In This Small Spot (29 page)

“Not at all,” Mother Theodora assured her,
gesturing with her hand toward the pew and sitting next to Mickey.
“We get many visitors, but…” her eyes twinkled with a smile, “I
think I can honestly say that no one has come to us in fishing
waders before.”

Chapter 36

In March, Jennifer brought the first
tapestries from the museum. “Wait till you see,” she said excitedly
as she gently unrolled a large, canvas-wrapped bundle. “They were
discovered in a secret room in a Belgian manor. We think they were
hidden during World War II to protect the family’s treasures from
the Nazis. There were all kinds of things squirreled away – dishes,
jewels, some furniture. We put in a bid and got everything.” Inside
the canvas, the tapestries were rolled around a hard cardboard
tube. “You can see where they were folded before,” she explained,
indicating deep creases in the material.

The largest tapestry was very elaborate,
depicting a boar hunt. It was marred by soot and several singe
marks. “This one dates back to the mid eighteenth century. It was
probably hung near some torches or lanterns which burned it,” she
said. The nuns in the vestment room gathered round for their first
glimpse of their new project.

“These,” Jennifer said, laying out two
smaller tapestries of garden scenes, “were most likely hung in
ladies’ chambers.” She pointed to the damage on the lower portions
of each. “It looks like these sustained water damage, so we’re
guessing they were used as window hangings.”

The entire community was invited to come by
the vestment room and see them.

“Doesn’t altering them decrease the value?”
Sister Bernice asked, leaning over for a closer look.

“Generally, yes, that’s true,” Jennifer
acknowledged. “If the damage were minor, we would not do anything
except, perhaps, clean them. But these have been so heavily damaged
that restoring them is the only way to let people see what they
might have been like originally. And believe me, they’re still very
valuable,” she smiled.

Jennifer stayed at Jamie’s house for a
couple of nights so that she could come to the abbey each day and
be on hand to discuss the best approach to undoing the damage to
these three tapestries. Mickey and the others continued their work
while Jennifer and Sister Anselma matched thread colors and decided
how much to alter. At one point, Mickey looked up and, for an
instant, was startled at what looked like Alice and Sister Anselma
standing side by side.

“Boy, that was weird,” she whispered to
herself.

They were engrossed in their work when the
bell rang for Sext and Sister Anselma stood.

“Where are you going?” Jennifer asked in
frustration. “We only had two hours this morning and two this
afternoon.”

“This will not happen quickly,” Sister
Anselma reminded her as the other nuns headed for the Chapel.
“You’re operating on monastic time.”

After three days, Jennifer returned to the
museum, leaving the restoration work totally in Sister Anselma’s
hands. It was decided to focus initially on the largest tapestry.
Sister Anselma assembled a team of Sister Paula, Sister Madeline
and Mickey to help her while Sister Catherine took the lead on
their other projects. The restoration team began by creating a very
detailed drawing of the pattern and then began to carefully remove
the singed portions and begin working in new threads, dyed to match
the originals as closely as possible. It was tedious, painstaking
work and “I can’t take any more of this right now,” Sister Anselma
said, standing to stretch her back and rub her eyes tiredly. “We’re
going to have to take breaks,” and the others nodded
gratefully.

Sister Anselma went to work at her loom
where she could lose herself for a while in the hypnotic movements.
Mickey, who had been accustomed to spending hours over an OR table
attending to tiny details, could usually stay at it for the entire
work period, but the others quickly found that, although the
restoration work was interesting, they could only stay focused for
limited periods of time before they needed to rest their eyes and
do something that didn’t require as much concentration.

“Sister Michele?” Sister Lucille called from
the doorway one day and Mickey turned to her.

“Yes?”

“You have a telephone call.”

Mickey quickly followed Sister Lucille to
the message room near the abbey’s entrance. Mother Theodora had
telephone extensions in her office and bedroom in the event of
anything urgent, but the only other telephone in the abbey was this
one. She could hear a little static as she held the heavy,
old-fashioned handset to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Sister Michele,” came Greg Allenby’s voice.
It had taken him a long time to call her that. “I didn’t know who
else to call,” he said, sounding dazed.

“Greg, what’s wrong?” Mickey asked.

She could hear him breathing for a few
seconds. “My wife and daughter were in a car accident,” he finally
said. “They’re in Rochester…” His voice trailed off.

“Greg,” Mickey said firmly, trying to keep
him focused, “what’s their condition?”

“They’re both critical,” he answered,
starting to cry.

“Are you on your cell phone? Are you
driving?” she demanded.

“Yes.”

“Then you have got to keep yourself
together. You’ll be of no use to them if you get in an accident
also,” she said in her best professor voice.

He cleared his throat. “You’re right.”

“Do you know any more at this point?”

“No. That’s all they would tell me,” he said
shakily.

“Then get yourself to Rochester safely. Call
me when you have an update. And keep praying, Greg. You know you’ll
have our prayers, too.”

“Thanks.” He paused for a second. “Tell
Mother Theodora I’m cashing in on my account.”

The entire community started a
round-the-clock prayer vigil. Greg’s wife had sustained a severe
head injury and several broken bones when a sleepy truck driver
drifted into her lane, pushing her over a guardrail on the
interstate down into a ravine below, he told Mickey when he called
back. Their five-year-old daughter had serious internal injuries
and some broken bones as well. Greg continued to call regularly
with updates. Mother Theodora spoke with him often, trying to offer
reassurance.

“It’s so hard, feeling this helpless,”
Mickey lamented after hanging up with Greg on the fourth day with
no real change in his wife’s condition.

Mother Theodora looked at her thoughtfully.
“Would you be any less helpless in the hospital?”

“No, but you can fool yourself into feeling
less helpless because you’re doing things,” Mickey blushed,
sheepishly realizing that Mother Theodora had again caught her
underestimating the value of prayer.

“Then do something – pray harder.”

╬ ╬ ╬

For Mickey, this Lent – in addition to the
worry about Greg and his family – bore the additional burden of
Abigail’s impending return to the abbey after Easter. “You agreed
to this,” she kept reminding herself. But no matter how much she
tried to reconcile herself to it, she found herself feeling
increasingly resentful and bitter.

“What now?” she grumbled in exasperation one
morning as the task light over her embroidery station flickered on
and off a couple of times before going out.

Sister Catherine glanced up from where she
was setting a new piece, winding the warp threads through the
tension rollers on her loom. “Check the breaker. I’ve had to re-set
the breaker for my lights at least a dozen times.”

“How many times has the electrician been
asked to come back and fix this?” Sister Paula asked of no one in
particular.

“At least five,” Sister Anselma answered
absently, her nose inches away from the tapestry. “He says he’ll
come back out in between his other jobs, but he won’t say
when.”

They all jumped at the simultaneous sounds
of Mickey cussing and a loud pop. Sister Anselma looked up to see
Mickey at the breaker box shaking her hand in pain. “What
happened?” she asked as she went to her.

“It shocked me!” Mickey exclaimed. “I just
flipped the breaker off and back on, and it shocked me.”

“It also burst the bulb,” Sister Stephanie
remarked as she inspected the task light which was still smoking,
stepping gingerly as she heard glass crunching underfoot.

“Are you okay?” Sister Madeline asked. “Did
it burn you?”

“No,” Mickey replied sheepishly. “I think it
just scared me more than anything.”

“Let me help you clean this up,” Sister
Anselma said, coming over to inspect the embroidery which was now
covered by fine shards of glass. As the others returned to their
work, Mickey and Sister Anselma shook off the glass they could and
began picking the remaining pieces off with tweezers.

“Are you all right?” Sister Anselma asked
quietly.

Mickey kept her eyes on her work. “I’m
fine,” she replied. “Why?”

“Oh, you’ve just been a little
short-tempered,” Sister Anselma said with a shrug. “Either my mean
nature is rubbing off on you,” she said, noting that she’d elicited
a small smile from Mickey, “or something is bothering you. Abigail
maybe?”

Mickey’s shoulders slumped a little. “I’m
ashamed of myself.”

“For what? Being human?” Sister Anselma
looked up at her. “One thing I know is that you will find the grace
to deal with this.”

Mickey met her gaze, her own eyes filled
with doubt. “I hope you’re right.”

Greg came to the abbey a few days later to
give them an update in person. “Melinda has been moved out of the
pediatric ICU,” he told them happily. “She’s doing really
well.”

“And your wife?” Mother asked.

His smile became a bit more forced. “Well,
Judy’s brain injury is responding more slowly. But she’s
stable.”

He was so relieved and so happy at their
improvement that Mickey couldn’t bring herself to ask about his
wife’s long-term prognosis. After he was gone, Mickey asked Mother
Theodora to encourage the nuns to keep praying for as full a
recovery as possible.

“It’s always the same,” she said to Mother
Theodora. “At first, it’s just ‘please let her live.’ Then, when
you’re left with the reality of a body that’s alive, but a brain
that’s not functioning normally, everything changes.”

╬ ╬ ╬

The week after Easter, the new postulants
were to be admitted. “Abigail has asked to see you privately
beforehand,” Mother told Mickey. “She’ll be here on Thursday during
Recreation.” She reached a hand out to squeeze Mickey’s shoulder.
“Be gentle.”

Startled, Mickey looked at her. “With
her?”

“With both of you.”

On Thursday, Mickey paused in the foyer, her
clammy hands concealed inside her sleeves. Bracing herself, she
went to the appointed parlour to find Abigail sitting there. She
jumped up immediately when Mickey entered.

“Sit down,” Mickey invited, taking one chair
as Abigail sat tensely on the edge of another.

“I… I wanted to see you, alone,” said
Abigail.

“Why?” Mickey asked more calmly than she
felt inside.

“I will apologize to you publicly, in front
of the whole community, tomorrow, “Abigail said in a small voice,
“but I wanted to apologize to you privately first.”

Mickey gazed searchingly at Abigail, and she
realized how much older she looked. Her eyes were the eyes of
someone much more mature than her twenty-five years. All the
youthful brashness was gone and she seemed – “diminished, somehow,”
Mickey would realize later.

“We have to let it go,” was what Mickey
meant to say, but “Why did you do it?” was what came out
instead.

She couldn’t hide the bitterness in her
voice or her eyes as she looked to Abigail for an explanation.

Abigail’s face blanched like it had that day
she cut her finger. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I was so in
love, but I know now, it was not a healthy kind of love… I let her
control me, control everything.” Her chin quivered. “It’s not an
excuse, I know that. I tried to talk her out of it, but she hated
you so much. She said you were jealous of her, of us, and I
believed her back then.” A blotchy flush crept up her neck to
replace the pallor in her cheeks. “I know better than that now,
but…” Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her face.

Mickey’s jaw tightened at the sight of the
tears. “Why did you break up?”

Abigail’s eyes closed and more tears leaked
out. “She lied to me. She didn’t tell me about the other woman, in
the convent in Philadelphia. When I found out, it was like I saw
her differently than before. She’s… she’s not the person I thought
she was, and… I started to feel horrible… about the lawyer, about
leaving St. Bridget’s, about turning my back on God and my
vocation.”

This last was nearly lost in her sobs. She
covered her face with her hands and her shoulders shook as she
cried. Mickey’s face turned to stone as she stared at the floor,
letting Abigail cry, coldly refusing to comfort her. She stood
abruptly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Abigail and three other women were presented
to the community during Mass the next day. Mickey, who had spent a
nearly sleepless night, was so agitated that she actually felt
nauseous. “I can’t do this,” she had breathed in the darkness of
her cell. “I don’t forgive her. I can’t. How can I face her in
front of everyone?” She briefly considered going to the infirmary
to avoid having to face Abigail again, but knew that she was only
putting off the inevitable. Later that day, during lunch, Mother
Theodora called for silence.

Abigail came around to where Mickey was
sitting and said, loudly enough for all to hear, “Sister Michele,
two years ago, I… I was involved in a plan to embarrass you in
front of the community.” Abigail’s face burned that splotchy red,
and her voice quavered, but she continued, “I’m very sorry for what
I did, and I want to ask you now for your forgiveness.”