In This Small Spot Read online

  After Abigail had gone, Sister Mary David came over to where Mickey was cleaning up. “Michele,” she began, “I assume you are not a nurse. Are you a physician assistant?”

  “No,” Mickey replied, glancing up. “I was a surgeon.”

  Sister Mary David just stared at her for a moment. “But why wasn’t I told before now? There have been so many times we could have used you…”

  “Sister,” Mickey straightened up. “I didn’t enter the abbey to be the in-house physician. My being here is completely separate from my previous profession. I’m going to ask you not to say anything about this. If there’s an emergency, then of course I want you to come get me, but otherwise, I’m not here to practice medicine.” She smiled apologetically. “And I still have an awful lot to learn about being a nun.”

  Sister Mary David blushed. “Forgive me, Michele. That was… I understand.”

  A short time later, Mickey was seated in her stall in Chapel. That was the first time in nearly a year that she had treated a patient. Granted, it had been a minor injury, but she was a little surprised at how easily she had slipped back into that role – surprised and chagrined. The organ startled her. She hadn’t heard the Chapel filling. Looking around at the faces of these women, faces that were becoming so familiar, she had the peculiar feeling that something had shifted today. This is where I belong, she thought, closing her eyes. This is what’s real.

  Chapter 9

  “This is Dr. Stewart,” Mickey said, rubbing her eyes tiredly as she answered the page.

  “Hey,” came Alice’s voice over the phone. “You were supposed to be home three hours ago.”

  “Oh, hon, I am so sorry.” Mickey looked at her watch. “I got called in on one of Tucker’s surgeries. The idiot removed a twelve-year-old kid’s scapula before he did a lung biopsy. The entire left lung was full of tumors. I removed the lung, but he’s got to have chemo and radiation, and now he can’t use his left arm. He probably won’t make it,” she finished quietly.

  Mickey pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose as she listened to the silence on the other end of the phone. “I should have called,” she said. “But he was already on the table…”

  “The car is packed,” Alice said at last. “Can you leave if I come by to pick you up?”

  “Yes. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  As Mickey hurriedly changed out of her scrubs in the locker room, she whispered a prayer of thanks as she had done a thousand times before over the past ten years. It would have sounded trite if she had tried to explain it to anyone else, but she literally felt that Alice was God’s gift to her. She resolved to focus all of her attention on Alice over the next few days as they traveled to their weekend house on the Chesapeake Bay.

  “I’m sorry,” Mickey said again as she got into the car. “You have every right to be angry.”

  Alice wove through the hospital parking lot. “I was,” she admitted after a moment. “But how can I measure a weekend at the Bay against a twelve-year-old boy’s life?”

  “I truly don’t deserve you,” Mickey said, taking Alice’s hand and squeezing it.

  “I know.” Alice grinned at her. “And I’ll remind you of that if you complain about the new couch I bought today.”

  Chapter 10

  “In a month, you will have been here a year,” Sister Rosaria told the postulants in March. “It is time for you to prepare for the decision as to whether or not you will be entering the Novitiate.” As part of that process, the postulants were required to make a seven day retreat. “This retreat will be conducted in complete silence, except for the daily session each of you will have with the senior nun assigned to be your spiritual advisor,” Sister Rosaria explained. “You will move from the dormitory to cells for private sleeping quarters. Your meals will be taken in a small room off the refectory. You will not participate in the Office, although you may listen to it, and you will not be doing any work, since the focus of the week is to be prayer and reflection.”

  During her meeting explaining the retreat to the five postulants, Sister Rosaria told them who their spiritual advisors were. To Mickey’s mortification, hers was Sister Anselma. The seniors serving as advisors had all received intense training in guiding the retreat process. “Our task is to listen,” they would have said – listen to the retreatant, and listen for God’s whispers pointing the way to a meaningful experience. The advisors were also very much aware that the retreat process could bring up intense emotional issues. Things easily suppressed under the busy-ness of daily life often surfaced in the stillness and silence. The retreat process could have a profound impact, not only on someone’s psychological state, but also on a shaky vocation. “More than one woman had left the abbey after a difficult retreat,” Sister Rosaria warned them. “This is nothing to be ashamed of. Monastic life is not for everyone. Even those with a true vocation may find that this retreat simply points them down another path.”

  “Don’t fool yourselves into thinking you deserve God’s attention as a reward for entering religious life,” Sister Renatta advised them in her last lecture – “even if the retreat goes badly, that’s something to be grateful for,” Mickey joked in an undertone to Tanya who immediately coughed to cover her laugh. Sister Renatta’s eyes got misty as she continued, “Saint Teresa of Ávila went through a dry period of nearly twenty years without any sense that God was listening. Her perseverance was eventually rewarded with a state of grace and communion with our Lord that most of you will probably never experience. I myself have experienced several moments of grace, and I can assure you they are most stirring. Remember that you are beginners on this journey.”

  The day before the retreat was to begin, the postulants were all packing up their clothes and few belongings in preparation for the move to their cells. Loudly enough for Mickey to hear, Wendy said to Tanya, “Yeah, I’ve done this two or three times. The most important thing is who your spiritual advisor is. I’m so glad I didn’t get Sister Anselma, or I should say Sister Absentia. I’ve heard she’s like some kind of ice queen – the perfect nun with no emotions.”

  Wendy, in her snide way, had been even more aggressive and challenging to Mickey ever since Abigail’s accident with the knife. Mickey had forced herself to bite her tongue and remain quiet, but finally, “Whoever you got,” she said as she picked up the other end of Jessica’s trunk to help her carry it to her cell, “I hope she’s smart enough to see through your bullshit.”

  Mickey’s cell was at the end of the corridor, next to Jessica’s. They were all furnished alike, with a bed, a small wardrobe and a writing desk with a bookshelf on top. Mostly what Mickey had brought with her were books. She set her trunk at the foot of her bed, and then sat at the desk to write Jamie an overdue letter. “I don’t know how busy all this prayer will keep me,” she wrote, “but seven days feels like a very long time.”

  The next day, they met with their spiritual advisors for the first time right after Mass. Mickey was greeted by Sister Anselma and shown into a small study near the library. Mickey waited for Sister Anselma to sit before she took an adjacent chair.

  “The first thing I want you to know is that anything we discuss is as confidential as the confessional,” Sister Anselma began. “I would only repeat our conversations to Mother if I felt it was absolutely necessary, and then only with your permission.”

  Mickey was watching her grey eyes intently as she spoke. This was the first time Mickey had had a chance to really study her face, and she was startled to realize that Sister Anselma was probably no older than she was. She knew the nuns didn’t measure age chronologically, but she was still surprised that someone so young would carry so much responsibility within the abbey.

  Sister Anselma continued, “In order for me to guide you to the best of my ability, it would be helpful to know a little about you and what brought you here.”

  Mickey quickly considered how much to tell her. It had taken a long time before she opened up completely with Mother Theodora. “I
was drawn to religious life as a teenager and almost entered a convent right after high school,” she began sheepishly, “but I decided to go to college, and there, I became interested in medicine and pursued medical school. I had been teaching at Johns Hopkins, and was a partner in a surgical practice in Baltimore.” Mickey paused. Sister Anselma’s expression hadn’t changed, and her eyes were still fixed on Mickey’s face. “After… a few years ago, I guess I just reached the point of feeling I needed to do something more. I found the abbey by accident one day, and then met Mother. It was through my conversations with her that I eventually decided to enter.”

  Sister Anselma’s face softened. “I wonder if she knows how many of us she’s brought here.” She held out a small book and pen. “You will use this journal to write down the Scripture passages I give you to pray with each day. Try to spend an hour with each passage, and then write down your feelings, thoughts, any words or phrases that speak to you. Begin each session with a prayer asking to be open to what God wishes to say to you. Have you ever prayed like this before, Michele?”

  Mickey shook her head.

  “Try to relax and not force your prayer in any specific direction.” She flipped through the Bible on her lap, and gave Mickey three Scripture readings to start with. “We’ll meet here each day at the start of Recreation.” She stood, and the folds of her habit fell gracefully into place. She looked down at Mickey and added, “I believe there is still enough snow left outside for another snowball fight with the trees if you are so moved.”

  ╬ ╬ ╬

  The first five days of Mickey’s retreat passed calmly enough. The passages that she had been asked to pray with had been taken from all over: Lamentations, Isaiah, Psalms, the Gospels, Paul’s letters. The common thread which seemed to be emerging was Mickey’s difficulty trusting and believing that she could be an instrument of God’s will. This was the hardest thing she had done at St. Bridget’s, maybe the hardest thing she had ever done.

  She had glimpses of the others at meals, and occasionally, out on the abbey grounds. They seemed to be struggling also. She saw Tanya and Jessica in tears at different times.

  Meeting with Sister Anselma the afternoon of the fifth day, Mickey was looking forward to the end of this retreat and was about to say so when, “Michele,” Sister Anselma began with a small frown, “I am not sure why or what exactly, but I sense a block of some kind, keeping you from getting where you need to be.”

  Mickey stared at her. “I don’t feel that way. I’m not sure what is supposed to happen on these retreats, but I feel like there have been moments of real clarity and insight that weren’t there before.”

  Sister Anselma’s sharp eyes searched hers for a long moment. Finally she nodded and said, “Very well. I could be wrong about this.” Opening her Bible, she began picking the next set of readings for Mickey to pray with. She looked up and saw that Mickey had stopped writing and that the color had drained from her face. “Michele?”

  “Why did you choose that passage from Wisdom?” Mickey asked, looking down at her journal.

  Sister Anselma’s eyebrows raised a little. “I don’t know. I told you I pray for guidance each time we meet. Why?”

  Mickey paused. “That reading is connected to a… a difficult time in my life. I’d rather not pray with that one.”

  Gently, Sister Anselma said, “Maybe that’s why I was prompted to give it to you. Please try.”

  Mickey nodded and closed her journal.

  ╬ ╬ ╬

  The virtuous woman, though she die before her time, will find rest.

  “Tell me,” was all Sister Anselma said the next day. She noticed, but didn’t comment on, the dark circles under Mickey’s eyes. She suspected Mickey had not slept at all.

  Length of days is not what makes age honourable,

  Nor number of years the true measure of life.

  Mickey stared at the pen in her hands, pushing the cap off with her thumb and clicking it back on, over and over. “I’m afraid I didn’t really get anywhere with the readings you gave me yesterday,” she said in a low voice.

  “Why not?”

  She has sought to please God, so God has loved her.

  Mickey frowned and rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know,” she said irritably. “I just couldn’t seem to settle my mind.”

  Sister Anselma sat silently for a long time, until Mickey finally looked up at her.

  “Michele,” she said, her expression neutral, “I would like your permission to speak with Mother. I believe we should extend your retreat.”

  Mickey’s heart sank. “How long?”

  “A full thirty days.”

  After the seventh day, Mickey ate alone in the room off the refectory. The others returned to the normal routine of abbey life. Sister Anselma didn’t give Mickey different Scriptures to pray with. She kept asking Mickey to stay with the ones she was stuck on. Not until the tenth day did Mickey begin to open up even a little.

  “The reading from Wisdom, with some gender changes, was one of the passages used in the funeral of my partner, Alice,” she finally told Sister Anselma that afternoon.

  “How long were you together?” Sister Anselma asked quietly.

  “Twelve years. We met while I was in medical school.” Mickey’s eyes stared, unfocused, at the wall.

  “Tell me about her.”

  For the first time in days, Mickey’s face softened a little. “She was everything to me,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “She was the gentlest soul I have ever known. She always knew what I needed – whether it was just to listen when I needed to vent, or hold me when a patient died, or make me laugh when I was taking myself too seriously.”

  Mickey was surprised when Sister Anselma didn’t ask any more questions. She finally gave Mickey three new Scriptures. When Mickey sat down to pray with them, they were joyful passages – Psalms 138 and 139, the Song of Songs. A front of unseasonably warm air had moved into the region, and she was able to go outside to spend the hours praying with those passages, immersed in memories of the love and happiness Alice had brought to her life. She felt tremendously relieved that she was through the worst of this retreat. She slept better that night, and felt more prepared to face Sister Anselma the next day.

  To her disappointment, Sister Anselma didn’t ask any questions about those prayer sessions.

  “What kind of surgeon were you?” Sister Anselma asked unexpectedly.

  “I’m sorry?” Mickey asked, not sure how to interpret the question.

  “What kind of surgeon were you?” Sister Anselma repeated, refusing to clarify.

  “I was a general surgeon, but my specialty was oncological cases – removing cancerous tissues,” Mickey opted to answer.

  Sister Anselma was looking at her intently. “Were you a good doctor?”

  Mickey could feel her face burn. “I don’t know how to answer that,” she responded honestly.

  Sister Anselma simply nodded and continued watching Mickey. “Tell me how Alice died.”

  Mickey was unprepared for this. She felt her face get hotter, and her heartbeat quicken. “She was complaining of back pain. But she taught second grade; she was always having to bend and stoop.” She had to stop to try and breathe. “By the time an MRI was done, her cancer was everywhere. She opted not to have chemo. We used the time we had left to travel, visit family and friends.”

  “How long?” Sister Anselma’s voice was gentle, but her expression was inscrutable.

  Mickey tried to answer, but had to clear her throat twice before sound would come out. “Eight weeks.”

  Sister Anselma looked away at last, and began turning the pages of her Bible. She gave Mickey four new Scriptures to pray with, and then she said, “If you need me, Michele, at any hour, I want you to come and get me. My cell is 130.”

  Mickey went out to the garden enclosure as the rest of the community gathered in the Chapel for None. She sat on a bench under a gnarled cherry tree and opened her Bible to the first
of the passages. After just a couple of minutes, she snapped the Bible closed, too restless to concentrate. The warm wind beckoned. She left the stone confines of the abbey enclosure, and went out to the orchard. None of the trees was in bloom yet, but buds were beginning to swell and the air smelled of spring. She stood on a hill, facing to the west, eyes closed, breathing deeply.

  Later that afternoon, Sister Anselma went out to the enclosure following Vespers. There, she found Mickey’s Bible and journal sitting on a bench, pages fluttering wildly in the mounting wind as a storm blew in with roiling black clouds. She gathered the books up as the first raindrops began to fall.

  ╬ ╬ ╬

  “Where was she?” Mother asked. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Sister Anselma said. “I couldn’t find her all afternoon or evening. I was keeping an eye out for her. I… I believe her retreat is coming to a crisis point. Jessica helped me look for her. When we finally found her in the organ loft, she was like this.”

  Mickey sat hunched on the side of her bed, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her face flushed and feverish, her clothing and hair soaking wet and ice cold. Outside the rain slashed at the windows and the wind whistled as it rattled the old windows of Mickey’s cell.

  “In here, Sister,” Jessica said, leading Sister Mary David in.

  Sister Mary David knelt and laid a hand on Mickey’s cheek and forehead. “She’s burning up.” She slid a thermometer into Mickey’s mouth. “Michele? Michele?” When she received no response, she glanced questioning up toward Mother and Sister Anselma.

  “This is how she’s been,” Sister Anselma said. “She doesn’t respond.”

  Jessica backed out, closing the door.

  Sister Mary David peered at the thermometer. “Hundred two point six. Let’s get her to the infirmary.”