LITMIR.BIZ

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In approximately—” she glanced at her watch, “—an hour and ten minutes, I’ll be taking over what would have been Mrs. Butterfield’s fourth-grade class if she wasn’t about to deliver at any minute.”

      Claire turned back toward the mirror to check over her appearance one last time. And perhaps locate her confidence, as well.

      Margaret sighed and shook her head. “Why are you doing this?”

      At the last moment, Claire had decided to wear her hair up. She thought it looked more authoritative that way. Besides, to be honest, she wasn’t all that accustomed to seeing her hair loose like this. Swiftly, she began to strategically place pins in it to ensure that it stayed in place.

      “Because, for one thing, I need a job.” And we’re going to need the money, Mom, she added silently.

      “No, you don’t,” her mother contradicted. “You already have a job.”

      The last pin in, Claire quickly surveyed her handiwork. “You mean taking care of you—” Was her mother trying to tell her that she felt weak? That she needed her around in case she suddenly began to go downhill?

      But before she got a chance to ask, her mother had already waved a dismissive hand at her, silencing any words that were about to emerge. “No, I can take care of myself, Claire,” she declared with dignity. “I’m not an invalid—at least, not yet,” she qualified quietly.

      Finished, Claire turned away from the bureau. This was as good as it was going to get, she thought. Worrying about the way her hair looked and if her clothes were sending the wrong message was an entirely foreign concept to her. So was experimenting with makeup, but she felt she’d done a fairly admirable job of it for someone new to the game. The application was subtle, the results pretty.

      The next second, she admonished herself for being vain. It was hard being stuck between two worlds, not feeling as if she belonged in either.

      “Then I don’t know what you’re—”

      Again her mother cut her short, this time with more than a trace of impatience. “Your job. Your vocation.” The frown mingled with a plea. “I’m talking about your being part of the Dominican order.”

      Not now, Mother. Not today, please.

      She’d known the moment the idea of leaving the order had occurred to her that the transition wasn’t going to be easy. For either of them. Not for her because she’d been part of the order for so long, she was going to have a difficult time redefining herself in different terms, and not for her widowed mother because she knew that Margaret Santaniello was convinced that turning her back on the order was tantamount to committing a mortal sin and thus putting her soul in jeopardy.

      Getting her mother to come around would require treating both the subject and her mother with kid gloves. And, she’d already learned, it was also going to require a great deal of repetition.

      She tried to focus on another time, a time when she and her mother had been in harmony instead of at odds. “Mother, we’ve gone through all this already. I’m not Sister Michael anymore.”

      A note of desperation entered her mother’s voice. “That’s like saying you’re not tall anymore.”

      “I’m not,” Claire pointed out calmly. She didn’t have time for this.

      “You know what I mean,” Margaret insisted. “All right,” she conceded, “bad example. It’s like saying you’re not Italian anymore.” She nodded her head in triumph, as if feeling that she’d chosen her example well this time. “Saying it doesn’t change things. You can’t stop being Italian.”

      “Not the same thing, Mother, not the same thing at all.” She saw tears suddenly gather in her mother’s eyes. Guilt assaulted her at the same moment. She placed her arm around her mother’s shoulders, or tried to. “Mother—”

      But her mother shrugged her arm aside, moving away from her as if she had a contagious disease. “I’m going to die.” Her tone was oddly resigned.

      Her mother wasn’t going to lick this thing if she’d already surrendered to it. She needed hope, Claire thought. A lot of it.

      “No, you’re not,” she countered fiercely.

      “Yes, I am. Because of you. You know this kind of thing doesn’t go unpunished.”

      For one moment, Claire felt as if she’d been physically slapped across the face. Stunned, she focused on the larger subject. “You don’t believe that.”

      “Yes, I do.” There was no arguing with her mother’s tone of voice.

      If she couldn’t talk her mother out of it, she could still elaborate on her own beliefs, Claire reasoned, hoping that, in time, it would make her mother come around. “Well, I don’t. I don’t believe in a petty God who insists on going tit for tat.” She and God might not be on the same wavelength at the moment, but she still believed in His existence, still believed that He wasn’t a vengeful God. Why would her mother even think that? It was her mother who had taught her everything she believed in.

      Her mother turned away from her. When she spoke again, Claire thought her heart was going to break from just hearing the sorrow in her mother’s voice. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one with acute leukemia.”

      All she could do was give her mother the benefit of her own faith. “Mother, I don’t have a clue why some things happen, why some people have everything go right for them even if they don’t seem to deserve it and why other people have so many bad things happen, even if they are good, decent people—”

      “Maybe if you’d paid more attention at the convent, you’d have some of those answers.”

      She continued as if her mother hadn’t interrupted. Her mother wasn’t being fair, but she couldn’t fault her. Staring at the face of your own possible mortality could frighten anyone. “But I do know that God doesn’t sit around keeping score and threatening people with sores and pestilence if they get out of line.”

      A hopelessness descended over Margaret. “Then why am I sick?” she demanded.

      Claire hugged her mother, trying desperately to comfort her. “I wish I knew, Mother. But I do know that you were diagnosed long before I ever left the order.”

      “He knew you were going to leave. He knows everything.”

      Rather than become annoyed or defensive, Claire felt nothing but compassion for what her mother was going through. But at the same time, she wanted her mother to be aware of how convoluted her thinking was.

      “So what you’re saying is that you’re being punished for something I was going to do.”

      “Yes,” Margaret declared with feeling, then relented. “No.” She could feel an enormous headache building as the tension inside her increased. “Oh, I don’t know.” She pressed her lips together, looking at her only child. She did, in a selfish way, appreciate her being here but at the same time, she felt in her heart it was wrong. Claire belonged in the convent. And she had taken her away from that, no matter what Claire said to the contrary. “Everything was so much clearer a year ago,” Margaret lamented.

      Since she couldn’t seem to help her mother, maybe someone else could. The woman had always been partial to priests. “Mother, I’m going to see if I can get Father Ryan to stop by later today.”

      Margaret’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh, no, I couldn’t face him.”

      Claire slipped into her black pumps. The moment isolated itself. These were her first pair of non-sensible shoes in twenty-two years. She’d worn them the other night to Saturday’s. She’d forgotten how much she enjoyed wearing high heels.

      The next moment, she forced herself to concentrate on what her mother was saying. “Why?”

      They were back on opposite ends of the discussion again. “You know why.”

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