Mom hesitated. “Alex, would you mind?” she asked.
“No ma’am,” he said. “I think it would be easier on Julie if Miranda was with us. On Hal, too.”
“He’s right,” Dad said. “It would make losing Julie hurt a little bit less.”
“You’ll be back by Wednesday?” Mom said. “You and Miranda?”
“I don’t see why not,” Dad said. “Maybe even tomorrow night.”
Matt shook his head. “It’s a bad idea,” he said.
“I’m not sure it’s a good one,” Mom said. “But all right. Miranda can go.”
I got up and hugged her and then I hugged Dad. As I broke away from him, my hand touched Alex’s.
Alex and I will be together, I thought. We’ll see that Julie is safe together, and then he’ll know he belongs with me.
Chapter 14
June 27
When I got to Dad’s this morning, I found Lisa in a state of hysterics.
“How can you take her from me?” she was screaming at Alex. “Hal, don’t let him. I’ll hate you both if you take her away.”
Gabriel, who doesn’t need much excuse to get going, was screaming almost as loudly.
“I don’t want to go,” Julie said. “Alex, don’t make me go.”
Alex yelled something in Spanish at her, which shut her up. Charlie picked up Gabriel and soothed him. Dad held Lisa, stroking her back until she calmed down.
“She’ll only be ninety miles away,” Dad said, which used to mean “We can visit on weekends” but now means “That’s not quite the end of the earth.”
“She’s the only person who understands,” Lisa said. “The rest of you just pretend to. Julie knows what I’ve gone through not knowing what happened to my parents, my sisters.”
“I’m sorry, Lisa,” Alex said. “But I have to take her. Hal, can we go now?”
“We’d better,” Dad said. “Lisa, darling, I’ll be back tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.” He kissed her and Gabriel, hugged Charlie, and half pushed Julie out of the house. Alex did the other half of the pushing.
I thought Julie might cry, but she was silent, the way Alex can be. I had mixed feelings. I knew I’d miss Julie, and I felt bad for Jon and Lisa. But I was excited at the thought of leaving Howell for the first time in over a year. And I was so sure that once Julie was in the convent, Alex would agree to stay with me.
Julie and Alex had returned our clothes to us yesterday and had all their belongings in their backpacks. We threw our sleeping bags into the back of the old van. Mom’s van and Matt’s car and Mrs. Nesbitt’s car hadn’t started when Dad tried them last night, and Matt was so angry at himself that he picked a fight with Syl. They stayed up half the night yelling at each other.
Jon was mad, too. He’d gone over to Dad’s last night to say good-bye, but Mom refused to let him go again this morning. So he was curled up in a corner of the dining room, trying not to cry.
It seemed like an excellent time to get away from home.
Dad did the driving, and I sat next to him. If you didn’t know better, you’d think we were a family, maybe a divorced dad bringing his kids back to their mom after a long weekend. Of course we were a bilingual family, since the only conversation I could hear between Alex and Julie was whispered in Spanish.
Even on the highway Dad stuck to 30 miles an hour. The engine sputtered, and at one point it overheated, and Dad stopped driving until it cooled down. I didn’t mind. Everything was gloomy and gray and there were no signs of life anywhere, but it was still thrilling to be away, and there was no hurry to get back home. Alex and I had all the time in the world to be together.
I realized the second time Dad stopped to let the car cool down that I might never get this far from home again. Mom wasn’t going to leave, with food still coming to us and electricity practically every day and with as much wood as we’d ever need to stay warm. Syl might want to go (that seemed to be one of the things she and Matt fought about last night), but Matt won’t leave Mom or the rest of us behind. I guess if Dad and Lisa leave, Jon might go with them. But why would Lisa go anywhere, when traveling’s dangerous for the baby.
So this trip was it for me, summer camp and college and honeymoon all rolled into one. The fact that it was going to end at a convent didn’t dampen my excitement. It’s not like I’ve ever been to a convent before.
“How do you know about this place?” I asked after I’d gotten sufficiently bored trying to figure out what Alex and Julie were going on about. “From the Fresh Air Fund?”
“No,” Alex said. “Our priest told me about it a year ago. They were taking girls in, but Julie was too young then.”
Julie muttered something in Spanish. Alex muttered back.
“If your priest approved of it, it must be a good place,” Dad said.
“Yes,” Alex said. “That’s why Carlos thought it would be good for Julie.”
“There’ll be girls your age there, Julie,” Dad said. “That will be nice for you, having friends again.”
“Jon was my friend,” Julie said, which set Alex off on a Spanish torrent.
Dad ignored him. “Jon’s going to miss you,” he said. “We all will.”
“It’s for the best,” Alex said. “Julie’s going to a safe place. God will look after her there.”
“That’s a comfort, I’m sure,” Dad said, slamming on the brakes. “We’d better clear those branches off the road,” he said. “I can’t risk driving over them.”
“I’ll do it,” I said. Alex joined me. Dad had done a good job driving over and around potholes, but the roads were in awful condition, littered with branches and other garbage. Mostly it wasn’t a problem, but occasionally we had to stop and clear things out of the way.
“I hadn’t realized you’ve known about the convent that long,” I said. It made me feel better to learn that Julie would have been at the convent for a year if she’d been old enough to go last summer.
“It’s a good place,” he said. “The sisters will look after her. They’ll learn to love her.”
“We have,” I said.
Alex nodded. “You’ve been very good to her,” he said. “Your family’s been very kind to both of us.” He grabbed the biggest branch and dragged it to the side of the road while I carried some smaller ones. I looked through the front window of the van and could see Dad had turned around to talk to Julie.
“Things will be all right,” I said softly. “For Julie. For us.”
“I would love you forever if I could,” he said.
“You can,” I said, wanting desperately to hold him. But all I could do was brush my hand quickly against his. For a second he clutched my hand in his.
We got back in the car, and Dad resumed his slow drive through New York. Alex and Julie had nothing more to say to each other in any language, and Dad gave up trying to make small talk. I could see he was worried about the van, but he didn’t say anything about it.
We made one pit stop, which was pretty literally that. We’d brought some food with us, but we were saving it for supper. Nothing was open, none of the strip malls we passed or the occasional motel or gas station. I thought about how Matt had met Syl at a motel and wondered if any of the ones on the side of the road had people camping out in them, but there were no signs of life.
We drove ninety miles without seeing another car, and the scariest thing was that seemed normal.
“It’s hard to believe there are still people out there,” I said. “Is everyone living in evac centers and cities?”
“It seems that way, doesn’t it,” Dad said. “But there were plenty of people on the road. There were days we didn’t run into anybody else, but for the most part you’d see someone new every day.”
“Syl told me bands of people came together and split apart,” I said. “I guess your band stayed together, all of you and Charlie.”
“Charlie was the glue,” Dad said. “He never let us give up.”
“It’s amazing,” I said. “It reall
y is. You traveled thousands of miles, and Dad, you’re back with us, and now Julie’s going to this convent Alex has known about for a year. It really is amazing.”
“Christ has blessed us,” Alex said.
“Yes, He has,” Dad said.
Well, that was a conversation stopper.
We made two more stops, one to cool down the engine and one to clear off the road, and then we got to the town. Like everything else, it was completely deserted. It had been a charming town once, you could tell. There were antique stores and bakeries with French names and tea shoppes. But now it was a ghost town like Howell, only worse, because I know there are people in Howell.
“The convent is on Whitlock Lane,” Alex said. “Off Albany Post Road.”
“We should be able to find it, then,” Dad said. “Albany Post Road is generally the biggest street in these towns, like Main Street. We’ll see where it takes us.”
It took us through neighborhoods with empty streets. But amazingly, or maybe miraculously, we saw the road sign for Notburga Farms.
“That’s it,” Alex said. “That’s its name.”
Dad made a left, and we drove for a couple of miles on Whitlock Lane. The road was in bad shape, and we had to stop a couple of times to move debris. It was a relief when we saw the Notburga Farms sign.
We looked out at a field. You could imagine how beautiful it must have been a year ago, a large green expanse surrounded by an apple orchard. But now the ground was gray and the trees had only a few sickly leaves.
It could have been anywhere. It could have been Howell.
I got out and opened the gate. Dad followed the driveway to the convent. It was an old farmhouse, with outbuildings, barns, and what looked to be a chapel.
“I don’t think there’s anyone here,” Dad said.
“No,” Alex said. “There must be. I asked about it at the archdiocese in Louisville. It was listed as open.”
“Alex, that was months ago,” Dad said. “Anything could have happened.”
“We’re going in,” Alex said. “I won’t believe the sisters deserted this place until I see it for myself. Come on, Julie.”
We all got out of the van. Alex led the way, knocking boldly on the farmhouse door.
“Who is it?” a querulous voice asked. “Sister Grace, is that you?”
“No,” Alex said. “Please open the door. I’ve brought my sister for you to take care of.”
We could hear footsteps, and then an elderly woman nervously unlocked the door. “Did Sister Grace send you?” she asked.
“No,” Alex said. “Father Franco in New York did. May I speak with you privately, Sister?”
“I’m all alone,” the nun said. “Sister Grace told Sister Anne and Sister Monica to take the girls back to New York City and to stay there. That was October, I think. A few weeks ago Sister Grace said she’d better get help for us so she and Sister Marie left, and then it was only Sister Helen and me. Sister Helen passed away three days ago. Or maybe it was four. It’s so hard to keep track of time. I’m all alone now. Do you know where Sister Grace is?”
“No, Sister,” Alex said. “But we brought food. We can give you our food.”
“That would be very kind of you,” the nun said. “Please come in.”
“We haven’t been introduced,” Dad said. “My name is Hal Evans, and this is my daughter, Miranda, and our friends Alex and Julie Morales.”
“I’m Sister Paulina,” she said. “I was in charge of the dairy, but we slaughtered the cows months ago. There was no feed for them. The meat kept us alive until Easter.”
I couldn’t bear it. “I’ll get the food,” I said, glad for any excuse to get away from her and the house. It reeked of death, and I realized that Sister Helen must still be there, rotting away.
It was awful. I remembered finding Mrs. Nesbitt lying on her bed the morning she died. I left her there, went through her house searching for food, for anything we could use, before going home to tell Matt and Jon and Mom that she had died.
At the time it seemed so right to do that. Now I asked myself what kind of monster was I, that I could carefully examine every inch of a house knowing that a beloved friend was lying dead while I looked.
I took the food from the van and slowly carried it to the farmhouse. The smell must have been too much for everybody, because they were all sitting on the porch, looking out onto the gray deserted field.
“It’s so nice to have company,” Sister Paulina was saying as I approached. “I don’t know when Grace and Marie will be back, though. It’s been so long. You’d think if they’d found help, they would have returned by now.”
“Here,” I said, thrusting the bag of food at her. “It’s all the food we brought with us.”
“This is so kind,” Sister Paulina said. “Sister Helen would have been so glad. She said she wasn’t hungry, but I could see that she was. In her eyes, you know. Even at the end her eyes never lost that look.”
“Maybe you should come with us, Sister Paulina,” Dad said. “Back to our home in Pennsylvania.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Sister Paulina said. “But Grace left me in charge while she’s gone. I couldn’t possibly leave.”
“Sister Grace might never return,” Dad said.
“Oh, she will,” Sister Paulina said. “It’s only been a few weeks, and nowadays everything takes so long. I worry that Marie has taken sick. There’s been so much illness. We did what we could for the people in town, but so many died. I suppose they’ve all left by now, the ones who survived. It used to be people would bring us food and firewood, but no one’s come for a very long time. We had hoped at Easter we’d be remembered, but it was just the four of us.”
“Please,” Dad said. “You’ll die here if you stay alone.”
“I’ll die anyway,” Sister Paulina said. “I made my peace with that a long time ago.” She smiled, but it wasn’t a crazy-lady smile. It was the smile of someone who wasn’t afraid of death.
“We’ll stay with you,” Alex said. “Julie and I. Until Sister Grace gets back.”
“Alex,” Dad said.
“No, Hal,” Alex said. “It’s the right thing for us to do.”
“It’s sweet of you to offer,” Sister Paulina said. “But Sister Grace didn’t give me permission to open the convent to others, so I’m afraid I’ll have to say no.”
“Is there anything we can do for you while we’re here?” Dad asked.
“Why yes,” Sister Paulina said. “Helen’s been lying in her bed all these days. She looks so peaceful, but I think it would be for the best if she were buried. Don’t you agree? Dust to dust.”
“We can do that,” Dad said. “Tell us where we can find shovels.”
Sister Paulina rose and pointed to one of the outbuildings. “That’s the toolshed,” she said. “Helen was in charge of the vegetable garden. Oh, she had a green thumb. Tomatoes so sweet you could eat them for dessert. Zucchini and carrots and corn. All summer long we’d eat from her garden, and then we’d can what we didn’t eat. It was a wonderful life.” She looked out at the apple trees. “No crop this year,” she said. “If God is merciful, next year the bounty will return.”
“God is merciful,” Dad said. “I believe in His mercy.”
“I used to,” Sister Paulina said. “I suppose I will again someday. After all, you people have brought me food. And you’re going to help with Helen.”
Dad nodded. “It’s going to take a while,” he said. “We’d better get started. Come on, Alex.”
“Could we walk around?” Julie asked. “I’ve heard so much about the farm, I’d like to see it.”
“Certainly, dear,” Sister Paulina said. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t join you? My arthritis is kicking up today. I think it will rain tomorrow.”
“Want to come?” Julie asked me, and I was more than willing. We never walked so far we couldn’t see the farmhouse, but we were too far away to hear any conversation or to be overheard.
&n
bsp; “There’s no reason why you and Alex can’t stay with us now,” I said.
Julie shook her head. “Alex’ll find another convent to take me,” she said. “Between here and Ohio. The archdiocese in Pittsburgh will know where there’s one. Then he’ll go to the monastery.”
“He doesn’t have to,” I said. “Carlos won’t know any better.”
“It’s not just Carlos,” Julie said. “Alex wants to go to the monastery.”
What Alex wanted was me. But there was no way Julie could know that, or at least know the depth of his feelings.
“Maybe he’ll change his mind,” I said. “You said he didn’t always want to be a monk.”
“That was before,” Julie said. “Alex explained it to me when we were in Kentucky. He said God had entrusted me to him and that once he knew I was safe, he would dedicate his life to Christ in gratitude.”
“People change their minds,” I said.
“Not Alex,” Julie said. “Even when he’s wrong, he doesn’t change his mind.”
I realized then that I knew Alex better than she did. But Julie would never believe me if I said that, any more than I’d believe Syl if she said it about Matt.
“Alex loves you,” I said. “He wants what’s best for you. So does Carlos. You’re lucky to have them.”
Julie shook her head. “They may love me, but they don’t want me,” she said. “Neither of them wants me. But it doesn’t matter. The Holy Mother will look after me until I can look after myself.”
“We’ll look after you,” I said. “Mom and Dad and Lisa and Charlie. Jon. You’re part of our family now. You and Alex both are.”
“We have no family,” she said. “Not anymore. Come on. We should go back.”
I let her lead me to the farmhouse. When we got there, Sister Paulina, Alex, and Dad were kneeling in prayer. Julie joined them. I felt uncomfortable standing and watching, but I knew I’d feel even more uncomfortable joining them.
Then Alex and Dad went upstairs, and a few minutes later they brought down Sister Helen. They’d wrapped her in a blanket, but it didn’t matter. It was obviously difficult for them to carry her, and Julie, without hesitating, walked over to help. I had no choice but to do the same.
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