The Patron Saint of Liars

“I am, actually,” I said.

She put down her Coke on the table next to her. “I don’t mean any offense,” she said. “Why, some of my best friends are Catholic. Sister Evangeline, up at the hotel. Do you know her?”

“Rose works in the kitchen,” Son said for me. “She and Sister are thick as thieves.”

“You bring her by for me,” she said. “It’s getting hard for us to make the walk alone. I don’t see her as much as I’d like to anymore. They keep her too busy over there.”

“Things are better for her,” Son said. “She’s got Rose now.”

“I like nuns,” she said. “Of course, not all of them. That would be like saying you liked all people flat across the board, and that would be foolishness. We used to have a lot of nuns around here, back when Saint Elizabeth’s was a retirement home. They were the best thing that spring ever brought here, not that you girls aren’t fine, but I loved those old nuns.” She paused and thought about it all. “Sometimes I think that maybe I’ll become a Catholic and become a nun, just so I could retire with women like them. Course, with my luck, Mother Corinne would retire in the bed right next to mine.”

We stayed for a while, but I was tired. June had enough energy to burn a hole in the carpet. It wore me out to think a woman three times my age was wide awake past midnight.

“Best stay with us,” she said at the door.

“I’ve got to get her home,” Son said. “I shouldn’t have kept her out this long.”

“Listen to me,” she said, and took my hand,” ’cause this is important. You come back here. You visit me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“I’ll watch for you, from this window right here.” She kissed us both good night, and Son led me back through the woods, toward the Hotel Louisa.

“She’s a live one,” I said. “I’m glad you took me there.”

He stopped before we got to the front steps. He looked up at the hotel, like he was trying to get what he wanted to say exactly right in his mind. “They’ll have you thinking that what’s going on right now is the only thing happening in the world, but there were all those other people living here before you, and there’ll be a lot of them here after you. Go on now,” he said. “Go on up to bed.” And then he headed off toward his house, the beam of his flashlight cutting a path into the darkness.

I went up to my room. Suddenly I was so tired I could barely make it up the stairs. I got into bed without taking off my dress.

“Where have you been?” Angie said.

“I fell asleep in the car.”

“What were you doing in the car?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, Lord, I’ve been wanting to talk to you all day. I got so excited about what Sister Evangeline told me, about the baby being Rose of Sharon. A girl, we’re both going to have girls.”

“Yes,” I said softly.

“She seemed awful depressed about the whole thing, though. Sister Evangeline, that is. I thought maybe she goes into some kind of trance or something when she’s talking to the baby. Was she that way with you, too?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, good. I was a little worried at first.”

“Don’t be,” I said.

“Good night, Rose,” she said.

“Good night, Angie.”

“Sleep well,” she said.

But I didn’t sleep at all.