Changing Habits

by Debbie Macomber

  “Do you have time for this?”

  “I’ll make time,” Kathleen told her, eager to accept the assignment. It was an opportunity to accumulate some real experience, and she couldn’t imagine that the parish books would present any significant problems.

  She knew there must be an office at the rectory, although she hadn’t seen it; presumably that was where she’d work. She’d been as far as the front hallway a couple of Sunday evenings, when she’d gone with Sister Angelina to deliver dinner to Father Sanders and Father Doyle. That was all she’d ever seen of the place.

  Sister Superior’s frown deepened.

  “I wouldn’t do it at the expense of my prayer life,” Kathleen said quickly.

  Sister’s brow relaxed, and she eventually nodded. “Father asked if you could walk over to the rectory after school three afternoons a week. I agreed, with the stipulation that you be back in time for dinner.”

  That meant Kathleen would need to bring her students’ papers to the convent and grade them at night. “That’s fine,” she said. The experience she’d gain from working on the books, Kathleen reasoned, would be worth any lost personal time.

  “I hope Father Sanders appreciates your sacrifice.”

  “I’m sure he does,” Kathleen murmured.

  “Somehow I doubt it, but let’s hope so.”

  The following day, Kathleen arrived at the rectory shortly after her last class. Her briefcase was filled to overflowing with papers she’d have to grade that evening.

  Mrs. O’Malley, the housekeeper, greeted her. The scent of simmering beef wafted into the church office.

  “Irish stew?” Kathleen asked as she sat down at the big desk the housekeeper had shown her.

  “It is. Me own mother’s recipe.”

  Kathleen hadn’t tasted authentic Irish stew since she’d entered the convent. The aroma reminded her of home and family, of childhood, and her mouth all but watered as she closed her eyes. For a moment, it was as if she’d slipped back in time and sat at the large kitchen table, between Joyce and Maureen….

  Her mother wrote regularly, filling her in on the details of family life in Boston. Over the years Kathleen had visited a number of times, but nothing was the same. How could it be? She was a different person from the young girl who’d walked through the convent door nine years earlier. The changes weren’t only with her, either. Her three younger siblings were like strangers to her, and the four older ones had all married and made their own lives. Their letters were few and far between. Only Sean made the effort to keep in touch with her.

  “I see my salvation has arrived,” Father Sanders said, bursting into the room. He carried a large cardboard box and set it on a corner of the cluttered desk.

  “Hello, Father.” She stood courteously. “What’s that?” Kathleen was almost afraid to ask. She’d assumed that Mrs. Stafford had left the books in good order and she’d merely be stepping in for a brief period.

  The priest didn’t answer. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help in this matter, Sister Kathleen.”

  She peered inside the box and found a large green ledger, numerous wadded-up receipts and a stack of checks. Kathleen had the uncomfortable sensation that she was about to plunge into water well over her head. Eager as she was to help, this favor suddenly felt overwhelming.

  “I don’t think this should take long, do you?” Father Sanders said hopefully. “You’re a bright one and seeing that you teach bookkeeping, you should have this mess cleared up in a couple of hours.”

  “It might take me a little longer than that,” she muttered, sinking into the padded leather chair.

  Father nodded solemnly. “You take all the time you need.”

  “Would you care for a cup of tea, Sister?” Mrs. O’Malley asked.

  Kathleen shook her head. As she started to empty the box, both the priest and the housekeeper disappeared.

  Kathleen worked steadily, identifying and sorting collection receipts, hardly looking up from the desk. When she lifted her head, she was shocked to notice that it was past six.

  Her heart nearly exploded with urgency as she placed the receipts, now tidied and tallied, in envelopes and set them aside. Then she flew out of the room and almost collided with Father Doyle, who was walking in the front door.

  “Oh, Father! I beg your pardon.”

  “Sister Kathleen?” He was clearly shocked to find her at the rectory.

  “I’m sorry, Father, but I have to get back to the convent right away,” she said breathlessly. “I’m helping Father Sanders with the bookwork while Mrs. Stafford’s on vacation.” She edged away from him, walking backward and gripping her briefcase.

  “I’ll walk you.”

  “No, no, that isn’t necessary, but thank you.” She didn’t have time to walk at a normal pace; she had to hurry. In her rush it might appear that she was being rude and Kathleen didn’t want to risk that.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Have a good evening, Sister.”

  “You too, Father.” Without prolonging her departure, she grabbed her long skirts and raced down the short flight of wooden steps outside the rectory.

  A nun was standing by the convent entrance. Kathleen dashed past her, rosary beads clattering at her side. She stopped abruptly when she realized it was Sister Eloise.

  “You’re late, Sister.”

  “I’m sorry, Sister,” she said, shoulders heaving. “The…the time got away from me.”

  Sister Superior wasn’t pleased and it showed. “I was afraid something like this would happen. I should never have agreed to Father Sanders’s request.”

  “I won’t be late again,” Kathleen promised her, and she sincerely hoped that was true.

  The other nun walked ahead of her. Kathleen paused a moment to catch her breath and placed a hand over her pounding heart.

  10

  SISTER ANGELINA

  Corinne Sullivan hurried past Angie on the way to her desk just as the bell rang for class. The heavy stench of cigarettes clung to the teenager like cheap cologne. Corinne had obviously been smoking, which was strictly prohibited while in school uniform.

  Angie liked Corinne, even if the girl was something of a challenge. She enjoyed pushing the limits, testing Angie’s authority and asking outrageous questions. It was all for the sake of attention. A brief look at Corinne’s school records confirmed that she was the second child of three and the only girl. Experience in the classroom had taught Angie to recognize the characteristics of a middle child.

  “Corinne,” Angie said as she stepped to the front of the room. “Could I speak to you after class?”

  “Again?” Corinne said with a low moan.

  “Again,” Angie echoed.

  “Is it about the smell of cigarette smoke?” The teenager slid gracefully into her desk. “I wasn’t smoking, Sister, I swear.”

  “We’ll discuss that later, but it’s interesting you should mention cigarettes because that’s the very subject we’ll be discussing in class this afternoon.”

  A couple of the students opened their textbooks and stared up at Angie, confused. There hadn’t been anything about smoking in the chapter she’d assigned them as homework.

  “Aw, Sister,” Corinne groaned, “are you going to tell us smoking’s bad for us?”

  “As a matter of fact I am.” Recent studies had proven that smoking was detrimental to one’s health. Despite that, cigarettes were more popular than ever, especially among teenagers. Angie considered it a disgusting habit, even though her father had smoked for years and as far as she knew, still did.

  A low protesting moan rumbled through the class.

  “Why do people smoke?” Angie asked, genuinely curious as to what her students would tell her.

  Loretta Bond raised her hand. “It helps relax you.” Then, as though she realized what she’d said, she added, “That’s what my mother told me. She’s been smoking since I can remember.”

  �
�Cigarettes taste good,” one of the boys offered.

  “How many of you have ever smoked a cigarette? Just once, just to try it out.” Nearly every hand in the room went up.

  Corinne Sullivan’s hand was one of the first to shoot into the air. She glanced around and looked absolutely amazed. “Wow.”

  That was Angie’s reaction as well. The class was made up of sophomores, fifteen- and sixteen-year-old students. They seemed too young to be smoking.

  “Okay,” Angie said, as her students lowered their arms. “Loretta, tell me why you lit up the first time.”

  Loretta appeared to be unsure about answering. “My mom threw away a pack and there was one cigarette left in it, so I decided to see what smoking was like. I thought it might be cool.”

  “How old were you?”

  Loretta cast down her eyes. “Ten.”

  Angie swallowed a gasp. When she recovered, she asked, “And how was it?”

  Loretta laughed. “I nearly choked to death.”

  “They’re nasty-tasting,” Morgan added. “At first, anyway.”

  “Tell me about your first cigarette,” Angie said to the girl who’d been exchanging notes with Corinne at the beginning of the year.

  “I lit up for my boyfriend,” she said, glaring at Mike Carson. “He was busy driving and asked me to get out a cigarette for him. I did and it tasted awful, but after a while—I don’t know, they kind of grow on you.”

  “One lady saw me smoking and thought I was twenty,” Cathy Bailey inserted proudly.

  Angie wasn’t surprised. “In other words, you assume that if you smoke you’ll look more mature?”

  Several heads nodded.

  “Everyone smokes, Sister,” Corinne said.

  “But not you?”

  Corinne sighed and reluctantly admitted, “Okay, okay, I smoke, but not every day, just sometimes.”

  “But not today?”

  “No, it was Jimmy’s smoke, I swear.” She snapped her mouth shut as if she’d said more than she should have.

  “Jimmy,” Morgan echoed, her eyes round and horrified.

  Angie didn’t know what that was all about, but she couldn’t ask right then. “Next question,” she said, resting against the edge of the desk. “Who in this class has never smoked?”

  Three timid hands went up. Only three out of a class of thirty students, and all girls.

  Angie nodded, acknowledging their response. “That was very interesting,” she said. “I appreciate your honesty.”

  “Sister.” Corinne’s hand snaked up over her head. “We were honest with you, but will you be honest with us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  The teenager beamed a smile. “Have you ever smoked?”

  The question stunned Angie. In all her years of teaching, not a single student had ever inquired about her life outside the convent. But it was plain that every one of these kids was eager to hear her answer. They leaned forward in their desks.

  “Once,” Angie said. “I was about sixteen and my father smoked. I tried it, thought it tasted vile and that was the end of it.”

  The class stared at her with astonished expressions, apparently finding it impossible to imagine her as a teenager. “It might surprise you to know that I was once very much like you.”

  “I want to know what you were like before…” Corinne insisted.

  “Before what?” Angie said. “Do you think that because I wear a nun’s habit I’ve never had a life?” She laughed at the teenager’s stricken look.

  “What about boys?” Morgan asked.

  Angie shook her head. “This is Health class, not Ancient History.”

  A few of her students laughed.

  “It’s hard for me to think of you as someone my age,” Corinne said, propping her chin in her hands.

  “Let’s return to our discussion,” Angie suggested.

  “Did you always want to be a nun?” Morgan asked.

  Angie could see that the class wasn’t going to be satisfied until she gave them a small detail of her life before the convent. “All right, if you must know, I did have a boyfriend once, a hundred years ago. He worked part-time in my father’s restaurant.”

  “Your father has a restaurant?”

  “What kind?”

  “With a name like Angelina, you need to ask?” Corinne twisted around to mock her classmates.

  “You’re Italian?” Cathy Bailey cried, as though Angie had told them she walked on water.

  “Enough,” Angie said and picked up the textbook. “Open your books to page 56. Cathy, would you please read the opening paragraph?”

  Her class reluctantly complied. Books could be heard opening and pages flipping. Cathy read the text and Angie reverted to her original plan for the class.

  Holding the book in both hands, Angie paced the classroom and directed the discussion, which concerned early childhood development. Angie gave them their homework assignment and then the bell rang, signaling the end of the school day.

  “I want you to answer all the even-numbered questions at the end of the second chapter. Anything else before we finish?”

  Charlotte Chesterfield, who was also in Angie’s Home Economics class, raised her hand. “Sister Angelina, I’d love to learn how to cook a few Italian dishes. Are you going to share any family recipes with us?”

  “We’ll discuss that in Home Economics, Charlotte.”

  “But…”

  “My mom says that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” Corinne inserted, as though this were an insider’s secret.

  “You have plenty of time to think about finding a husband later on,” Angie told her as the rest of the class gathered their books.

  “No, I don’t,” Corinne muttered. “I’m looking for one right now.”

  Angie’s shock must have shown, because Corinne said, “I plan to get married the year I graduate.”

  “But why?”

  “Oh, Sister, don’t you know? Can’t you guess? I don’t care if I ever go to school again. I’m not much good at it. All I want is a man.”

  Angie wanted to argue with her, to explain that there were so many options and possibilities other than tying herself down in a relationship at such a young age.

  “Do you still want to talk to me?” Corinne asked, walking backward toward the open door.

  Angie shook her head. Everything she’d planned to say had already been discussed in class. “You can go.”

  Corinne’s face brightened with a smile. “Thanks.”

  Just before she left for the day, Angie walked past the principal’s office. “Sister Angelina,” the lay secretary called out, stopping her. “What happened in Health class today?”

  “What makes you ask?”

  “Corinne Sullivan, Loretta Bond and about five other girls came in and requested transfers from study hall to Home Economics.”

  Sister Kathleen, who taught bookkeeping, chuckled as she moved past Angie in the wide hallway. “Word must’ve gotten out about your marinara sauce.”

  Angie answered with a groan, and the other nun broke into an outright laugh.

  Soon Angie was smiling, too. She was dismayed about her Home Economics class filling up with young women trying to lure men into early marriage. She didn’t understand it, especially with women’s rights issues prominent in the headlines. Nevertheless, she had to admit she was pleased to be so popular with her students.

  11

  SISTER JOANNA

  Joanna was sitting at the nurses’ station going over the medication records when Dr. Murray strolled up to the desk. He folded his arms along the top. “Good afternoon, Sister Joanna.”

  “Dr. Murray.” She looked up and was struck anew at what an attractive man he was. That wasn’t something she consciously wanted to notice, but it would be impossible not to. Despite his smile and the friendly expression in his intensely blue eyes, she felt a lingering sadness in him. For some inexplicable reason, she wanted to console him…. “Uh, is there anythi
ng I can do for you?”

  He shook his head and straightened, almost as if he’d read her thoughts and was embarrassed by her sympathy. “I notice Mrs. Stewart is doing better this afternoon. She’d like to go home, but I’m inclined to keep her an extra day.”

  Joanna approved. The widow didn’t have anyone to help her at home and wouldn’t until the weekend. It was often like that with older people. Joanna was grateful that the physicians took home care into consideration before releasing a patient.

  “She said you sat with her late yesterday afternoon when your shift was over and read to her.”

  Now it was Joanna’s turn to be embarrassed. Like many patients, Mrs. Stewart was bored, eager to get back home to what was familiar, but still weak and slightly disoriented. Joanna had sat with her for a couple of hours.

  “She said she’d been wanting to read The Godfather, seeing how popular it is,” Joanna said, feeling somehow that she should justify her time, even though it had been after her shift. “She said she didn’t know if she’d live long enough to see the movie.”

  Dr. Murray continued to study her. “You should know she sang your praises for a good ten minutes. It was very thoughtful, what you did.”

  Joanna dismissed his praise. “It was nothing.” The older woman craved companionship. She was alone and away from family and had recently lost her husband of fifty years.

  Dr. Murray started to turn away and then seemed to change his mind. “Would you mind if I asked you a personal question?”

  “I…no, I guess not.” Joanna stood so she could meet his eyes. Unaccountably, she could feel her pulse quicken.

  A slight frown came over his face. “What happened? I mean, what makes someone like you decide to become a nun?”

  Joanna hid her embarrassment behind a laugh. “Someone like me?”

  “Something must have happened.”

  Joanna didn’t know whether to be insulted or flattered. “What do you mean?”

  Dr. Murray seemed to regret having said anything. “Trust me, when I was in school I never had any nun who looked like you. They were all old and crotchety.”