The Family Way (Molly Murphy, #12)

“I’ll do what I can,” I said cautiously, because her face had become so intense and dangerous looking.

“I can put you in touch with people who are working for the cause,” she said. “It is good to find meaning in your life when you’re trying to get over the sad business of giving up a child.”

I was tempted to ask if she had sent Maureen on a quest to save Ireland and Maureen had heeded the call, but I decided to keep quiet until I knew more. But one thing I had to ask.

“Sister, I believe I saw you when I was in New York,” I said. “You were walking alone through the Lower East Side.” The image came into my head quite clearly. Me stepping out of the shadows on the crowded sidewalk and almost bumping into the nun with the beak-like nose. But she had been wearing a different kind of habit.

She shook her head. “Not me. We are an enclosed order. Part of our vow is never to leave the convent again. Our nuns never go outside these walls. We are even buried here.”

“I must have been mistaken then,” I said. “But I saw a nun who looked very like you. Although I’m sure many nuns look alike when all one can see is the face.”

“I tell you what,” she said. “It was probably my sister that you saw. Folks say that we look alike, although I’ve not seen her for several years so I can’t tell you how she looks now.”

“Is she also a nun?”

“She is.”

“In your order?”

“No. Not in the same order. Our parents thought that I was suited to the contemplative life and my sister could face exposure to the wickedness of the world. I don’t know if that was a correct assessment of our personalities. We were too young to know what was good for us and nobody gave us a choice. Shipped off to the convent, we were, when we were sixteen. I think I would have been well suited to life outside these walls. But I have made full use of my talents here. The other sisters have no notion of the outside world, no head at all for business or organization. I make sure this place runs as it should.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to suggest that pride was a sin. But she seemed to have taken to me and I had to make the most of that. I nodded in agreement when she looked at me.

“I’m sure it’s not an easy job that you do,” I said, buttering her up even more.

“Oh, I enjoy making this place run like clockwork,” she said. “But I’m currently having to train another sister to take over this section, which means that I sometimes have to act as midwife, until she gets the hang of it—and I’m not sure she will ever have the gift. That’s not a job that comes easily to me. I am not used to—the messiness of it all. I am extremely fastidious by nature. I was brought up that cleanliness is next to godliness. It is a real penance to have to assist with the delivery of a child. And a devastating blow if I lose either the mother or the child. We lost a child recently. It still haunts me that maybe I should have done something differently.”

“Could you not have called in a doctor?” I asked. “Could you not have taken the girl to a hospital?”

“The doctor was summoned, but he was out on another case, some miles from town. Things go wrong so quickly sometimes and I don’t have the gift like Sister Francine did.”

“Sister Francine, who was she?” I asked.

“She ran the maternity ward and delivered the babies until she died three months ago. A true saint—beloved by everybody and with a gift of knowing exactly what to do when it came to babies. I find her shoes very hard to fill and pray daily that one of our novices may hear the call to take over this task.”

We continued walking down the hall. “These are my quarters,” she said, indicating a closed door, which she did not attempt to open. “I no longer live and sleep with the rest of my sisters. Since my job calls for me to be available at any hour of the day or night it would be unfair to disturb their few hours of repose. My office is here and my cell beyond. You will find me here if I am not among you and you need me in an emergency.”

“Thank you, Sister,” I said again.

She looked at me with her head on one side, reinforcing the bird-like impression. “I don’t know why I’m talking so much to you. I don’t usually chat with our young charges. It must be that you’re a fellow Irishwoman and I feel a bond between us.”

“Have you not had any other Irish girls here then?” I asked innocently.

“Not at the moment,” she said. She went to move on then added, “We had one girl here recently direct from Ireland like yourself. It’s a pity you two didn’t get a chance to meet.”

“What a pity,” I reiterated. “I’d love to have had someone from home here. It’s all rather frightening to me to know I’m all alone in a strange new world. So she’s had her baby and gone then, has she?”

“She has,” Sister Jerome said in clipped tones.