Virginia
Journal Entry, August 15, 1940 (Battle Creek,
Michigan):
Today is the day that began the slow unraveling of everything I’ve always thought I wanted for my life. It’s been a year since I’ve seen my family, and until I set foot inside my parents’ house, I had no reason to believe that this visit home would be any different from the ones before. But then, I hadn’t counted on my brother bringing home a friend he’d met at Boot Camp.
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I can hear my brother saying, “Mac, this is my...um, this is Sister Marie Francis,” but I am already somewhere else. Somewhere I have no business being. And when Roger “Mac” MacKenzie takes the hand I’ve placed in his, something inside me stirs. My soul, I think. Yes, it must be my soul.
His eyes are the color of the sky that’s been scrubbed free of clouds, and when they look into mine, it feels as though they are reaching inside me and touching a part of me that has never been touched before. By anyone. I feel bare, exposed, as though with just a glance he knows everything there is to know about me.
Suddenly, I am aware of my surroundings. Of other people watching us. My brother, my parents, my chaperone from the convent. My cheeks burn with embarrassment as I struggle to regain my composure and my breath, which has somehow managed to drain entirely from my lungs.
“Pleased to meet you,” I say to my brother’s friend, and hurry away on wobbly legs into the kitchen to help my mother with the final preparations for supper.
As we sit down to eat, I can feel Sister Ruth Paul’s eyes bore down on me, watching my every move, so I try hard not to look at Mac and focus my attention on my brother instead.
Up to this point, enlistment in the military has been voluntary, but rumor has it that the draft is coming soon. We are all proud of Francis for volunteering, but the deepening crease of my father’s forehead tells of his concern. Over supper, the men speak of the activity in Europe and Asia, and the inevitability of America joining the war effort.
My mother eats quietly, but I can see her discomfort mounting as the conversation grows more serious. It’s a troubled time. Not just for our country, but for my family, and others like ours.
After we finish eating, the men take their conversation into the living room while the women do the dishes. Afterward, Francis and Mac go out for a while and I make my way upstairs to bed. My brother gave Sister Ruth Paul his room, and after bidding her goodnight, I collapse into the comfort of my childhood bed.
As I pull the covers up to my chin and stare into the inky darkness, I try not to think about how I’d embarrassed myself earlier at the sight of the handsome young soldier in uniform my brother brought home for dinner, but find it impossible. I’d acted like a blushing schoolgirl, and my body prickles now with the heat of my shame.
Unable to sleep, I sigh heavily and climb out of bed, bend to my knees and pray for forgiveness. As a nun, I’ve taken a vow of chastity, which means I promised to be pure in mind and body. A vow, it seems, that I am violating despite my best efforts to the contrary.
When I finish my prayers, I climb back into bed and close my eyes, but images of Mac force them open once again. I toss and turn, and after about an hour, I finally give up. I climb out of bed, slip into my housecoat and go downstairs for a glass of warm milk.
I turn on a small lamp and retrieve the milk from the icebox. After I pour some into a copper-bottomed pan, I place it on the gas range. I add a dash of vanilla extract for flavor, swirl the milk around with a wooden spoon and lose myself in my thoughts.
“Hello,” a voice from behind me says.
It is a quiet voice, but it may as well be a shout for the effect it has on me. I stifle my scream and turn with a start. There, across the kitchen table, is Mac, the hint of a smile on his face. My heart leaps into my throat and renders me momentarily mute. Realizing I must looked affright, I quickly turn back toward the stove.
“I thought you and Francis were out,” I say, pulling the zipper of my housecoat up as high as it will go and then resume stirring.
“We were, but he met up with some old school chums. I was tired, so I decided to come back on my own. I hope I didn’t startle you.”
“It’s fine. I’m warming some milk. Would you like some?”
“Yes, thank you.”
I add more milk to the pan and finish warming it, and then fill two mugs. I set one on the table in front of Mac, and turn toward the stairs. “Well, goodnight then,” I say.
“Won’t you sit for a moment?”
I pause to consider his question. I should just keep going, but I don’t want to appear rude. “Of course.” I sit across the table from him.
He lifts the mug to his mouth and I can see the outline of his face as the cup reaches his lips. I watch him, thankful that the diffuse light seems to have softened the intensity of his gaze. It doesn’t seem to penetrate through me the way it did before, and I decide that my earlier foolishness was nothing but a test of my vows—one I am determined to pass.
I open my mouth to speak but he beats me to it.
“Your brother told me he had a sister, but he never mentioned that his sister was a...well, a ‘Sister.’” He laughs, and so do I.
“Oh, well, Francis has never been one for the fine details. He’s always been somewhat of an idealist. A dreamer, I suppose. But I’m awfully proud of him.”
“I can see why. He’s a great chum, and he’ll make a fine soldier.”
He speaks with a certain maturity, like an older brother. Wiser than his years.
“Where is your family from, Mac?” Until this moment, I haven’t questioned his presence, but now I wonder about him. Why hadn’t he returned to his own family instead of coming to mine?
“I grew up about a hundred miles from here, in Dearborn Heights,” he says. “My father died when I was a fourteen. My mother passed earlier this year. It’s just me now.”
His face sags as he speaks and my heart knots like a fist in my chest. In the stillness of the tiny kitchen, I resist the urge to reach out and comfort him. I know that doing so would be a very bad idea.
“I’m sorry.” I understand with instant clarity why he seems so mature. “Is that why you decided to join the Navy?”
He nods. “My father was a Navy man. He fought in the Great War. I want to make him proud.”
“I’m sure he is. Your mother, too. Just because they’re not here with us any longer doesn’t mean they’re not aware of what’s going on in our lives.”
Mac holds my gaze for a long moment. “Do you really think that?”
“I do.” Metaphysics was my favorite class at Sienna Heights College, where I attended classes during my training.
A smile tugs at his lips. “I do, too.” He pauses for a moment, as if trying to decide whether or not to ask me something. “I’m not sure what to call you. Somehow, calling you ‘Sister’ doesn’t feel right.”
I want to tell him to call me Virginia, but that would be a betrayal of my vows. Marie Francis is the name I selected as my “new” name. Marie for my mother, Francis for my father and brother.
At the time, it seemed strange that we had to give up the name our parents had given us, but I did so without question. I hadn’t realized until this moment how much I missed hearing my given name.
“How about Marie Francis, then?” I say.
“That sounds good. So, Marie Francis,” he says, “have you always wanted to be a nun?”
“Since I was six,” I say. Since the day I met Helen Flanders.
***
I was in the first grade when Helen Flanders and her family moved in next door. Helen had bright red hair with springy curls, unlike my own mousy brown ringlets that hung in clumps around my face, causing both my mother and I much distress every morning when she brushed them out.
Before her family had unpacked the moving truck, Helen and I were playing dolls in the basement of my house. My dolls were handmade by my mother—crocheted and stuffed with my brother’s discarded t-shirts—but I loved them anyway. As we picked through the pile of clothing my mother had sewn, Helen squealed with delight when she found the nun’s outfit, and again when she discovered the matching priest suit, complete with a little white collar. She quickly stripped the dolls down and redressed them in these newly discovered outfits.
“This one looks like Father Paul from my old church.” Helen reached for another doll. “This one looks like Sister Louisa, my sister’s fourth grade teacher. She’s really beautiful. My sister wants to grow up and be a nun just like Sister Louisa.” Then she leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Oh yes,” I said. “I love secrets!”
“I want to be a nun, too,” Helen said.
I gasped and my hands flew to my mouth. Excitement shivered down my spine and I flung my arms around Helen’s neck, squeezing her so hard she pleaded for mercy. When I pulled away, there were tears in my eyes, and I knew for sure that Helen was a gift from God.
“Me too,” I told her. This was news to me, of course, but in an odd six-year-old way, it felt right.
“We’ll be nuns together,” Helen said. “Best friends and Sisters forever.”
“Pinky swear,” I said, and we did.
* * *
“I didn’t realize that kind of calling came to girls that young.” Mac says, covering his mouth to stifle his laugh.
I laugh, too, remembering the time when Helen and I literally thought that receiving “the calling” meant that God personally rang us on our telephones. Suddenly the idea seems so preposterous that I bend in laughter.
It feels good to really laugh. In the convent, we aren’t allowed to laugh “too much, or too loudly.” I only hope that Sister Ruth Paul is sleeping too soundly to hear me now.
Our laughter subsides and Mac’s face grows more serious. “Did you ever have any doubts? From the time you were six, did you ever think about marriage and children? Have you ever experienced what it’s like to be in love?”
A sharp, stabbing pain pierces my heart and a sob rises in my throat. I swallow hard, and choke the sob back down. The feelings I am experiencing take me completely by surprise.
“I’m sorry, those are very personal questions. I had no right to ask them. Please, forgive me,” Mac says.
“It’s alright. I thought I was in love once. But I decided I loved God more. What about you? Have you ever been in love?”
He looks thoughtful, and does not respond right away. “I’m not sure. I think so. But since I lost my father, I have a hard time getting close to anyone. I guess I’m afraid they’ll leave me, too.”
It’s an honest answer, spoken in the safety of the night. Or maybe he just feels safe sharing this part of himself with me because I’m a nun. Either way, I hope that one day Mac will find the person who makes him feel safe enough to give himself completely because, though I don’t know him well, I can sense that he is a man capable of great love.
I hear my father’s Buick pull into the drive and know that my brother is home. I stand, bid Mac good night and tiptoe up the stairs to my room. This time I manage to fall asleep quickly, but am greeted with dreams of war and conflict. A sign, perhaps, of the inner war that has already begun to wage itself inside me.