by Robbi McCoy
As she added a cup of water to the pot, the church pet, a gorgeous green parrot named Sailor, sat on his perch in a cage with an open door, muttering to himself. Named for his penchant for cursing, Sailor had a vocabulary that was meager but colorful. By most people’s standards, his curses would be considered mild, but since he was the church pet, they were startling, if not downright shocking. Sister Jo had told Harper that nobody knew how Sailor learned his curse words. Harper was fairly sure that Josephina herself was teaching him. She thought Father Gabriel probably knew that too.
Harper stirred the beans, which they had been eating for three days now. The food wasn’t usually very interesting, but she had no complaints. They were eating the same thing that most of the villagers ate. They supplemented their beans and rice diet with canned goods from the donations that came in from the U.S. and the Red Cross. There were a few fresh vegetables as well from the small garden in the churchyard that Sister Jo planted and tended each year. There wasn’t much left of that, though. The summer heat was too much for all but the hardiest crops.
Sister Jo was an incredibly creative cook herself. When she spent the day in the kitchen, you knew there would be a feast. That usually happened on Sundays after Mass when they had a big meal in front of the church and Jo’s kitchen produced fish and chicken and tomatoes and green beans. People brought dishes to share at this huge party each week. Harper loved it.
Though she had removed herself from the practice of Catholicism after she went away to college, she had started going to Mass here in La Serena after Eliot had gone home. It wasn’t that her faith had been reignited. It was more a case of sharing the culture, traditions and daily life of the locals. She wanted to immerse herself in the authentic life of the village.
It had also made Sister Josephina happy to see her in church on Sunday mornings, and she was finding herself going out of her way to do whatever she could to make Sister Jo happy. That wasn’t hard to do. Sister Jo was a joyful woman, full of love and goodwill. She was the embodiment of what Harper thought a woman of God should be. She lived every day of her life with a passionate zeal for doing good. Sister Jo was a woman in complete harmony with her life.
Harper was ladling beans into the bowls when Sister Jo entered the kitchen looking fresh and cheerful. She was wearing a pair of khaki pants and a blouse, looking much more comfortable than she had earlier. A simple silver cross hung from a chain around her neck. Her short, dark brown hair was damp from her shower.
“Buenos noches, Sailor,” she said to the bird in a loud, cheerful voice.
“Stuff it, Sister,” Sailor responded.
Sister Jo scrunched up her shoulders and grinned with delight, then turned to Harper and said, “So what did you cook for us tonight?” She peered into her bowl, then up at Harper and wrinkled her nose in a comical fashion.
“Poop!” Sailor interjected.
“Don’t worry,” Harper said. “This is the end of this pot. Tomorrow we’ll have the empanadas that Yolanda made for us.”
Sister Jo sat at the table. “Good. Let’s make sure we finish these tonight, then.”
Harper bowed her head as Sister Jo said a prayer of thanks for the meal. Despite her rejection of Catholicism, there was something oddly comforting about starting a meal with a nun saying a prayer. She had always liked the rituals that surrounded this religion—kneeling in prayer, taking the sacrament, making the sign of the cross. Out here in the Mexican countryside, they were far removed from the framework of the Church, far removed from the ideological controversies and the politics. She liked that too. This really did seem like God’s work, helping the poor with the simple necessities of life—food, shelter and clean water. They were too busy with the fundamentals of living here to be worried about the Pope’s official position on the use of condoms or what duties were appropriate for women in the Church. That may have been the reason that Sister Josephina liked being here so much. She didn’t seem particularly bound by rules in general and her attitudes were refreshingly open-minded.
Harper hadn’t seen it herself, but she had heard tell of Sister Josephina taking a glass of mescal now and then. And she danced when she felt like it, at festivals, in a peculiar manner that reminded Harper of a Scottish reel. She had seen that herself the night they had the going-away party for the rest of the American relief team. It was very funny, but Sister Jo didn’t mind being laughed at. She didn’t care why they were laughing, she said. She just liked the sound of laughter.
“Where’s our padre?” Sister Jo asked as she took up her spoon.
“La Crucecita. He’ll be back Saturday.”
“I’ll bet you’re really looking forward to some fancy California food about now,” Sister Jo said, sopping up bean juice with a tortilla. “Maybe a nice thick sirloin steak, huh?”
“Salad is more like what I’m missing about now.”
“Oh, right. Well, it won’t be long, will it? Summer’s almost over. I’ll be sorry to see you go. You’ve been such a help. And so easy to get along with too. If all of the American volunteers were as undemanding...well, I shouldn’t complain. They do help. But they complain too, about the dirt, about the heat, about the plumbing. Not all of them, of course. But, you, I don’t think I’ve heard a single complaint out of you since you arrived.”
“I like living like the locals. Eat what the locals eat. I’ve never been a picky eater anyway.”
“I’ll say so! The night you ate those chapulines, I thought to myself, oh, Lord, this girl is a spunky one! Or else she’s really hungry.”
“Lord!” Sailor squawked, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”
Sister Jo cast a furtive glance at Sailor, suppressing a grin. The roasted grasshoppers, the chapulines, were a local delicacy, but one which few of the volunteers would try.
“If you were eating them,” Harper said, “I figured I could. After all, you’re an American raised on mac ’n’ cheese too.”
Sister Jo nodded appreciatively. “True. It’s been a long time, though, for me.”
She stood, picking up Harper’s empty bowl and nesting it under her own. Before taking them away, she put one arm around Harper and squeezed her tight. “You’re a treasure,” she said, then put the bowls in the sink.
After the other volunteers left, Harper had moved into the church. She had been given a small room across the hall from Sister Jo’s. Her host family, after all, had not signed on for more than three weeks. They might have been agreeable to an extension, but Sister Jo had been so enthusiastic about this new arrangement that Harper hadn’t even asked. Since most of her duties were centered around the church, the move made sense. It seemed to suit everyone.
There was no television here. There was a radio, but it only got Spanish-speaking stations, so Harper’s options for evening entertainment were either music on her CD player or reading, and both of those suited her just fine. It hadn’t taken long for the two of them to develop some evening routines. With all of the books coming in for the library, they were well stocked with reading material, so they read to one another. They usually spent the evenings outside on a narrow balcony to escape the stuffy heat of the building. This is where Sister Jo revealed her penchant for a good cigar. Harper had never smoked cigars before and couldn’t say she relished it as much as Sister Jo did, but the practice of sitting side-by-side amid a fragrant haze had become a ritual she treasured.
Harper’s room at the church was small and spare, but she felt that she had everything she needed. She could live like this for much longer than a summer, she thought, and be perfectly happy. As the days flowed on, she felt that more and more strongly.
When her time was almost up, inflamed with a new sense of purpose, she asked Father Gabriel for a chat. He met her in the church office where they sat on either side of an old wooden desk.
“What can I do for you, Harper?” he asked, cupping one hand within the other on top of the desk.
“Father,” she began, “I’ve really enjoyed my time here.”
“I’ve given this a lot of thought, Father. I think I’d like to stay, permanently. I think this is what I’m meant to do.”
He gazed at her for a moment, tapping one finger on the desktop. “Hmmm. Stay and do what?”
“I could teach at the school. I can teach English or music or both. I’m sure I could learn to speak Spanish in no time if I applied myself.”
He smiled thinly. “I’ve no doubt you could. But this is such a big step. You have a life in California, a job, friends. Why do you want to stay, Harper?”
“I like the people. I like the way they live and how happy and friendly they are. They live barely above subsistence level, but they’re so joyful. And, of course, I like the feeling of doing something useful, something where the reward of your efforts is so immediately apparent.”
Father Gabriel scratched his head through thinning white hair. “Well, I don’t know. The problem is that this is a tiny village. The school isn’t going to be able to support much of a staff, not enough to have specialized teachers like you’re suggesting. Sister Josephina is pretty much it.”
“Well, I don’t have to teach then. I can do anything. There must be something I can do. I wouldn’t need to make much money. Just enough to live on.”
“There’s a school near Linares that is much larger. Maybe you could teach there. I think you would be a tremendous asset to them. I know the priest there. I can speak to him about it. I would be willing to recommend you to him.”
“Linares? But that’s hundreds of miles from here.”
“Yes, but the people there are just as they are here. I’m sure you would be able to be just as useful there.”
Harper shifted in her chair, trying to think how to explain to Father Gabriel that she wanted to stay where she was.
“Is there something else that holds you here?” he asked.
“Well, to be honest, Sister Josephina and I have become very good friends. I like working with her. I think we make a great team. She said so herself.”
He nodded sympathetically, then stood and looked out the window for a moment. When he turned back to face her, his expression was serious. “Sister Josephina is very fond of you too. Anyone can see that. And that’s why I think it’s time for you to go home.”
Confused, Harper said, “What? I don’t understand.”
Father Gabriel sighed. “Harper, I’ve known Sister Josephina for a long time. She came here as a young girl, younger than you are now. I didn’t want to tell you this, but I think it’s best that you understand what kind of problem your presence causes us.”
“Problem?”
“Yes. Sister Josephina was sent away from her community in the United States to separate her from one of the novices, a young woman she had become...attached to. That was her choice. I’m sure she would say that she made the right choice. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Harper stared, grasping his meaning. “But, Father, it isn’t like that. We’re just friends. There’s been nothing—”
He waved a hand in her direction.“No, no, I’m not suggesting that anything has happened between you. It’s what could happen that I’m concerned about. Sister Jo has a good life here and I think she’s been happy. But it’s a lonely life sometimes. Like I said, I’ve known her for a long time. I’ve seen how attached she’s become to you and it frightens me. If you stay here, I believe she could lose her battle with her personal demons. I want you to consider that, how destructive your presence could be.”
Harper sat silently watching Father Gabriel’s humorless eyes and thinking about the joy she always saw on Sister Jo’s face, a joy she had assumed was present for everyone.
“I had no idea,” she said quietly.
“I can’t make you go, but I hope you will. The sooner, the better.”
Harper returned to her work with a heavy heart. She had thought she’d found something she could build a life around. Or maybe what she’d found was someone, after all. If Sister Josephina were removed from this picture, she had to wonder, would she still want to be here? Since, as she’d told Father Gabriel, she didn’t want to work in Linares, the answer to that was apparently no.
When summer concluded, she took her leave of Oaxaca with a warm hug of gratitude from Father Gabriel and several tearful kisses from Sister Josephina. They vowed to one another that they would keep in touch. Seeing the tears streaming down Sister Jo’s face as her ride rolled away from the village square, Harper hoped that she had not stayed too long after all. She watched Sister Jo growing smaller as the distance between them grew wider, until she could no longer see her at all.
Chapter 8
JUNE 17
Since Roxie wanted to go to the Renaissance Faire as usual, Harper called Joyce, the third member of their trio, to arrange a meeting to plan their program.
“This Saturday, then, my house,” Harper told her. “Bring your tambourine.”
She had become friends with Joyce at the university, where Joyce worked in administration and frequented the library in search of novels to fill in the gaps between the paperback romances she routinely devoured. She didn’t play an instrument, but she sang beautifully.
“How’s Roxie doing?” Joyce asked.
“Okay, I think. I worry about the boys, though. They’re so young to lose their father.”
“Yes, it’s still such a shock.”
“Well, this outing should cheer her up,” Harper said. “It’s always so much fun.”
“I’ll see you Saturday, then.”
As soon as Harper hung up, her phone rang. It was her mother.
“Hi, Mom. How are you?”
“We’re having a family crisis here.”
“Oh? What’s up?”
“Sarah has run away from home.”
“Oh, no! When?”
“Yesterday.” Harper listened as her mother recounted the events of the last twenty-four hours, during which Sarah and her parents had fought about her latest transgression, a nose piercing. Sarah had filled her backpack with clothes and stormed out. They’d checked the places they knew to check. They’d asked her friends for help. And now they had called in the police.
Listening to these details, Harper had trouble relating them to her niece who was, in her mind, a smart, innocent little girl with fanciful dreams and a powerful thirst for knowledge. Two years ago when Sarah was fourteen, Harper had promised her a visit to California, a prospect that had thrilled the girl, whipping her into a frenzy of fantasy. The visit had never actually come to pass. Sarah had reminded Harper a couple of times, and Harper had intended to follow through, but she hadn’t. She felt a little guilty about that.
“I just pray that she’s safe,” Alice said, “and hasn’t been picked up by some lunatic.”
“Don’t worry, Mom,” Harper said.“She’ll be fine. She’ll come back in a couple of days. She’s got a hideout, probably. Some friend is hiding her.”
“I hope so,” Alice replied, then laughed. “Remember the day you ran away, Harper? You got as far as the doghouse. You moved in with the dog.”
“Yes, I remember,” Harper said, recalling an afternoon spent cramped inside the wooden doghouse waiting for someone to notice that she’d disappeared, her dog Corky lying in front of the doorway because there was only room inside for one of them. After three hours, she’d given up and wandered back into the house, demanding to know why nobody had noticed her absence. She could have been murdered, hacked to pieces and buried already.
“But you were a lot younger than Sarah,” Alice said, serious again. “Running away at her age isn’t a joke.”
Although Harper
was worried too, she didn’t want to amplify her mother’s fears, so she said, simply, “Call me when she turns up.”
After saying goodbye to her mother, Harper called Wilona to discuss their plans for next week’s trip.
“I finally managed to get a message to Carmen Silva,” Harper said, “telling her that we’d be there on Tuesday. She has no telephone. I get the impression that she lives very simply.”
“This is where again?” Wilona asked.
“Somewhere up by Downieville, fairly remote. It’s about a hundred miles from your place.”
“So two hours to get there. I’ll pack us some snacks. When can I expect you?”
“Monday around four or five.”
The last time Harper had seen Wilona was nearly two years ago, over Christmas break, when she had filmed her for her third documentary. The one they were about to film of Carmen Silva would be the fifth, but it was the first one for which Harper would have a professional photographer. Six was the right number to build a series around, she thought. She had earlier considered doing nine because of her private idea that these artists were her muses, but six would be better. At Chelsea’s suggestion, Harper had her eye out for a musician to round out the sextet. She could already imagine how the series would start, with square portrait-like stills of the artists tumbling across the screen in apparently random order while some lively music played, something like a Chopin violin concerto.
As she made her calls, her eyes returned often to the yellow sticky note beside the phone, the one on which she’d written Chelsea’s number six days ago. Since then, she had hovered near it on several occasions, trying to decide what to do. It was hard not to want to see Chelsea, even if it hurt. The last time they’d talked, last summer, Chelsea had told her that they couldn’t see one another again. What happened to change her mind? Harper wondered. Then she recalled the stranger who had occupied Chelsea’s seat at the symphony.
