She gets the roller away from me, then grabs a rag and wipes my hands and face like I’m a little kid. “There now, that’s better,” she says, then flashes her gap again. “I’m Sister Bernice—or Sister Bernie—whatever you prefer. Who might you be?”
I smile back at her. “Hi. I’m Samantha Keyes—or Sammy—whatever you prefer.”
She throws her head back and laughs, then sticks her hand out. “Nice to make your acquaintance, Sammy.” And as she’s pumping my hand up and down, she says, “I’m with the Sisters of Mercy. Father Mayhew’s expecting us. We were told we could find him here …?”
What I really want to ask is, The Sisters of what? but instead I say, “He said he’d be at the parish hall.” And I’m about to tell her how to get there when two other nuns appear in the doorway.
Now, no one has to tell me these nuns are with Sister Bernice. They’re wearing black habits, too, which is what you might expect all nuns to wear, but they don’t. Sister Josephine and Sister Mary Margaret never wear habits. They dress in gray skirts, simple white blouses, and sensible shoes—not as sensible as high-tops, but definitely sensible. And even though they don’t wear habits, Sister Josephine and Sister Mary Margaret are still very nun-like. You just can’t tell from three blocks away that they’re nuns like you can with the ones that do wear habits.
Anyhow, I guess I was staring, because Sister Bernice follows my gaze and says, “Mercy me, that was fast, Sisters! Did you find a good spot?”
The tall one with red bangs says, “An excellent spot, right by the parish hall.” She smiles at me. “And who have we here?”
Bernie puts an arm around me. “An angel—nothing less! This sweet thing was busy rolling over the sins of the past, bringing new life and spirit into the chambers of the holy.”
The other two kind of look at me and smile, and I’m not real sure they know what Sister Bernice is talking about so I say, “I was painting Father Mayhew’s office …?”
They say, “Of course you were, dear,” and “After all these years we’ve come to understand Sister’s way with words.” The taller one puts out her hand and says, “I’m Sister Abigail, and this is Sister Clarice. It’s nice to be with you in God’s service.”
Now, I’m not about to break it to them that their little angel was painting holy walls so she could work off some junior high detention time. I just shake hands and say, “It’s nice to meet you.”
Sister Bernice says to the other two, “So you found a spot over by the parish hall? Sammy here tells me that’s where Father Mayhew can be found. Shall we continue our pilgrimage and make his acquaintance?”
So off they go, their habits shushing through the church, and I get back to covering up the sins of the past.
And I’m just finishing the first coat when Sister Josephine comes hobbling into the office. She asks, “Where’s Father Mayhew?” then peeks under the desk and mumbles, “Hope he took that overgrown rabbit with him.”
I put my roller down. “He left a little while ago—said he’d be over at the parish hall.”
Sister Josephine is old. She’s hunched over and walks with a cane—a thick black cane with a lot of nicks and scuffs on it. Some of the kids at school used to go to St. Mary’s School when they were little and they say that the one thing they remember about third grade is Sister Josephine’s cane. She’d pound it on the floor to get them to be quiet, she’d slap it against the chalkboard to get their attention, but mostly what they remember is that she’d whack it against their shins if she caught them lying or cheating.
Anyhow, she’s standing there, hunched over, and all of a sudden her cane starts shaking. I’m not talking about a little quiver, either. That cane’s got a serious wobble to it. And at first I think she’s going to faint or have a stroke or something, but then I realize that this is one mad nun.
So I ask, “What’s wrong?”
She points her cane at the wall like a pistol. “This is how it always goes. We ask and ask and ask for something and before you know it, he gets what we’ve been asking for!”
I don’t know exactly what she’s talking about, but before she starts firing that cane around I say, “Did you need some painting done, too?”
Down comes the cane, whack, onto the floor. “Our entire house needs paint, inside and out! Sister Mary Margaret and I have been telling him that for years. He always says there’s no money for it, and here he is, having his office painted again.”
I should’ve just stood there nodding or something, but instead I blurt, “I’m just doing this one wall. Father Mayhew said it hasn’t been done in ten years.”
“Ten years! I think it was just last year Christmas he had this wall painted.” She takes a deep breath, then mumbles, “One of these days …” and then hobbles out.
I watch her go, and then get busy on the second coat, wondering just how black and blue Father Mayhew’s shins are.
It didn’t take long to paint the wall again, and as I’m wiping up the last drips, Father Mayhew walks in with Gregory trotting along behind.
His shins don’t seem to be bothering him at all, and he’s in a great mood. “Ah, beautiful job, lass,” he says, then winks a complicated eye at me. “A clean slate feels good, doesn’t it?”
I know he’s talking about more than just the color of his wall, so I nod and get busy closing up the can and wrapping up the roller. “Did Sister Josephine find you?”
He smiles. “That she did.” Then he raises a brow and says, “Ah, the paint. That’s what’s upset her,” and I can tell that Josephine waved that cane all around Father Mayhew, but never actually fired off about the paint.
So I say, “You want me to do some painting at their house tomorrow?”
“Hmm … That’s sweet of you, lass, but no. It’s across town, and besides, there’s a lot of sanding needs to be done. It’s really a job for a professional, I’m afraid.”
“Did those other nuns find you?”
“Ah, the Sisters of Mercy. That they did.” He winks and says, “Perhaps we’ll have the money for some professional painting after our guests’ fundraiser.”
“So that’s why they’re here?”
“That’s the reason. They’ve come to help out with the Thanksgiving food drive, but it looks like they’ll be doing much more than that.” He goes over to his filing cabinet, takes a carrot out of the top drawer, and says, “That Sister Bernice is a fountain of ideas. I’ve never met anyone quite like her.” He gives Gregory the new carrot, then smiles at me and says, “Run along now, lass. Tomorrow I’ll have you clean the windows in the church, if you don’t mind?”
I say, “Sounds fine,” and head for home.
And the next day there’s Father Mayhew, waiting for me, Windex in hand. He gets me a ladder and shows me the stained-glass windows he wants washed, and then says, “Now, if someone comes in to worship, I want you to move to the back of the church and just wait. It may take you a few days to do all the windows, but that’s all right. It’s better than interfering in someone’s time with God.”
So I take my rags and Windex and for a long time it’s just me and the windows. Then a lady in a shawl comes in, so I wait. And wait and wait. And when she leaves, a man and a woman come in and just kind of sit in the back and cry for a while. So I wait and wait some more, feeling bad that they’re sitting there crying.
When they left, I got back to work again, and I guess I was concentrating on buffing glass because I didn’t even notice there was anyone else in the church until I got off the ladder and stood back to look at the window.
She was on her way out of the church before I could get a very good look at her, but what I could see was that she was thin, had a brown ponytail, and was about my age. Now, kids don’t usually come to church in the middle of the afternoon on a school day—they’re too busy running around town trying to put together enough sins to make going to church on Sunday worthwhile. So her just being there was enough to make me do a double take, but it was her shoes that
made me want to go up to her and say, “Hi!”
She was wearing high-tops. Like mine, only older. And I was about to chase after her, only just then Father Mayhew comes through the side door and says, “Samantha, I want to see you. Right now! In my office!” and I could tell from the way his voice was booming through the church that something was wrong.
Very wrong.
TWO
I followed him, all right. Straight back to his office. And when he sits down behind his desk and stares at me, I stand in front of it and ask, “What happened? What’s wrong?”
He swivels in his chair for a minute while his fingers push back and forth against each other. Then he takes a deep breath and says, “As I’m sure you know, we religious take a vow of poverty. The Church provides us with food and shelter and a modest living allowance, but by and large, we own very little. Very few things that I have do I consider to be mine. Do you understand this, Samantha?”
This priest sitting behind the desk may have looked like Father Mayhew, but he sure didn’t sound like him. I just gulped and said, “Yes, sir.”
He takes another deep breath like he’s counting to ten. “One of my few earthly treasures is my papal cross.” He’s quiet for a long time, pushing his fingers up and down. Then he says, “It was given to me by my father when I was ordained. He has since passed on, and it can never be replaced.” He looks straight at me. “Samantha, I implore you—give it back. There’ll be no repercussions—just, please, return it.”
Now I think I know what cross he’s talking about. Whenever Father Mayhew gives a service, he wears this ivory cross on a knotted rope of ivory beads. It’s not a plain cross or one with Jesus on it like you’re used to seeing. It’s got one big cross bar with two smaller ones above it—like the top of a power-line pole. So I ask, “Your ivory cross?”
His fingers freeze. “Please, lass, give it back.”
“But Father Mayhew, I didn’t steal your cross!”
“Samantha, please. It’s very important to me.”
“I don’t have it!”
“Samantha …”
“Really, I don’t!”
He shoots out of his chair. “Well, if you insist on denying it, then perhaps it’d be best if you spent your time with Sister Josephine over at the soup kitchen.” He comes from behind his desk, and you can tell from the way he’s moving that he wants me out of there.
I say, “But …” but he refuses to listen, and the next thing you know I’ve been thrown out of church.
I stood on the walkway, staring at St. Mary’s front door, not quite believing what had just happened. Why did he think I’d stolen his cross? Just because I’d broken some rules at school didn’t make me a thief! But I could tell that this new Father Mayhew was not someone to argue with, so after a few minutes of standing around fuming, I headed over to the soup kitchen.
The soup kitchen doesn’t serve soup. Not that I’ve ever seen, anyway. It mostly serves sandwiches or just prepackaged food. I’d never actually been inside the soup kitchen, but I’d watched people waiting for it to open or eating on the benches outside.
Some strange people hang out at the soup kitchen. It’s next to the Salvation Army, and right between them is this grassy area where people spend the day passing cigarettes around, checking out bandannas on other guys’ dogs, or rocking strollers back and forth, trying to keep their babies from crying.
And whenever I walk by, I wonder how the people got there. Do they have homes? Do they sleep in the bushes? What do they do when it rains? Grams calls them bums and usually I do, too, and the ones who hang out in the grass all day asking you for money when you walk by, well, I think they are.
But then I’ll see a really old man standing in line and wonder how he wound up at the soup kitchen. Did he start out sharing cigarettes and checking out bandannas? Or did he go out for a walk one day and forget how to get home.
I’ve thought about following them to see where they go at night, but according to Marissa and Dot, half of them really do have homes and the other half camp out under the Stowell Road overpass.
Anyhow, there I am, knocking on the front door of the soup kitchen while all the bums in town are checking me out. Finally, someone opens the door and says, “We’re not open for another half hour.”
Well, it’s Brother Phil, and if you knew Brother Phil, you’d know why I had to stick my foot in the door. Phil is kind of, well, dense. He’s got a round face and a round belly, and a very round head. A very dense round head. Normally, you don’t think about a person’s head, but with Brother Phil you can’t help it. He’s mostly bald, only I don’t think he’s quite admitted that to himself yet. He plasters what hair he has left from one side of his head clear over the top to the other side. And since Brother Phil’s got such a round head, no matter what he does, there’s always a patch where his scalp shines through like a flashlight in a bat cave.
Brother Phil’s not the kind of guy you try to explain things to. He doesn’t listen real well. He has his own ideas about things, and getting him to change his mind is like opening a gate that’s swelled shut in the rain.
So before Brother Phil can slam the door in my face, I stick my high-top in and say, “Father Mayhew sent me over.”
He says, “Fine, but we won’t be serving for another half hour,” while he’s pushing on the door trying to figure out why it won’t close.
“Brother Phil, he sent me over to help, not to eat!”
He just stares at me. Then one of his eyes twitches a few times and he asks, “You’re here to help?”
I let myself in. “That’s right.”
Sitting at a table in the kitchen are Sister Josephine and Sister Mary Margaret, and they’re hovering over a map. Sister Josephine looks up and then scrambles out of her chair. “What are you doing here?” she asks, like I’ve caught her having a swig of holy water.
Before I can answer, she turns to Brother Phil and says, “What’s going on?”
“Mayhew sent her over. To help, I guess.”
I just stand there like an idiot, wishing I was back scrubbing purple glass, when Sister Mary Margaret stands up and says, “Well that’s wonderful! We can always use an extra hand.” She points to the map and says, “Sister and I were just planning our vacation—”
Brother Phil cuts in, saying, “I don’t know why you have to plan it out. You go to Las Vegas every year. And you take the bus!”
Sister Josephine picks up her cane, kind of cocking it in case Brother Phil gets even farther out of line. “Last year, if you recall, the bus broke down and we had to wait five hours in the middle of the desert for someone to repair it. If we’d had a map, maybe we could’ve done something about it.”
Brother Phil shakes his head. “Like what?”
Sister Mary Margaret shrugs and says, “Who knows, Philip … maybe hitchhike.”
So I’m trying to picture the two of them on the side of the road with their thumbs out, when Mary Margaret folds the map up real neat and says, “Regardless, it’s our little adventure and we’re enjoying it.” She turns to me. “What’s your name again, dear?”
“Sammy. Sammy Keyes.”
She smiles. “That’s right. You come Sundays with your grandmother, don’t you?”
I give her a little nod.
“Not every Sunday, though.”
Well, that’s a little unnerving, let me tell you. I mean lots of people go to St. Mary’s on Sundays. How could she possibly notice if I’m not there?
Her eyes give me a quick reprimand. Then she smiles and says, “So, have you ever worked in a relief kitchen before?”
“No, Sister.”
“It’s not hard. You’ll find most of the people are very nice. If any of them give you a lick of trouble, just point them out to one of us and we’ll take care of it.” She checks her watch and says, “It looks like we’d better set up. It’s almost time.”
So we wash up, and then Brother Phil starts hauling trays of sandwiches out of the refrige
rator while the Sisters bring out cartons of punch and milk. When the food’s all set up, Mary Margaret says, “Each person gets one sandwich, two cookies, a bag of chips, and something to drink. If they have children, insist on the milk.”
Sister Josephine says, “And if they ask for more, tell them no. We’re not here to feed their dogs, no matter what some of them think!” Then she says to Phil, “Let ’em in,” and disappears.
The way the soup kitchen is set up to serve people is, there’s a ramp to the door where they come in, there’s a table where they pick up their plate of food, and there’s a door with an EXIT sign where they go out.
When Brother Phil opens the door, the first person to come in is a woman pushing a baby in a stroller. I say, “Hi,” to her and she mumbles, “Bueno.” I put together a plate for her with an extra milk and say, “There you go,” but she doesn’t even look at me. She just takes the food and leaves.
I tried being friendly to the next couple of people who came in, but it seemed to make them uncomfortable, so I just started handing out food, asking, “Punch or milk?” and tried to keep the line moving. And before you know it I’m on autopilot, thinking about Father Mayhew and his cross, and what I can do to convince him that I didn’t steal it.
Then this man with tattoos shows up. He’s got blue snakes wrapping up his arms and clear around his neck, and he points to the sandwiches and says, “Let me have another.”
I say, “Sorry. We’re only supposed to give out one apiece,” so he reaches over and takes one, then shows me all his rotten teeth like, Oh yeah? Well come and get it!
Phil yells, “Hey! Put it back!” but the guy just snarls, then spits on the floor and leaves.
That wound Brother Phil up, all right. I thought he was going to spring his little round body right over the food table and chase after him, but what he did instead was sputter around in circles for a minute, then holler, “Move back, move back! Quit crowding!” to the people coming in the door.