Changing Habits

by Debbie Macomber

  In less than a year she’d be a postulant. When Kathleen entered the religious life, she’d be required to relinquish the things of the world, but that was months away yet. She hadn’t thought she’d have to give up her job quite so soon.

  “I feel bad about this,” her uncle continued.

  Kathleen tried not to show her distress. She’d need to make certain sacrifices in order to serve God. She was willing to cut her hair if God asked it of her, although she prayed He wouldn’t. Sex was out of the question for her, too, even though Maureen insisted on filling her in on all the details of what she and Robbie were doing. She hadn’t even walked through the convent doors and already she was expected to behave like a nun. It hurt that her only source of income was to be taken away from her, and all because of Father O’Hara.

  “Will I have to leave St. Mark’s?” It would be a bitter disappointment not to graduate with her friends.

  “Now, that would be a sin,” her uncle told her, sipping his lager. “Your tuition’s been paid up for the remainder of the school year.”

  Kathleen gasped. “You did that?”

  “I can’t have my sweet Kathleen worrying about paying her school fees, now can I?” He winked boyishly at her above his mug. “Father O’Hara and I worked out a deal.”

  He didn’t need to tell her what the deal was. Beer in exchange for tuition. Still, she had no complaints as long as she graduated from St. Mark’s.

  To her surprise, Uncle Patrick’s eyes misted. “You’re the pride and joy of this family,” he whispered. “We all hoped one of the O’Shaughnessy brood would heed God’s call. You make us proud.”

  She murmured her thanks, a little uncomfortable at his emotion.

  “You have always been a sweet girl. No wonder God wants you.”

  The summer of 1963 was the most carefree of Kathleen’s life. Knowing that she’d be entering the order of St. Bridget’s Sisters of the Assumption in September, she spent lazy afternoons listening to the Beach Boys and Martha and the Vandellas. She even took up the guitar and managed to pick her way through a whole repertoire of songs. The Singing Nun had made “Dominique” popular and for a time Kathleen entertained the notion of forming a band of singing postulants. She wondered what Reverend Mother would feel about that. Maybe nuns could be actresses, too. Lilies of the Field had been one of the most popular movies of the year. It would’ve been far more authentic if they’d used real nuns to act with Sidney Poitier, Kathleen mused.

  The highlight of the summer, however, came in August, when her oldest brother Sean was home on leave from the Army. He was so handsome that Kathleen nearly burst with pride when she saw him.

  “What’s it like being a Green Beret?” she asked, sipping a tall glass of iced tea on the front porch swing. She wore cutoff jeans and a sleeveless blouse and no shoes. This was her last fling before the convent.

  “Good.” Sean sat down on the porch step and dangled his arms over his knees. “I’d forgotten about summers in Boston,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow.

  “Are you enjoying Seattle?”

  “Yeah.” He leaned against the porch column and stared up at her. “You’re absolutely certain about this, Kathleen?” he asked, frowning. “You don’t look like someone who wants to be a nun.”

  She smiled and wondered if he knew what a wonderful compliment he’d given her. “I leave for the convent in two weeks.”

  “What if you don’t like it?”

  “I will,” she said with utter confidence. She hadn’t made a contingency plan because she was sure she wouldn’t need one.

  Sean reached for his iced tea. “I was thinking back the other day, and I can’t remember a time when we didn’t know you were going to be a nun.”

  Kathleen stretched out her bare legs. “First grade I knew.”

  “At six years old?”

  She nodded solemnly. “It was during my First Communion that I heard God calling me.”

  “Was that God or was it Mom and Dad?” Sean asked with more than a little sarcasm.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone just kind of assumed this was right for you. Is it something you truly want or did you just accept what the family decided?”

  “Oh, Sean, don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Have you ever been kissed?”

  “Why do you want to know that?” Answering with a question saved her the embarrassment of admitting the truth.

  “You haven’t experienced life yet. All you know is home and school and working at Uncle Patrick’s place. There’s a whole world out there. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mom and Dad, but we’ve lived a sheltered life. Take a few years, travel, go off to college and meet a boy or two before you make your final decision about this nun business.”

  “This is what I want, Sean. Be happy for me, all right?”

  Sean didn’t comment for several moments. Then he said, “Promise me one thing.”

  “What?”

  “If you ever decide the convent isn’t for you, you won’t hesitate to leave.”

  “Break my vows?” Kathleen had never heard of anyone doing something so dreadful.

  “Yes, if that’s what it takes.”

  She was positive he didn’t mean that. “Would you ever leave the Army?”

  “It’s different, Kathleen.”

  “Is it?”

  “Just promise me. I’ll rest easier giving my sister to God, knowing that if you change your mind you’ll have the courage to walk away.”

  What an unusual request. She tried to laugh it off, but he wouldn’t let her.

  “I’m serious,” Sean insisted. “I need to hear you say it.”

  Kathleen weighed her words. This was the strangest discussion she’d ever had with her oldest brother. “I promise.” But her decision had been made years earlier. She belonged to God.

  3

  JOANNA BAIRD

  1965 to 1967

  “Greg, we can’t,” Joanna managed to say between increasingly deep, urgent kisses. “Not again. We promised.” Her boyfriend dragged her mouth back to his. Already his hands were inside her blouse, fumbling with the snap of her bra.

  “I can’t help it,” Greg Markham groaned. “I’ve missed you so much. I need you, baby.”

  In the back seat of his 1956 Chevy Bel-Air, Joanna made one last desperate attempt to clear her head. It was too late to reason with Greg, though, and she knew it. She’d missed him, too. Just back from basic training, her high school boyfriend was about to leave for Vietnam, and their time together was limited. Without further protest, she rolled up her skirt and worked off her underwear. Soon he was positioned over her in the cramped car.

  Joanna wound her arms around his neck as he slowly sank his body into hers. Closing her eyes, she sighed audibly as she arched up to receive him. She gave herself over to the familiar sensations. Frenzied now, she and Greg churned against each other until his release came in a deep, guttural moan.

  Breathing hard, he buried his face in the curve of her neck. “I’m sorry, baby, so sorry.”

  She didn’t know why he felt the need to apologize. She’d wanted him as much as he’d wanted her. Perhaps even more. She might have made a token protest, but she’d been the one who’d purposely set out to arouse him. Using her body to tempt him gave her a sense of power, a sense of control, and she loved it. Loved him. Catching his earlobe between her teeth, she relished his body’s shiver of renewed arousal. Moving provocatively against him, she whispered, “I haven’t even finished my penance from the last time.”

  “Me neither,” Greg said and laughed softly.

  When Greg had gone to confession, his penance had been harsh and unreasonable, Joanna thought. Father Kramer had instructed her to say the Rosary six times, but he’d ordered Greg to give up cigarettes for seven whole days. Greg hadn’t managed to go without his smokes for five hours, let alone a week. It was unfair of Father Kramer to be so hard on Greg while letting her off so lightly.

  Raising hims
elf, Greg awkwardly yanked up his jeans. She heard his zipper close as she struggled to sit upright with her skirt around her waist. He climbed out of the car for a smoke while Joanna tried to rearrange her clothes. She searched for her nylons and sighed with relief when she found them both. The last time they’d made love in the car, one of her nylons had been tucked under the seat. They’d spent an anxious ten minutes looking for it. If she were to walk into the house without it, her parents would know she’d been up to no good.

  “Are you dressed?” Greg asked as he opened the car door.

  Joanna glanced out. “Is anyone coming?”

  Greg chuckled. “Just me.”

  She groaned. “You know what I mean.”

  His gaze held hers and the amusement left his eyes. “Oh baby, what am I going to do?”

  In a week Greg would be shipping out to Vietnam. In May, shortly after they graduated, he’d enlisted in the Army. His timing was perfect; just a month later, in July, President Johnson had announced the escalation of the war in Vietnam and said that draft calls would be doubled.

  “You’ll wait for me, won’t you?” Greg pleaded.

  Joanna didn’t understand why he kept asking her that. “You know I will.” She’d be starting nursing school at Holy Name Hospital in Providence a few weeks from now. Between her studies, hospital work and writing Greg, she wouldn’t have time to meet anyone else. She didn’t want to, loving Greg as much as she did.

  Stepping out of the car, she wrapped her arms around his middle and wriggled sensually.

  “Baby,” he moaned and twisted around, backing her against the passenger door. “You know what that does to me.”

  Joanna sighed and slid her arms around his neck. “I love you, Greg.”

  “I love you.” He leaned away slightly and his eyes held hers. “How am I going to survive an entire year without making love to you?”

  “I’ll wait for you.”

  He frowned as though he wasn’t sure he believed her, no matter how many times she repeated it.

  Then, two days before Greg was scheduled to depart for Vietnam, Joanna arrived home to find him sitting in the living room, talking intently with both her parents.

  “Hi,” she said, entering the house. She hadn’t expected him, but it wasn’t unusual for Greg to stop by unannounced. What was unusual was to find her parents with him.

  “Joanna.” He automatically stood when she walked into the room.

  Her mother wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and smiled warmly at Joanna.

  “What’s the matter?” Joanna asked. Clearly something was from the way everyone was staring at her. She seemed to be the only one who didn’t get whatever was going on.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” her father assured her, steering his wife from the room. “Not a thing.”

  “Greg?” Joanna asked.

  The next moment, he actually got down on one knee. “Joanna,” he said, gazing up at her, “will you marry me?”

  Joanna gasped as he pulled a small velvet box from his pocket. Greg opened the ring box to display a solitaire diamond in an antique gold setting. They’d talked about the future and decided they wanted to get married, but their plans were for an unspecified date sometime in the future. Marriage would come after she’d received her nursing degree and Greg was settled in with his father’s business. Vietnam, however, was about to change all that.

  “Greg, yes! Yes, yes, oh yes.”

  He slipped the ring onto her finger and kissed her. Her parents, smiling broadly, wandered back into the room. Her father wrapped his arm around her mother, who was struggling to hide her tears of joy.

  “I came to ask your family for their permission,” Greg explained. “I want to do everything right, just the way my father did.”

  Joanna wiped the tears from her own cheeks. “Mom, look.” She held out her left hand so her mother could inspect the small diamond.

  “Your father asked me to marry him just before he left to fight in World War Two,” she said, hugging Joanna and then Greg.

  “What’s happening?” Rick, her sixteen-year-old brother, asked as he sauntered into the room, munching a crisp apple.

  “Joanna and Greg are engaged.”

  “Joanna’s getting married?” Rick noisily bit into his apple. “I thought you were going to be a nun.”

  “Rick!” She couldn’t believe her brother would bring up that long-ago ambition now.

  “A nun?” One corner of Greg’s mouth turned up in the start of a smile. Knowing the things he did about her, he had reason to be amused. Joanna elbowed him in the ribs before he could let out their secret.

  “You’re stealing my little girl away from God,” her father said.

  “Daddy,” Joanna protested, furious that her family would take such delight in teasing her.

  “Cut it out, you two.” Her mother stepped in to rescue her. “Joanna considered the convent when she was a high school freshman. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Well, God can’t have her,” Greg said, throwing his arm around her. He kissed the top of her head. “I’ve got her now.”

  Rick took another loud bite of his apple. “When’s the wedding?”

  Greg and Joanna exchanged glances, and then burst out laughing because they didn’t know. Soon, they decided. Greg would serve his year in Vietnam and when he returned, they’d get married. While he was off at war, Joanna would make all the wedding arrangements.

  Eventually the date was set for September of the following year. That gave Joanna and her mother a little more than fourteen months to plan.

  Two days later, Greg left for Vietnam. Joanna rode with him to the airport, where—along with his mother and father—she tearfully saw him off. As the jet zoomed into the sky, she felt a sensation of dread and wondered if this would be the last time she saw Greg.

  A week following his departure for Asia, Joanna entered the hospital nursing program. Within a matter of days, her world revolved around her studies, writing Greg and all the planning that went into a big wedding.

  “I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have the wedding to distract me,” she wrote Greg early in December as her hi-fi belted out “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. “If I wasn’t busy thinking about the wedding, I’d be worrying about you. Now, honey, please take care of yourself. I love you so much.”

  Greg’s letters were full of details about his assignment and his life in Saigon, where he was stationed. He spoke of the squalor and the effects of the war on the people of the Southeast Asian country. He mailed her small things he found in the local shops—a bracelet, silk pajamas, an ivory-handled mirror. He was fortunate not to be in a combat situation; instead, he’d been assigned to desk duty with the Military Police and typed up volumes of paperwork whenever a soldier was sent to the stockade. One bonus to this assignment was that he had plenty of time to write. In the beginning, he mailed a long letter nearly every day.

  January 3, 1966

  Sweetheart,

  Thanks for sending me the fabric swatches for the bridesmaids’ dresses. You sure you want five bridesmaids? Never mind, you can have ten if it makes you happy. I like the green one best, but you decide. I’ll come up with five ushers, but I’ll probably need to ask a cousin or two.

  It was hard not being home for Christmas. I hope you like your gift. A set of bone china isn’t as romantic as I would’ve liked, but that was what you said you wanted. I hope you like the pattern I picked out. Just think—one day you’ll be my wife and you’ll cook me dinner and serve it to me on those very plates.

  Write soon. I live for your letters.

  Greg

  Joanna lived for his letters, too. Each day she hurried home from school and sorted through the mail, suffering keen disappointment if there wasn’t one.

  “I don’t think there’s a letter from Greg,” her mother said. It was a cold February afternoon, and Joanna, still wearing her coat, flipped through a stack of envelopes on the kitchen table.
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  “I haven’t heard from him in three days.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine.”

  “I’m sure he is, too,” Joanna said, but she wondered and worried all the same.

  That evening her best friend phoned. “We’re going to see My Fair Lady. Why don’t you come along?”

  Joanna was tempted, really tempted. She enjoyed musicals and it would be a welcome break, but she hesitated.

  “Everyone’s going to be there,” Jane urged her. “Bob and Gary and Sharon and just about everyone.”

  “I can’t,” Joanna said reluctantly.

  “Why not?” her friend asked. “You haven’t gone anywhere in months, not since Greg left.”

  “That’s not true. You and I went shopping last week.”

  “You spend more time with that girl at the hospital than you do with any of us.”

  “You mean Penny?”

  “Whatever her name is. You’re always there. Who is she, anyway? It isn’t like she went to school with us. You barely know her.”

  Jane was right. Penny had leukemia and after her classes Joanna often stopped in to visit the teenager. Sister Theresa had introduced Joanna to Penny. These days Joanna had more in common with the hospital patient than her high school friends. Penny’s boyfriend was also in Vietnam; they compared notes and discussed news about the war. Sister Theresa had mentioned how beneficial these visits were for Penny, but she didn’t understand how much Joanna got out of them, too.

  “You’re right, we did go shopping,” Jane went on, “but that was just the two of us. You haven’t gone out with the crowd. We used to all hang out, remember?”

  As if Joanna could forget.

  “I’m engaged.” She didn’t feel comfortable meeting her friends in situations that often involved couples pairing up. Not when she wore Greg’s engagement ring.

  “That doesn’t mean you’re dead,” Jane muttered.

  “I know, but it bothers me….” Greg didn’t like it either. When she happened to mention running into their old gang, he’d plied her with questions. He hadn’t asked her not to hang around with their high school friends, but she could tell from his letters that he worried when she was out with the guys. She couldn’t find it in her heart to write him long, chatty letters in which she conveniently forgot to mention that she’d sat beside Paul or Ron at the movies.