The Blue Bottle Club (38 page)

"Yep. Not a good idea, running the engine when you're in a drift."

She fell silent as the full impact of the situation registered. This man, this stranger, had saved her life. "How did you find me?"

"Wife saw you when, she crossed the bridge over the highway Sent me and the boy back to check on you."

"Well, I do appreciate it, Mr. Hanson. If it hadn't been for you, I might not have lived through this night. I don't know how to thank you."

Sven shrugged. "No problem."

They chugged on through the darkness, the high headlights on the John Deere cutting a swath through the night. "What time is it?" Brendan asked after a while.

"'Bout midnight, I guess."

"Where are we going?"

"Home. Got a farm up a ways, near Norseland."

"Does Norseland have a hotel? I mean, I'll need a place to stay."

"Wife'll make up a bed for you. In the morning we'll gas up the car and get you on your way."

"I couldn't possibly—" Brendan stammered. "I mean, I don't want to impose."

"No problem." Sven turned the tractor off the main road onto a narrow gravel driveway and pulled up in front of a rambling two-story farmhouse. "Go on in," he said.

While Sven and Lars unhooked the chain and pushed the rental car into the barn, Brendan climbed awkwardly down from the tractor cab and picked her way along a shoveled path to the porch. She was greeted at the front door by a round, ruddy-cheeked woman in a stained apron and navy cardigan sweater.

"Come in, come in!" the woman said cheerfully, as if greeting a long-lost friend. "Are you all right, dear? It's getting colder, I think. Wonder if we'll get more snow?"

The front door opened directly into a large living room. The rug was shabby and the furniture worn, but a welcoming fire blazed in the fireplace, and a tall blue spruce, decorated with lights and ornaments, filled one corner.

"Let me take your coat. I've got hot chocolate on the stove and a fresh batch of kringla and krumbkakke. Do you want a sandwich? You must be hungry after your ordeal."

Brendan handed over her coat and sank onto the chair nearest the fire. Mrs. Hanson, apparently, had inherited all the gregarious genes in this family. She chattered her way into the kitchen and back, returning with a tray of mugs and a heaping platter of cookies.

"Thank you, Mrs. Hanson," she said as the woman handed her a steaming mug of cocoa.

"Call me Elke. And your name is—?"

"Oh, sorry. Brendan. Brendan Delaney"

"What an interesting name. Is it—?" Elke paused, thinking.

"Irish."

"Irish. How fascinating. We don't hear many unusual names in these parts. Most of us are just plain old Hansons and Erdahls and Bjornsens and Rollenhagens—"

The door opened, and Sven and Lars entered on a blast of frigid air. "Kinda chilly out there," Sven commented as he stomped his boots on the rug. Lars stomped as well but said nothing.

Once he had doffed his heavy coat and hat, Sven Hanson didn't look nearly so much like a big bear. He was tall, certainly—over six feet—but thin, with a wide forehead, blondish-gray hair, and pale blue eyes. Lars, a younger, blonder version of his father, had the same lanky build, a buzz cut, and a bashful smile.

While the males chugged down their hot chocolate and devoured cookies by the handful, Elke kept up a running commentary about the weather, Brendan's midnight rescue, and the process involved in making kringlas—which, Brendan had deduced, were the pale, pretzel-shaped cookies with a distinct anise flavor.

At last Sven stood up, cleared his throat, and declared, "Time for bed."

"Oh, wait!" Brendan scrambled for her bag and retrieved her checkbook. "Let me pay you for your trouble. And for the room."

Sven frowned and shook his head. "No need."

"But you came out in a snowstorm at midnight! You saved my life—"

"Ya."

"But you won't let me repay you? Not even for the gas?"

"This is Minnesota," he said curtly. "People help each other." With a shrug he disappeared up the stairs.

Brendan turned to Elke, who was putting sheets and a thick down comforter on the sofa. "We don't have a guest room, but you'll be pretty comfy right here."

"Elke, why won't your husband let me pay him for his trouble? I mean, you've all been so generous—towing my car, putting me up for the night—"

The woman turned and gave Brendan a look of sheer amazement, as if anyone with a grain of sense would never even raise such a question. "In this part of the country, everybody helps everybody else. If a farmer gets sick or hurt, his friends and neighbors bring in his crops and feed his livestock. When a person gets in trouble, like you did tonight, whoever's nearby comes to help. If it hadn't been us, it would have been someone else." She paused and smiled. "It's nothing we need payment for, or even thanks. It's just our way. You'd have done the same."

Brendan wasn't so sure. Would she have put herself out so much to aid another human being, a stranger, who had been stranded or hurt or needed help? Was this what Ellie James had meant by changing the world one life at a time? The question haunted her as she stared into the dying embers of the fire and snuggled under the heavy down comforter.

But Brendan Delaney's self-examination didn't last long. Exhaustion overtook her, and just as the mantel clock struck one, she drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep.

36

THE MOTHER HOUSE

November 30, 1994

B
y the time Brendan left Norseland at ten the next morning, the storm that had stranded her had given way to blue skies and blinding sun on the new snow. Highway 169 had been plowed, and traffic had melted off the last of the ice glaze into harmless rivulets of water.

Elke had insisted that she stay for an enormous, artery-clogging farm breakfast consisting of ham and bacon, potatoes, eggs, and thick slices of toast made from homemade honey wheat bread. Now, in the car headed south, Brendan fought to keep her eyes open and wished she could take a nap.

In the quaint little town of St. Peter, she stopped at a convenience store and got coffee. She had intended to buy gas too, but Sven Hanson had filled the tank from his pump at the farm. Brendan wondered for the hundredth time what would possibly motivate these simple farm folk to treat a stranger so well. The only answer she could come up with was the answer Elke had given: "It's just our way."

South of St. Peter, huge rocky cliffs rose on Brendan's right, and to her left, low-lying fields swept down to the river. A cave in those cliffs, Elke had told her, once provided refuge to Jesse James when he was on the run from the authorities. The woman had said it with pride, as if the outlaw had been an honored ancestor.

Brendan drove on, enjoying the unfamiliar, snow-covered scenery, until she reached the outskirts of Mankato, Minnesota, where she stopped to get directions to the address Ellie had given her. The fellow running the gas station—a gray-haired man with a distinct stoop—stared at the slip of paper and nodded.

"You know where it is?"

"Yep."

"Is it nearby?"

"Yep." He motioned to her to follow, went out the door, and pointed to a high hill in the distance. "There she is."

Brendan squinted and saw an enormous building that looked like a small castle. "There must be some mistake."

"No mistake. It's the Mother House." The man said the words quietly, and his face bore an expression of awe and reverence. "Take the bypass here and get off at the next exit. Go left, and then another left on the first road. It's a ways up the hill, but you can't miss it."

Brendan thanked him, got back in the car, and followed his directions. All she had to go on was an address on a slip of paper, but the man had seemed to know the place immediately The Mother House, he called it. What did that mean?

As the rental car labored to the top of the hill, Brendan found herself confronted with a sprawling brick building. It had to be at least a hundred years old—three stories high with towers and turrets and two enormous wings going off from the center. A sign at the crest of the hill read:
School Sisters
of Notre Dame.

Brendan knew she had to be in the wrong place, but there was nothing to do but go inside and ask for directions again. She parked the car, got out, and wandered toward what seemed to be the only entrance—a set of double doors covered by a black awning. As she pulled the door open, she nearly ran headlong into a pleasant-faced young woman in a down jacket and furlined boots.

"May I help you?" The woman smiled and took a step back.

"I—I don't know," Brendan stammered. "I'm looking for someone."

The woman pointed. "Up the stairs and to the left. Where the sign says,
Office.
Someone should be able to help you."

Upstairs, Brendan found herself in a long hallway. The place was eerily silent except for the distant tapping of a typewriter. She found the office and knocked timidly.

"Come."

Brendan opened the door and stuck her head inside. A rotund woman of about fifty, with graying hair and ruddy cheeks, sat behind a desk. "I'm sorry to disturb you," Brendan began. "I'm trying to find someone, but I'm afraid I'm in the wrong place."

The woman grinned broadly. "That depends on who you're looking for."

Brendan held out the slip of paper Ellie James had given her. "Is this the right address?"

"Yes indeed. And the person's name—?"

"Mary Love Buchanan. She's an elderly woman, in her eighties."

The woman rose from behind the desk and went to the door. "Follow me." She moved noiselessly down the hallway, with Brendan close on her heels, until they reached a set of oak doors. "She's been very frail of late," the woman warned. "We don't like to see her overtired."

Brendan reached out a hand and laid it on the woman's arm. "What is this place?"

"Why, it's the Mother House. Of the School Sisters of Notre Dame."

"And Mary Love lives here?"

"Many of our elderly come here when they retire." The woman fixed her with an odd gaze. "Come. You'll see."

She opened the door and ushered Brendan into what seemed like a different world. It was a chapel, with high vaulted ceilings and two steps up to a broad stone altar illuminated by the dim light from stained-glass windows. On the altar, a perpetual flame burned, and in a corner to the right, a statue of the Virgin Mary was fronted by a bank of burning votives. The candles cast a wavering light over the Virgin's feet and threw moving shadows into her face. In front of the shrine sat a wheelchair, occupied by a nun in full habit.

Brendan's guide went directly over to the nun and waited, then cleared her throat quietly. "Sister? You have a visitor."

Gnarled hands reached out from the folds of the black habit and grasped the wheels. The chair pivoted, and Brendan found herself staring into the face of an ancient woman. Her skin was wrinkled and seamed, but her eyes shone like chunks of pale aquamarine. The old nun squinted and peered at Brendan.

"Do I know you?"

Brendan hesitated. "Mary Love Buchanan?"

"No one has used that name in years," the elderly nun whispered. "Who are you?"

"I'm Brendan Delaney I've come to see you, all the way from Asheville, North Carolina." She paused. "An old friend of yours sent me. Ellie James."

A shadow passed over the old woman's face, and she crossed herself. "She's not dead, is she?"

Brendan smiled. "No." She turned to the gray-haired woman. "Is there someplace we can talk?"

"Upstairs, in the day room. Do you feel up to it, Sister?"

The nun turned a scalding look on the woman. "How many times do I have to tell you, Janelle? I'm not infirm, and I don't need pampering." She rolled her eyes at Brendan. "This one looks hale and hearty enough to give me a push. You go on back to your work."

Janelle smiled and patted the old nun's hand. "All right. I'll see you later." Then she was gone, as silently as she had come.

"Young nuns!" the old woman spat out. "You get old, and people start treating you like a child again." She looked up at Brendan. "What did you say your name was?"

"Brendan Delaney."

"Ah. A good, strong Irish name. Catholic, are you?
"Brendan shook her head. "I'm afraid not."

"Well, too bad for you, Brendan Delaney. Now, let's get going."

Brendan took control of the wheelchair and pushed as the nun gave directions. Down the hall, up the elevator to the third floor, and into a bright, spacious room with windows overlooking snow-covered woods. When they arrived, the nun set the brake on the wheelchair and transferred herself to a high-backed wing chair facing the view. She waved a hand in Brendan's direction. "Get that thing out of my sight, will you? I need it to get around—spinal degeneration, you know. But I hate seeing it. Reminds me I'm getting on in years, even if I don't like to admit it."

Brendan moved the wheelchair to a corner by the door and returned to find the nun with her feet on the coffee table. She was wearing white sweat socks and Nike running shoes under her habit.

"Sit," the old woman commanded, waving a hand at the chair next to her. Brendan sat.

"So Ellie sent you, did she? Guess you didn't expect to find a nun."

"No, ma'am, I didn't," Brendan admitted. "I have to say it was a bit of a shock. I—I don't even know what to call you."

"Call me Mary Love, of course.
Sister
Mary Love, if you like."

"So you kept your own name?"

"I have another, the name I adopted when I donned my first habit. Nuns these days keep their baptismal names, you know. And I rather like being called Mary Love. I've worn this habit for over fifty years, but I never could get away from thinking of myself as that little Buchanan girl from Asheville."

"All right,
Sister."
The word felt foreign on Brendan's tongue. "Do you mind explaining to me what kind of place this is, what you're doing here?"

"This is the Mother House of the School Sisters of Notre Dame. We are an order of teaching nuns, and this house—our central headquarters, if you will—is an administrative center. The activities of the order are organized from here. A lot goes on here—spiritual direction, training, counseling. It's also a home for retired nuns. Those who are physically able still work—making clothes and quilts for the homeless, for example. Sister Janelle, the nun who brought you to me, is the Reverend Mother's administrative assistant."