Black Apple

by Joan Crate

  “Of course I would, Mrs. Rees. If I stayed, that is. I’m grateful, I really am, but living in Black Apple wouldn’t be the right thing. I mean, I’m supposed to become a nun.” Her tone, she couldn’t help but notice, was plaintive.

  “It’s wonderful work, dear, being a nun. God’s work, and He has given you a special gift. Doesn’t mean you’re meant to be a nun, though. Are you sure, Rose Marie, about your vocation?”

  “I used to think so. Everyone at St. Mark’s did.”

  “Have you considered marriage? Has it ever been something you wanted?”

  She shrugged. “Not really.” A cabin with a blazing fire leapt into her mind. “Well, not much.” She shut her mouth before tears spilled into her words. For no reason.

  “No shortage of men who fancy you. Like I said, you could do worse than Cyril Brown.”

  “What about Frank?” she ventured. “Frank Bouchie?”

  “Worse.”

  “Why?” A flare of anger. “Is it because he’s Ind—”

  “Yes, dear. People wouldn’t treat you so well. At least, if you stayed in town. You wouldn’t want to go live on the Reserve, would you?”

  She hadn’t thought of that, but now her dream of the little house came back to her, a man’s voice calling out to her. “Maybe,” she answered. “I hadn’t really thought—”

  “You need to think, dear. Do you want to become a nun, or would you rather be a shopgirl, or a wife?”

  Rose Marie pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose the way Mother Grace always did. Mon Dieu.

  “I don’t want to upset you.” Mrs. Rees’s soft hand rested on her arm. “But would they send your children away to St. Mark’s or St. Gerard’s if you married Frank?”

  “Oh, I never thought of that.”

  “You have to consider everything, don’t you?”

  “Maybe there would be a day school by then. Maybe they wouldn’t take the kids so far away or for so long.” Rose Marie touched the dark spot over her left eye, a reminder of the beating Sister Joan had administered her first year at St. Mark’s, before Mother Grace had taken her under her wing. She thought of the big-eyed boy who’d hanged himself, and then of Anataki’s body turning from feverish hot to stone cold as she lay beside her in the dormitory.

  No.

  Then she remembered a smiling Taki, sitting on the chair in Rose Marie’s bedroom in the old Mooney house and gazing out the window. Now she wondered what Taki had seen. The sinking sun, the dirty street, or maybe the same blizzard that raged in her own head? She could just make out a shape floundering in the wind. Maybe Taki had seen it more clearly. Maybe she knew what it was.

  * * *

  The next day and the day after, as she walked to work, cleaned the church, played Stud in the kitchen, and knelt by her bed at night, she could feel the vibration of heavy wings against her chest. Something was coming towards her, its movements growing more certain as it got closer.

  46

  Departure

  MOTHER GRACE wouldn’t let Sister Cilla leave the way errant sisters usually did, she decided, as she sat in the dining room, the school’s accounts spread before her. She was totalling expenditures and projecting costs as she did at the end of every month. As if she cared whether or not minimal needs were met and the school’s budget was balanced. As if nothing had changed.

  She recalled one dull morning at the Mother House, more than fifty years before, when, eating her porridge at the table the postulants shared in the basement, it occurred to her that someone was missing. The chair of Claire Dubois—a scattered but cheerful girl who usually sat beside her chattering about anything that came into her disorganized head—was empty. She hadn’t seen her at Matins either.

  “I wonder where Claire is,” she had commented.

  Sister Sebastian, at the head of the table, cleared her throat and, raising a finger to her lips, gave her an admonishing glare. Obediently, Grace finished her breakfast without saying another word.

  Later, as she washed her hands in the bathroom sink, the plump young woman who had been seated across from her at breakfast approached her. Judy or Julie, if she remembered correctly, first bent down to look under the cubicle doors, making sure they were alone.

  “Claire’s gone,” she whispered, straightening. “Her door closed late last night, and then I heard her on the stairs. This morning her room was empty. I looked in her bureau and—”

  Someone came through the bathroom door then, and Julie or Judy stopped midsentence, dried her hands, and promptly left. As if it were a crime to so much as acknowledge that other life that was no longer involved with theirs. Their holy vocation. As if leaving it was something shameful.

  Madeleine Bournais left in her second year at the House, and another young woman disappeared a month later. All slipped away in the night without so much as a good-bye, and she never found out what had happened to any of them. They had disappeared, leaving small holes in the daily routine at the Mother House. Tracks in the snow.

  She wouldn’t have Sister Cilla sneak out in the dark and climb into a waiting pickup, driving through the night to some cramped house on a pig farm, miles away. She and the sisters would acknowledge Cilla’s years at St. Mark’s, her speed, strength, and genuine concern. She would tell Cilla that she could not disappear into the country air never to be seen again, or to be glimpsed only by accident, slipping in or out of the post office at Hilltop.

  She couldn’t bear that.

  * * *

  At breakfast, she waited until the sisters were all seated. Leaning forward on both canes, she pulled herself up. “I have something important to tell you,” she announced.

  “Sister Cilla,” Sister Lucy blurted, her head bobbing. “Where’s Sister Cilla?”

  Mother Grace stared down at the old woman. Sister Lucy knew something was afoot. Half blind, deaf, and forgetful as she was, she still had that inexplicable perception about people, though now it was buried under ancient memories and jumbled thoughts, a golden thread in a mound of mattress stuffing.

  “What I need to tell you is that Sister Cilla has a few words for all of us,” she announced, her voice fraying. She had wanted to make this announcement in a perfunctory manner, just to get the damn thing over with, but it was all she could do to control the pitch of her voice. She turned to the dining room entrance. “Sister Cilla,” she called. “Sister, come in here.”

  There Cilla was in a faded blue dress that sagged in the bosom and barely covered her knees. Mother Grace had no idea where the thing had come from.

  Cilla stepped awkwardly forward on white nursing shoes that seemed to squeeze her feet into hooves, shortening her steps. Her hair, surprisingly long, was gathered in a knot at the back of her neck, and as she hobbled to the table of stupefied sisters, a flush spread over her face and down her neck. Reaching their table, she raised her hands to her cheeks and, blinking rapidly, tried to speak. All that came out was a sob. She swallowed, hands fluttering at her chest, her eyes spilling.

  Well, someone had to take control of the situation. “Sister Priscilla is leaving us,” Mother Grace declared. “She will be staying at the house of a Hilltop parishioner until Saturday at three thirty p.m., when she will marry Olaf Johanson. Father Alphonses has agreed to conduct the ceremony.”

  The sisters gasped in unison. Clearly, they hadn’t seen this coming. Except Sister Bernadette. A small smile danced over her lips, but she quickly covered her mouth and forced herself to frown.

  “Any of you who wish to, may attend,” Mother Grace finished, her words running out of sound. She sat down.

  Except for the sniffles coming from Sister Cilla, the room was silent.

  Regaining her composure, Mother Grace looked around. From the sisters’ expressions, she could tell that no one had any desire to witness the ceremony, save Sister Bernadette, who was again trying to stop her lips from curling at the edges. Oui, Sister Bernadette had suspected a romance. And she had tried to tell her. Never mind, the two of them
would go together to the ceremony.

  Late the previous night, she had decided to do this one thing, difficult though it would be. For the sake of Sister Cilla, who, as soon as she walked out the door, would no longer be Sister Cilla, she would put her disappointment aside and, oui, her pride. She rose stiffly to escort Cilla to the front door. As they walked from the dining room, she heard Sister Margaret declare, “Well, if that don’t beat all!”

  “If you ask me,” Sister Joan began, but Mother Grace stopped listening. Instead she raised an arm and pressed it against the small of Sister Cilla’s back. She had expected it to need the support she had to offer, but Sister Cilla’s spine was straight and strong. As she glanced up at the younger woman, she noticed a gleam of resolution behind her tears. Sister Cilla was sad and perhaps embarrassed, but she was not tentative. She would not be returning to St. Mark’s.

  There it was: a paper bag waiting at the front mat, a winter coat in a ball beside it. Sister Cilla strode forward and put on the coat in one swift motion. Before Mother Grace could blink, she had opened the front door.

  Peering out, Mother Grace saw Olaf’s truck, a skiff of snow blowing over its hood. Just as they must have planned. Olaf, his hair watered down and his battered hat conspicuous by its absence, sat upright at the steering wheel, an equally long-boned but greying woman in the seat beside him. He grinned eagerly at Sister Cilla and started to get out of the truck, but she waved him back.

  Abruptly, Cilla turned and kissed Mother Grace on the cheek.

  Mon Dieu, she hadn’t been actually kissed for—well, she didn’t know how long—and it flustered her. She wasn’t sure what she said, but whatever it was, it made Sister Cilla smile. As dear Priscilla ducked through the door, she looked genuinely happy.

  As she herself couldn’t be. Not even hope could grow in barren ground.

  Dreadfully weak, she wasn’t sure how she’d make it down the hall to her office. Foolishly, she had left her second cane in the dining hall. But she’d get there. Just as she always did.

  Minutes later, slumping in her desk chair, drained, Mother Grace realized she hadn’t sent Rose Marie her last month’s board and a bus ticket. Vieilli, she should have mailed them over a week ago. What was wrong with her?

  No point fretting about it. Rose Marie’s landlady, no doubt a good Christian soul, would exercise patience. And soon Rose Marie would again be at her side, for at least a month while arrangements were made for her trip to the Mother House. She did miss the girl, she realized. She was capable of feeling something other than grief, after all.

  Once Rose Marie’s two years were up, God willing, she would return to her, to all of them at St. Mark’s. By then, Mother Grace would surely have recovered from Patrick’s death and be able to experience hope once again. Perhaps through Rose Marie, her protégée.

  She wrote a cheque, enough for both the board and the return bus ticket, then scratched a quick note. She’d give the letter to Father Alphonses when he arrived that afternoon rather than wait for the local delivery. Mon Dieu, she should have been more diligent, but circumstances had conspired against her. She crossed herself. These days, it seemed, she was never vigilant enough. “Forgive me, Lord,” she muttered, rubbing her watery eyes.

  There was a knock on the door. “Father Alphonses,” she said, rising, “I’ve a letter for you to mail.”

  47

  Possibilities

  ROSE MARIE SAT on the edge of her bed, writing on the pad of foolscap she had brought from St. Mark’s. Her hand no longer seemed to be connected to her body; she couldn’t control it, and her words sprawled clumsily across the page, a mess! She scrunched up the paper, flung it across the room, and started again on a new sheet.

  Dear Mother Grace . . .

  A knock on the door. She dropped her pen, leaving a smear of ink down the page.

  Heavens, it was Cyril.

  “Rose Marie,” he said, looking her straight in the eye, “I need to talk to you, and you have to listen.”

  “I can’t. I’m busy. And exhausted.” Suddenly she was, slumping against the door frame, hardly able to hold herself upright.

  “Come outside with me.” He took her hand, and she let him lead her down the stairs. Throwing his huge jacket over her shoulders, he guided her out the front door.

  There it was, the porch where, starting back in mid-August, they had met in the evening. Through September and October, when Cyril wasn’t on shift, they had talked—often laughing, sometimes smoking, occasionally sharing a beer—while the sun slid down the sky. Tonight was dark and chilly, the moon a lopsided grin among hundreds of blinking eyes. Rose Marie shivered, watching her breath bloom a white bouquet.

  “I’m sorry for what I did. I didn’t plan to . . .” Cyril muttered. “You know.”

  Her face grew warm in the porch light, but Cyril’s eyes held hers and she couldn’t look away. She couldn’t run either, though she wanted to. And she didn’t want to.

  “You might not believe me, Rose Marie, but it’s true. I didn’t think about you that way, but since that night, you’ve been on my mind every minute.”

  She tried to breathe normally.

  “I think we’re good together, the way I can talk to you, and you to me.” He reached for her, and she found herself pushing her arms around his thick waist. Pressed against the bulk of his muscle and flesh, she felt protected from the shadows and whispers of the town. She would never end up like Bertha Bright Eye.

  “Look.” He cleared his throat. “It’s time I settled down. If you’ll have me.” He nuzzled her hair.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Marriage.”

  She hadn’t expected this! Pulling back, she gazed up at him. He smiled and pulled her close again, his lips slow and cool on her forehead.

  Glancing at the dark street, she allowed her mind to wander downtown. She saw herself standing at the cash register behind the counter at McBride’s, a confident young woman in a white blouse—brand-new, not a hand-me-down—and a pretty red skirt.

  She would get a job at McBride’s, and the women who came in would nod at her in a friendly, familiar way. Maybe not Mrs. Tortorelli and a few of the others, but many of them would. “How are you doing, Rose Marie?” some would ask. “Have you and that man of yours set a date?” Just as she had heard them ask Betty Watson.

  “A little house,” he whispered. “I got some savings.”

  She would become Mrs. Cyril Brown, married to a big, strong white man. His name just as much as his physical presence would keep Rolfe Mooney, and everyone like him, at bay. She’d have her own little house, and she’d get to know other miners’ wives—Mrs. Rees would have to help with that—and once or twice a week, she’d drop by the rectory to sew while Mrs. Rees gave her tea and lemon loaf, all the while chattering. “Have you got your living room furniture yet, Rose Marie? I saw a nice sofa in the Eaton’s catalogue.” It was possible, and she could feel the words start to take shape in her mouth. Yes, Cyril. I’ll have you, but she bit her lip to stop them.

  “You know how I feel about you.”

  A line from the Orphans’ Prayer slipped through her mind: Give me love in my life, real, true love and a real, true home.

  “How do you feel about me?” she asked him. She needed him to tell her in his best radio announcer’s voice, to convince her that they could make a home together and have a good life, a meaningful life. And love.

  He cleared his throat. “Well,” he started, but stopped. “I think you know,” he finally said, nervously stroking her hair.

  But she didn’t. She wanted more, a complete declaration. She needed it.

  They stood on the porch watching the stars. Finally, she pulled away from Cyril.

  “You’ll think about it, won’t you?” he asked, and she said, “Yes, I will.”

  Together they walked up the stairs and went to their separate rooms.

  * * *

  Rose Marie couldn’t get to sleep. Once she was able to get Cyril off
her mind, it went immediately to Mother Grace. Who had brought her up since she was seven years old, for crying out loud. But who had kept her from Papa, had not even told her when he was sick, who had made it impossible for her to see him before he died. Whom she wanted to hate but couldn’t seem to.

  Why hadn’t Mother Grace sent her room and board or bus ticket? What could be wrong? Finally she drifted to sleep.

  The current was strong, but swimming hard for the shore, she was making progress.

  She woke up and felt Cyril’s body, strong and protective against hers. And then he was on top of her, crushing her beneath him. She screamed.

  She had screamed, the sound ripping through her belly. Too late.

  Alone in her room, she was shivering cold, her blankets thrown off. “Hey, little girl,” Cyril had said as she pulled up her underwear, about to leave his room that night. “You don’t have to go, do you?”

  “I’m not a little girl.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  She waded into her creek. Looking at the shore, she saw a man dancing. It looked like Papa, and she called out to him. As he turned towards her, she realized it was a younger man, but the sun flared over his shoulder, and his face was blotted by shadow. Frank?

  When her alarm rang, her brain was muddled, and she thrashed at the clock, knocking it to the floor. Her dreams exhausted her, and she was too tired to get out of bed. By the time she made her way downstairs for breakfast, everyone had gone. The only thing on the table was a plate with a congealed egg, a greasy clump of bacon, and cold toast.

  Frank came out of his room and watched her eat. As she got up from the table, he said, “I’ll walk you to that church.”

  “No, you don’t have to.”

  At the door, he handed her a toque. “Wear this. Don’t want to freeze your ears.”

  “Won’t you be late for work?” she asked once they were outside.

  “I don’t care,” he said, trudging stiffly beside her through the snow. “I’m sick of bucking. Yesterday, I told my foreman to make me a regular miner or I’m quitting.”