Contrition Read online

  “Can I help you, Miss...”

  “Uh, McKenna. Dorie McKenna.”

  “Well, hello, Dorie McKenna. I’m Sister Teresa.”

  When I searched the woman’s eyes and found no flash of recognition there, I concluded Sister Catherine and I probably weren’t identical. I wondered if my sister told people that she was a twin or if she even knew it herself. Considering the circumstances, I wouldn’t blame her if she kept it a secret. I hadn’t told many people.

  Sister Teresa offered her hand to shake. I reached over and grasped her right hand sideways with my left, pumping it up and down as warmly as physics allowed. I’d learned that attempting to shake with my weak hand led to a frowning revelation for anyone unaware of my handicap, not to mention jangling joint pain for me. The sister took my left in her right as comfortably as if that was how all handshakes were conducted. Nun or no, this woman was all right by me.

  Sister Teresa’s white wimple and black veil covered her head, neck, and ears. Rain-fogged, cat-eyed glasses framed her face, while a set of rosary beads and a massive ring of keys like the ones janitors wear hung from the knotted linen cord that belted her coarse gray habit. The only flesh exposed was her slender face and hands. She wore what looked like a gold wedding band on her left index finger. To whom was she married? God?

  “I heard your car coming up the driveway and thought I’d better have a look-see,” she said, pulling her cloudy glasses down her nose and squinting over them at me. “What brings you out on such a night as this?”

  “I uh, well, um, wanted to stop by because…er…”

  I bit my lip. Suddenly I was afraid to say that Sister Catherine was my twin. What if she didn’t want to meet me? I wasn’t sure I could handle that.

  Sister Teresa waited for me to continue with kind eyes. Unnerved, I said the next logical thing that sprang to mind.

  “Because I’m interested in becoming a nun,” I blurted.

  I took a step back. Where the hell had that come from? The ruse rolled off of my tongue with an ease that suggested I’d said, or at least thought it, before. I cringed. The Comet had made me a little too adept at lying. Now I had offered a whopper.

  “A vocation is a beautiful thing,” Sister Teresa said. “Fortunately, this is the right place. Unfortunately, it’s not the right time. We’re closed. Can you come back in the morning?”

  “I’m headed back to Los Angeles in a few minutes.” I started to leave. “So I’ll come back another day.”

  “Nonsense.” The sister took her giant key ring and unlocked the gate. “I can bend the rules for a new recruit. Come on in out of the rain and we’ll have a chat.”

  I glanced at my car. Too late to turn back now.

  The gate swung open with a haunted-mansion creak. Sister Teresa beckoned me with a smile and indicated that I should join her under the umbrella. Despite her attempt to put me at ease, I tasted the acrid tang of old fears as I followed her, and unconsciously slowed my steps to a principal’s-office pace.

  “’Course, it’ll just be me. All of the other nuns are sequestered,” Teresa said as the gate clanged shut behind us with unsettling finality. “As Extern Sister, I deal with outside business and visitors.”

  So I couldn’t see Catherine even if I’d wanted to. I let out an involuntary sigh of both relief and disappointment.

  “You’ll have to come back on Visiting Sunday and meet some of the other gals,” she said. “Get a wider perspective on our life.”

  With that, the possibility of meeting my twin reemerged, as thrilling and intimidating as ever.

  A large courtyard surrounded by the arched walkway of a Spanish mission building subtly revealed itself in the darkness. I followed the rattle of the sister’s key ring past shadowed trees and statuary and jumped when a red bottlebrush bloom grazed my cheek. I was grateful when we arrived at a narrow, blue door under an arch.

  As we wiped off the mud from our feet on the doormat, I realized another bit of Sister Teresa’s flesh was exposed. She was barefoot.

  Lack of the ugly-but-sensible footwear I associated with nuns didn’t appear to bother her. In fact, this woman seemed more comfortable in her own skin than most people. Her rain-washed cheeks suggested the dewy aura of an expectant mother. Despite her age, there was an undeniable, youthful exuberance about her.

  Sister Teresa opened the door to reveal a modest sitting room divided by a floor-to-ceiling metal grille. Despite its elaborate decorative touches, the cold steel of penitentiary bars came to mind. Separate exits and straight-backed chairs on either side suggested a prisoner’s visiting room. The nun’s key ring now reminded me more of a jailer’s than a janitor’s.

  “The sisters visit their families here in the parlor once a month.” Sister Teresa pointed to the visitors’ chairs and motioned for me to sit. “Vatican II said we could take the bars down, but we didn’t want to bother with the trouble and expense.”

  “Don’t you find them oppressive?” I took a seat on the public side of the bars where we’d entered and shook off the shivers, relieved that she hadn’t led me to the church. The last time I’d set foot in a church was one of the worst days of my life, and the sitting room was unsettling enough.

  “You’ll be surprised how quickly you forget they’re there.” The nun sat in the chair beside me. “I’d offer you a cup of tea, but we only have a few minutes to talk before Grand Silence begins, so let’s get right to it.”

  “Grand Silence?” I asked.

  “With the exception of the prayers of the Divine Office, we don’t speak between nine p.m. and six a.m. to allow time for contemplation.”

  “Divine Office?” I repeated, a human parrot.

  “We gather in the chapel seven times a day for prayer, beginning with Vigils at twelve twenty a.m. and ending with Compline at seven thirty p.m.” She picked up a copy of the daily schedule from a side table and handed it to me. “But enough about us. Tell me about your vocation.”

  “I um, well…” My eyes darted around the room in search of something that might help me figure out what to say. They came to rest on a large painting of the Madonna and Child hanging on the cloistered side of the room. Bingo. “Ever since I became a Catholic, I’ve felt a strong connection with the Blessed Mother.”

  I left out the fact that I wasn’t Catholic anymore. The extern smiled and nodded encouragement.

  “I think maybe it’s because I never knew my birth...” I looked through the bars at the Madonna and Child again. The stylized figures and ethereal background gave the Biblical theme a distinctly modern patina, while the painting’s midnight-blue fabrics and daybreak-gold haloes warmed the cold room. The Virgin Mary’s expression suggested a serenity I wasn’t sure existed in reality. I felt myself relax. “My birth mother.”

  “That makes sense.” Teresa nodded. “Mary is Mother to us all.”

  “She is, isn’t she?” I said without shifting my gaze from the painting. Between researching my birth father’s work and being college roommates with an art major, I understood enough about paintings to know that this one was exceptional.

  With her huge, almond-shaped eyes, long nose, and rosebud mouth, the Madonna appeared so tranquil that I wanted to trade places with her. I hadn’t been able to track down a photo of my biological mom, but I’d always pictured her wearing this same composed expression. My eyes flicked to the baby Jesus, whose face hinted at a sadness not shared by His mother. Seeing the Madonna holding the child on her lap, I thought of my mothers, the one I’d known and loved and the one I would never meet, and realized that no matter how tightly my adoptive mom held me, I’d never found peace. The baby in the painting seemed to understand. I saw the tension in His hands. His left hand grasped His mother’s for extra support, while His right hand...curled into a partial fist, with the thumb tucked under the extended index and middle fingers.

  I gasped and reared back.

  “What’s the matter, dear?” Sister Teresa peered over the top of her glasses at me.

&
nbsp; “I have to go.” I stood up and fled the room.

  • • •

  The drizzle swelled to heavy rain. It transformed the ground into a slogging, primordial muck that threatened to suck the shoes off my feet as I ran through the courtyard. I scrunched up my toes for leverage and managed an awkward, flip-flop gait to keep my loafers on. It wasn’t until I arrived at the exit that I found Sister Teresa had relocked the gate after admitting me.

  The nun arrived a few steps later, her bare feet better suited to muddy conditions. In her haste, she’d left her umbrella behind and was as drenched as me.

  “Are you sure you’re in a state to drive?” Teresa paused before she unlocked the gate. “You seem upset and the rain is blinding. I’d be happy to make up the bunk in the visiting priest’s quarters for you.”

  “I’m fine, really,” I said, glad the rain obscured my tears as she turned her key in the lock and strong-armed the heavy gate open. “I’m sorry to make you come out in this mess.” I slipped through the threshold. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

  “Be sure to come back again when you’re feeling better. God bless you, Dorie,” she said as she closed the gate behind me.

  Already soaked, I marched straight through the giant pothole to get to my car.

  Sister Teresa was right. I wasn’t okay to drive. Even if I was, I didn’t trust my elderly Jetta on the winding road of a muddy cliff in the dark and rain. I couldn’t go home, but I couldn’t bring myself to return to the convent either, especially since it would mean dragging the nun out into the weather again.

  I searched through my bag, found a cigarette and then discovered no amount of shaking could produce enough fluid to spark my plastic lighter. My Jetta’s lighter had broken years before. Resigned, I curled up in the back seat of my car and closed my eyes in what amounted to an act of faith. The sleep that often eluded me at home wouldn’t come in a cramped car with a metal roof that amplified the storm. Then again, I wouldn’t have slept well anywhere that night.

  The painting haunted me. What were the odds that someone displaying work at the convent would depict a hand that looked exactly like mine? Had Sister Catherine painted the Madonna and Child? It was nothing like Rene Wagner’s abstracts, but wasn’t it at least possible that my twin was a painter like our father? I was a writer like our mother.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The arthritic falsetto of rusty wrought iron startled me awake. I looked at my watch—five a.m. The rain had stopped. It was still dark, but stars shone through the trees and residual moisture sparkled on silvered stems and blooms. I saw the silhouette of Sister Teresa opening the gate.

  I pulled on my shoes, patted my tangled hair, and met her in yesterday’s sodden clothes. She jumped when she saw me but soon smiled. I blinked to moisten my dry contact lenses and started to speak.

  “I’m feeling bet—”

  The nun raised a finger to her lips and then pointed to her wrist where a watch would be if she wore one.

  I kicked myself when I realized that Grand Silence didn’t end until six. My questions about the painting’s origin would remain unanswered for at least another hour.

  The chapel bell rang five times. The extern’s hands pressed together, and a tip of her head toward the sound told me that the bell was a summons to prayer and that I was welcome to join them. I nodded reluctantly. Anxious as I was to ask Sister Teresa about the painting’s creator, I was hesitant to go where she was headed.

  Ever since I’d walked away from religion, I’d found myself unable to enter a Catholic church for any reason. Now curiosity about my twin became reason enough.

  I discovered the public entrance to the chapel a few doors down from the parlor, took a deep breath to counteract the pounding of my heart, and walked inside on trembling legs. Stepping inside a Catholic house of worship after years of weaving tabloid tales smacked of a fallen woman seeking redemption. Even worse was the fact that reparation wasn’t my purpose. I was simply there to spy.

  I lost my nerve when I found the place empty. I was about to make my getaway when, keys jingling, Sister Teresa entered through a side door and grinned at me. I smiled weakly and sat down in the nearest row, assuring myself things would be fine. I didn’t have to participate. I simply had to survive. At least the pew was uncomfortable enough to keep me awake.

  The softly feminine chapel was shaped like a cross. White trim accented pale, yellow walls and huge, stained-glass windows still blackened by darkness. Calla lilies festooned the altar in spare, elegant arrangements and a sunburst-shaped gold vessel about a foot high rested on a white, lace altar cloth. In the center of the sunburst, a tiny glass window displayed the Eucharist.

  Behind me, a spindly spiral staircase rose to meet a wall of organ pipes. Before me, a floor-to-ceiling metal grille, like the one in the parlor, divided an area to the left of the altar from the rest of the church. Wooden shutters ran the length of the grille and obscured whatever was behind it.

  Sister Teresa finished preparing the altar and left me alone again. I sneezed, producing a thunderous echo in the empty space. Five minutes passed. Maybe there wasn’t a service after all?

  An unseen door squeaked. The candles cowered as a rush of cool air blew in from behind the shuttered grille. Then the shutters opened at the hands of a nun on the other side to reveal several pews and a small organ. One sister was already seated there; another dipped her fingertips into the holy water at the door and crossed herself as she entered the separate, holy space.

  I slid to the end of my own pew and craned my neck to see around the corner as the nuns filed into the enclosed area. There were sixteen in all, most of whom wore eyeglasses. An 80 percent myopic population seemed disproportionate until I realized a vow of poverty didn’t allow for contact lenses or laser surgery. How did these nuns manage to get their eyes checked if they never left the cloister? Or their teeth cleaned? I saw the glint of gold wedding bands as they flipped the pages of their prayer books.

  I wondered which one of them was my twin. The only picture I’d found of Candace in the Wagner biographies was a black and white snapshot of our father helping her fly a kite on the beach when she was twelve or so. Between the wind whipping her long hair and the distance from which the picture was taken, I couldn’t see enough of her face to determine if we were identical. Now I figured we probably weren’t given that Sister Teresa hadn’t seemed to recognize me, but maybe Catherine and I had some similar features that would help me pick her out.

  Most of the nuns were too old or too young to be her. One elderly sister occupied a wheelchair, her hunched back forcing her to stare at her own knees. Another still suffered from adolescent acne. Several bent their heads in prayer, making it impossible for me to see their faces behind the drape of their veils. Sister Teresa was easy to pick out thanks to the clatter of her key ring. She winked at me through the grille.

  A young Filipina woman in a distinctive blue jumper and crooked veil cued the gray-clad nuns with an organ chord. They began to sing.

  Praise God in His sanctuary:

  Praise Him in the firmament of His power.

  Praise Him for His mighty acts:

  Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.

  The sisters’ timeless, celestial song sent the good kind of shiver down my spine, and soon the grille seemed less about keeping the nuns in than keeping the world out. I felt a deep stillness in that secluded space that I’d never felt anywhere else. Something about their song and being up before the sun made me see life in a new way—a world full of quiet possibility—if only for a few measures of music. The soothing chant commanded my exhausted body to nap despite the unforgiving pew. Every time I dozed off, my stomach growled and woke me up.

  Dawn arrived and set the stained-glass windows afire with images of female saints. Several locals joined me on the public side of the chapel. I flinched as a bell rang and an aged priest shambled out to the altar for Mass, his gold-embroidered garments a stark contrast to the poor habits
of the sisters. This service was different.

  Regina coeli laetare, alleluia:

  Quia quem meruisti portare alleluia

  The fact that the priest spoke in Latin gave me a break from the guilty feelings I typically felt sitting through Mass, mainly because I couldn’t understand most of what he said. His one-line sermon, “Try to love today,” was the only English spoken in the service, and it wasn’t long enough to trigger any Catholic guilt. If I ever attended church on a regular basis again, this was the priest for me.

  Too tired to pray, I went to communion more to get a better view of the nuns than to fulfill any sense of duty or desire for grace. The tiny wafer eased the acid in my empty stomach somewhat, but the trip to the altar to receive it didn’t deliver the glimpse of Sister Catherine I’d hoped for. No amount of stretching and squinting helped me see the veiled sisters’ faces behind the grille. I felt frustrated knowing I was in the same room with my twin, yet couldn’t identify her.

  A fresh wave of exhaustion hit me when yet another prayer service followed Mass. Terce, as the schedule called the third of the seven hours of the Divine Office, turned out to be blessedly brief.

  After the service, a nun closed the shutters again, preventing further spying. Sister Teresa disappeared behind them before I could get her attention. Impatient for answers, I knocked on the sacristy door to ask the priest about the painting in spite of my aversion to the clergy.

  Introducing himself as Father Charles, the reverend was happy to chat as he put away his vestments in a room with more drawers and cupboards than an Old-World apothecary shop.

  “I suppose I know the sisters as well as anybody.” The priest’s words rolled off his tongue with a gentle Georgia twang in charming contrast to his High Mass Latin.

  “I say Mass here every morning and hear their confessions twice a week. Not that they’ve got much to report.” He scratched his bald spot. “Asking a nun to avoid sinning is like telling a landlubber to avoid swimming. Sure, the sisters manage a venial now and again, but nothing for the tabloids.”