked it up. The Spiritual Exercises.
Dropping to the pew, she cradled the little book. Someone must have been praying with it on a retreat and left it behind. She flipped through the pages to the one she sought.
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will—all that I have and possess. Thou gavest it to me, to Thee, Lord, I return it! All is Thine, dispose of it according to all Thy will. Give me Thy love and grace, for this is enough for me.
She closed her eyes and sat, letting the words fill her—not with despair as they had during her retreat when she was a postulant all those years ago—but with a deep and overwhelming sense of contentment.
“This is enough for me.”
The End