“Medical.”
“Miferprex?” Sister Aquinas asked.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“First pills on Monday. Second pill on Wednesday.”
“Today’s Friday,” Sister Aquinas said. “So five days then.” She was speaking to herself. “Have you been to a doctor since Wednesday?”
“No.”
“How severe was the bleeding?”
“Heavy. Very heavy.”
“It’s lighter now?”
“Much.”
“Did you take anything else?” Sister Aquinas pulled out a scope and looked in Elle’s ears.
“Nothing else.”
“They should have given you Tylenol and Compazine.”
“I had a prescription for them,” Elle said. “But I was too sick to go get them filled.”
“You didn’t have anyone to help you? The father?”
“No.”
Sister Aquinas sighed heavily. “It’s times like this I remember why I became a nun.”
Elle laughed. “Because you hate men?”
“No. I never wanted to go through anything alone again.”
“Thank you for being nice about this,” Elle said.
“I’m a doctor. Just because I don’t agree with a certain medical procedure, it doesn’t mean I didn’t learn about it in medical school.”
“You’re a doctor? I thought you were a nun.”
“I’m both. I have some painkillers here. I can give you something for your nausea if you still need it.”
“I think I’m done puking.”
“You’ll probably bleed for a few weeks. That’s normal. But I want you to come back here in a week. We can do a sonogram.”
Elle stared at her wide-eyed.
“You can do that here? You get a lot of knocked-up nuns in here?”
Sister Aquinas smiled. “Kidney stones. I see a lot of those.”
“I see.” Elle rolled back onto the cot while Sister Aquinas prodded her stomach. “I’m going to be okay, aren’t I?”
“Okay? Physically, yes. You’ll be fine. Emotionally and spiritually? That’s between you and God. But if any place can help you get right with God, it’s here.”
“I don’t regret it,” Elle said, and she meant every word.
“Pride is a sin, young lady.”
“Put it on my tab.”
“God sees the heart,” was all Sister Aquinas said to that.
Sister Aquinas continued her perfunctory examination. She made no further comment about Elle’s choice or her spiritual state. But when Elle took her shirt off, Sister Aquinas froze. It was only for an instant, and unlike Mother Prioress, no Catholic oaths were released.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Elle said. “Only welts and bruises.”
“Did the man who got you pregnant do this to you?”
“Yes,” Elle said. It wasn’t a lie. Søren had been in Rome ten weeks, and Kingsley had been her only lover in that time. No doubt who the father was.
Sister Aquinas placed her hand gently on the top of Elle’s head. It felt like a blessing although what she’d done to deserve a blessing, Elle didn’t know.
“God sees the heart,” Sister Aquinas said again. This time it didn’t sound like a platitude. This time it sounded like an apology.
Sister Aquinas applied some sort of cream to her bruised back and gave her a week’s supply of a mild painkiller. Elle accepted the pills with gratitude. It would be nice to be out of pain again. Even better than drugs, Sister Aquinas brought her a tray of food. Last night’s leftovers warmed up, but Elle ate every single bite of it.
“Feeling better?” Sister Aquinas asked when she came for the tray.
“Much better. Almost human.”
“Good. We like humans around here,” she said with a smile. “Sister Mary John will be back soon. Lie down and get some rest.”
Rest sounded heavenly. And rest was heavenly. The pillow under her head felt like a cloud. The plain white cotton sheets might as well have been silk. She was safe, safe at last. And now, now she could finally sleep.
Elle closed her eyes.
Then she heard a noise.
She sat straight up in the cot, her heart hammering against her chest.
Seemingly of its own volition, her body forced her onto her feet, her feet forced her forward. Her steps brought her to the window in the infirmary. It was well after 2:00 a.m. and all was dark for miles around. Elle could see the moon and the stars and the slight reflection of them both on the rolling hills, the fields and forests that surrounded the abbey. She saw nothing else. But she didn’t have to see it. She heard it.
“What is that?” Sister Aquinas asked, coming to stand next to her. “Is that a car out there?”
“No,” Elle said, her voice hollow and scared. “It’s a motorcycle.”
“How can you tell?”
“I know cars,” she said. “And I know motorcycles. That’s a 1992 907 I.E. Ducati. Black.”
Sister Aquinas laughed. “You know the color?”
“That’s the only year they came in black.”
The nun narrowed her eyes and peered out onto the black night.
“Someone you know?” she asked, looking at Elle with a curious light in her eyes.
Elle took a step back away from the window.
Then another step.
Then another. She shook her head.
“No.”
8
2015
Scotland
“I DIDN’T KNOW,” Kingsley said, and Nora turned to look at him.
“What didn’t you know?” she asked.
“I didn’t know it was that hard for you.” Kingsley’s back rested against a bedpost at the foot of the bed and his eyes searched her face. “I didn’t know about the pain.”
“It was fine after a couple days. Bad cramps, that’s all. Women are used to that.” She shrugged it off. The past was past. She still remembered the pain, but there was no reason for Kingsley to know how well she remembered it.
“We should have been more careful, you and I,” Kingsley said.
“We were fluid-bonded. It’s what we do. That’s the risk we take,” Nora said. “I don’t blame you. Or myself. Not anymore. Accidents happen, right?”
“I’m sorry you went through that alone,” Kingsley said. “I should have said that a long time ago.”
She smiled at him, grateful for the words. “You wanted kids and I knew it. It would have been too sadistic, even for me, to make you hold my hand during the whole process.”
“I thought...” Kingsley began and stopped.
“Go on,” Søren said. “We’re talking about it finally. Talk.”
“I thought I’d lost my only chance to be a father¸” Kingsley admitted. “I convinced myself of that, which is why I wasn’t there for you the way I should have been.”
“You did the best you could.” Nora stretched out her leg and touched her bare toes to Kingsley’s. “We both did.”
“I didn’t,” Søren said.
“You were in Rome.” She turned to look at him. “You couldn’t have done anything.”
“Somewhere along the way I did something wrong. If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have been scared to tell me,” Søren said.
“I wasn’t scared to tell you,” Nora said, not entirely truthfully. “I didn’t want to drag you into this. And I didn’t need to talk to anyone about it. As soon as I knew, I knew what I wanted to do. No reason to talk to you about it.”
“Except you belonged to me, and you were going through a difficult time,” he said. “I would have liked to have been there.”
“And I would have liked my privacy,” she said.
Søren took her hand and kissed the back of it. His way of saying “You win this round.”
“That was you, wasn’t it?” Nora asked. “The motorcycle I heard?”
“It was.” He gave her a penetrating stare as if trying to see the woman she’d once been an
d reconciling her with the woman in front of him.
“Why did you come to me there?” she asked.
“I had to,” he said simply. “If there was any chance, any chance at all I could speak to you or even see you, I had to take it.”
“How did you know where I went?” she asked. “I was gone one day and by the next night, you’d found me.”
“I knew where you would go because you did what I would have done in your place,” Søren said. “If I were scared and in pain and on the run.”
“You would have gone to a convent?” she asked, smiling at the idea.
Søren smiled. “No. To my mother.”
“I would have loved to have gone to your mom’s house,” Nora said as she glanced at Kingsley who watched them both with quiet intensity. It had been her first instinct to leave the country and hide out at Gisela’s house in Denmark. She’d rejected it out of hand.
“She would have taken you in,” Søren said. “You know how much she loved you. It didn’t matter I was a priest. She considered us married.”
“I know. And I know she would have taken good care of me,” Nora said, recalling in an instant a thousand memories of Søren’s mother. Her Æbleskiver pancakes she’d made in winter. Listening to her and Søren playing piano together. The long talks she and Nora had while Søren was outside playing with his nieces. Nora sensed Gisela wanted Søren to leave the priesthood, get married and have children, but she never said a word about it. His mother respected their life together, their choices, even with all the risks they took. And Nora always loved her for not trying to change either of them.
“You might have been happier with my mother than you were with yours,” Søren said, knowing how fraught her relationship with her own mother had been. Fraught until the day Nora’s mother died over two years ago.
“Probably. But I loved your mom too much to make her pick sides between her only son and me. That wouldn’t have been fair to her,” Nora said.
“Considering how I behaved that night, it’s safe to say she would have sided with you,” Søren said. Nora wondered how her life could have changed if she’d chosen to run to Søren’s mother instead of her own. That year at her mother’s convent had changed everything, and if she’d gone to Gisela’s she probably would have returned to Søren as his submissive in a week. “He sided with you against me.” Søren nodded toward Kingsley.
“You can’t blame me,” Kingsley said without any hint of contrition. “You fucked up, and I wanted to rip your heart out with my bare hands. It feels good to say that out loud.”
Nora laughed, and shockingly so did Søren.
“I wasn’t very happy with you, either,” Søren said. “You left without a word. Didn’t tell anyone where you went, not even Calliope.”
“That was the point,” Kingsley said, rolling onto his back. “How could anyone tell you where I went if I didn’t even know where I was going? I got to the airport and bought a ticket for the next international flight out.”
“Where did you go?” Nora asked.
“Greece,” Kingsley said. “Then Japan. I spent a month in Hong Kong, a month in New Zealand. New Zealand gave me island fever. I went to the Philippines next, and after that, the French Caribbean.”
“Meanwhile I’m in upstate New York in a convent. Next time I split town, I’m going to your travel agency, King,” she said.
“No more leaving,” Søren said. Nora crawled across the bed and kissed him.
“Never again, I promise,” she said, meaning every word. They kissed again, Søren’s hand resting lightly on the side of her neck, pressing into her collar so she could feel it against her throat. She hadn’t wanted to talk about that year ever, but now that they’d opened Pandora’s box, she felt better, as if the last and final wall between the three of them was tumbling down at last. They should have talked this out years ago. She and Kingsley hadn’t ever talked about the pregnancy they’d ended, but Søren was right as he usually was. Ignorance wasn’t bliss. Ignorance was cowardice.
“Stop kissing him,” Kingsley said. “Get to the nun-fucking already.”
Nora turned her head and glared at Kingsley.
“I’ll tell you about my first night with Juliette if you tell me about your nun. It’s a good story,” Kingsley said. “Deal?”
“Fair trade,” Nora said, and held out her hand. Kingsley shook it. “But my nun didn’t show up for about eight months. Let’s see, I got there in June. It was almost spring when I saw her the first time.”
“That’s when I met Juliette, too. February in Haiti on the beach. I don’t remember the day of the week, but I know it was Valentine’s Day. Someone told me that.” He laughed at something and didn’t tell them what.
“You start,” Nora said as she slid over Søren and got out of bed. “I’m opening the wine.”
“We’re saving that for the reception,” Kingsley reminded her.
“If this storm doesn’t stop, we’ll all drown by morning and all that wine will have gone to waste.”
“You make a good point, Elle,” Kingsley said. “I’ll have a big glass. I’ll get in trouble with Jules for hiding from her. I might as well get in trouble with her for drinking, as well.”
“Why would she be mad at you for drinking?” Nora asked.
Kingsley grinned broadly. “Because she can’t have alcohol again for seven more months.”
Nora almost dropped the wine bottle.
“Juliette’s pregnant?” Nora asked.
Kingsley raised his finger to his lips. “Only you two know now.”
Nora ran to Kingsley and embraced him. “You slut,” she said, planting a kiss on both cheeks.
“She wanted two,” Kingsley said. “And le prêtre doesn’t look a bit surprised.”
“I’m trying to look surprised,” Søren said with a sly smile.
“You knew?” Nora asked.
“Juliette and I were working on something together recently. She got light-headed and almost fainted. She told me why she wasn’t feeling well in exchange for me not calling an ambulance for her.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” Nora asked, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and pointing at his nose. “You jerk.”
“I’m a priest. Keeping secrets is my job,” he reminded her, taking her hands off his shirt and kissing them. He looked from her to Kingsley. “I’m very happy for you. And relieved you finally said something so I could tell you that.”
“Are you happy?” Nora asked Kingsley, already knowing the answer.
“Is the pope Catholic?” Kingsley asked.
“Pope Francis is a Jesuit,” Søren said.
“And Catholic,” Kingsley said.
“Being a Jesuit takes precedence,” Søren said.
Nora sighed. “Typical. So typical.”