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“Oh...long story.”
“Long story?” her mother repeated. “Long story? I haven’t seen or heard from you in two years—”
“You called me a whore, Mom. Did you really think I wanted to keep having that conversation with you?”
Her mother’s spine stiffened visibly.
“That was wrong of me. I was worried about you, and I took what I’d learned about you...badly.”
“Is that an apology?”
“It is.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Elle said, meaning it. Right now she was sorry for everything.
“Forgive me?”
“Yes. No. Maybe.”
“Maybe?” her mother said.
“I’ll forgive you for everything you said to me. And if you remember accurately, calling me a ‘whore’ was just the beginning of that discussion.”
“I overreacted. I had my reasons for overreacting.”
“I know you did,” she said, although she’d had no sympathy for her mother at the time. Everything had been okay between them until one night Søren had driven her home on the back of his motorcycle. Her mother was supposed to be out late at a church function but had got ill and come home early. One glance out the window and she’d seen her daughter kissing a Catholic priest. Elle had been so angry after her mother had called her a “priest’s whore” she’d spilled everything. The sex. The kink. And if her mother dared speak a word of it, Elle would never speak to her again as long as she lived.
The next day Elle had moved out.
“Mom, I need your help with something.”
“How can I help you?” she asked, sounding both concerned and suspicious.
“I need to stay here for a while.”
She shook her head.
“That’s not possible. Only sisters are allowed in the abbey. You shouldn’t even be behind this door.”
“Maybe they can make an exception for me. I can work.”
“Work? How? We do all our own work here. We cook our own food, clean, farm, everything. We don’t hire outside help.”
“But I can help. You don’t have to hire me. I’ll work for free.”
“No, Ellie. I don’t know what you’re into or who you’re in trouble with again—”
“I’m not running from the cops. I’m twenty-six years old. I’m not running away from home, either. I need a place to stay for a while, a safe place.”
“So you didn’t steal any cars this time?”
“No,” she said. “Well, one. But that was more like borrowing. And he’ll get it back.”
“Elle, I don’t have time for your games. I have work to do. I have a life here and you’re not a part of it. You can’t be. You can come to Mass here at the chapel. We can visit once a week. But this is a sacred place, a sanctuary.”
“I need sanctuary.”
“Why? Because you got arrested again?”
“No, Mom. Because I left him.”
Silence.
Total silence.
A great silence even. A silence so loud it echoed off the floors like footsteps. Finally her mother exhaled and crossed herself. Tears shone in her eyes and she whispered, “Benedicta excels Mater Dei, Maria sanctissima.” Elle didn’t know much Latin, but she knew a prayer of thanks to the Virgin Mary when she heard it.
Before she knew it, her mother had wrapped her up in her arms and Elle’s neck was wet with tears. Not her tears but her mother’s. Elle closed her eyes and breathed in the faint, clean scent of talcum powder. Some things were still the same about her mother. The clothes, the hair, even her name...that was all different. But at least her mother smelled the same.
“You can stay, baby,” she whispered. “I’ll make them let you stay.”
“Thank you.” She wanted to cry too but the tears wouldn’t come. She wouldn’t let them. Tears were not welcome here. Elle couldn’t remember the last time her mother had hugged her, had held her like this. Years. It was almost worth it to leave Søren for this one hug alone.
“You really did leave him?” her mother asked again.
“I did,” Elle said.
“For good?” her mother asked.
Elle nodded against her mother’s shoulder.
“Forever.”
7 (#ulink_c359e2f0-67b6-5e4f-8033-253f45367dba)
ELLE’S MOTHER ESCORTED her down hallway after hallway. From the outside, the abbey looked like a gray stone square—three stories high and likely as long as it was wide. The inside, however, was labyrinthine. Every few feet they turned a corner, then another. Winding hallways, unmarked doors. On the walls were crucifixes, icons, shrines, image after image of Saint Monica in various poses, in various mediums. In one mosaic Saint Monica held her son Saint Augustine in her arms. Elle glanced at it only a moment, glanced away quickly.
“Where are we going?” she asked her mother, who hadn’t released her hand this entire time.
“I’m going to the Chapel of Perpetual Adoration. Mother Prioress is there tonight. We’ll need to get her permission to let you stay.”
“Will she give it?”
“She doesn’t like outsiders in the abbey.”
“Is that a no?”
“No, but start praying anyway,” her mother said, and Elle did as she was told.
Elle had a good sense of direction, but by the time they arrived at the chapel, she knew she’d never find her way back to the front door without help. Good. The front door was the gateway to the outside world. It was the last place she wanted to go.
They walked under a polished wooden archway and into an open seating area that looked like nothing more than a living room. She saw bookshelves, baskets of knitting and chairs of all types.
“Here. Wait for me in the library,” her mother said. “I’ll be back soon.”
Elle took a seat in a cane-back chair that had probably been here since the convent was founded in 1856. It creaked under her weight but held her. A few minutes passed. Elle relaxed into the chair. For two days now she’d been coasting on the fumes of her fury. Now a deep exhaustion set into her body. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep. Sleep for a year, sleep for the rest of her life.
She looked to her right and saw a stack of magazines on a small table. Catholic Digest. Inside the Vatican. The Catholic Times. The front page of one of the magazines blared the headline Why God Demands Priestly Celibacy.
“What the fuck am I doing here?” Elle asked herself out loud. No one answered. No one had to. Elle knew what the fuck she was doing there.
Because she had nowhere else to go.
“This is your Eleanor?”
Elle stood up immediately. In the doorway loomed a woman who must have been almost six feet tall. She wore round glasses and a black habit with an elaborate rosary hanging down her side.
“Ellie, this is Mother Prioress. Mother Prioress, my only child.”
Mother Prioress looked Elle up and down.
“Why are you here?” Mother Prioress asked. She had a slight accent, vaguely Irish, but time in America had washed most of it out.
“I was just asking myself the same thing,” she said, deciding to try honesty.
“She left her lover,” her mother said.
“How is this our concern?” Mother Prioress asked.
“Because he beats her.”
“Mom, he—”
Her mother raised a hand to silence her. Elle closed her mouth.
“I’m very sorry to hear that. But isn’t that a matter for the police?” Mother Prioress asked.
“He’s in a position of power,” her mother answered for Elle. “And he has dangerous friends.”
Elle couldn’t argue with either of those assertions. Søren was in a position of power. And he did have dangerous friends. She knew that because they were her dangerous friends, too.
“Are you certain she’s telling the truth?” Mother Prioress asked Elle’s mother. Elle was about five seconds away from losing the last vestiges of her self-control. “Isn’t this the daughter who you said has had run-ins with the law?”
“That was over ten years ago, Mother Prioress. And I’m certain she’s telling the truth.”
“We don’t let outsiders stay within the walls,” Mother Prioress said. “That’s against our rules.”
“What of the rule of Saint Benedict?” her mother asked the prioress. “‘Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, for He is going to say I came as a guest, and you received Me.’”
Mother Prioress nodded. “Yes, and when Christ arrived to visit His disciples after the resurrection, He did not hesitate to prove Himself. Do you have any proof your accusations against this man are true?”
Elle looked her mother in the eye. She knew what she needed to do but was loath to do it. Everything within her rebelled at the lie she needed to tell. Søren was no saint and neither was she. But to blame him for a crime he hadn’t committed felt like blasphemy. Søren had sinned against her, yes. Sinned so that she never wanted to lay eyes on him again. But leaving him and lying about him were two different things. And yet...
She turned around and lifted the back of her shirt. Without even having to look she knew what her mother and the Prioress saw. Five nights ago Kingsley had flogged her before fucking her, flogged her for an hour. Flogged her, then caned her. Flogged, caned her, whipped her, spanked her. And now her back boasted the fading welts and bruises from that long and beautiful night.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” the Prioress said, and the Irish accent came out in full force. Elle pulled her shirt back down. She’d always loved her bruises and welts, cherished them. Kingsley had kissed them after giving them to her. She knew he’d been especially bruising simply to goad Søren, whose return from Rome was imminent that week. The welts were Kingsley’s way of saying, “Look how much fun we had without you.”
“Only sisters and retreatants are allowed on the grounds,” Mother Prioress said. “We have our own rules to follow.”
“I can be a retreatant,” Elle said. “I have some money. What does a week-long retreat here cost?”
“One hundred dollars.”
A hotel room would cost her fifty a night, at least. “I can pay it,” Elle said.
“I suppose,” Mother Prioress said. “But this is highly unusual.”
“I’ll work, too. I’ll be useful. Please. I can’t...I can’t go back out there yet.”
Something in Elle’s voice must have gotten through to Mother Prioress. The fear, the desperation. Or maybe it was the money. Who knew? Elle didn’t care as long as they let her stay.
“If she works, she can stay,” Mother Prioress said at last. “We’ll consider it a special sort of retreat. No longer than a year, however. We work here. We pray here. We serve each other here. We, none of us, are in hiding.”
Elle turned around and faced them. She was too ashamed of herself to meet their eyes. Not ashamed of the bruises on her back. Ashamed that she’d lied.
“Thank you,” Elle said. “I’ll work.”
“You will.” Mother Prioress took a step forward and looked down into her face. “You’ll work and you’ll behave. The sisters here have made great sacrifices to be part of this community. They are here to love and serve God, worship Him and pray for His people. This is good and holy work and they are not to be disturbed, bothered, interrupted or interfered with in any way.”
“I understand,” Elle said.
“You had a lover in the outside world. You will keep that information to yourself. We have all taken vows of chastity. Consider yourself under one, as well. You say you aren’t safe outside our walls. Then you will remain inside our walls as long as you are a resident here. You will bring no one else inside our walls.”
“No one.”
“Keep you head down. Stay out of trouble. Work hard. If you harm any of the women here, you will be expelled. Immediately.”
Elle nodded her understanding.
“I don’t...” she began, and paused. Something had lodged in her throat. She swallowed it down. “I don’t want to hurt anybody. Ever.”
“Yes.” Mother Prioress gave her the first smile she’d seen on the woman’s face yet. “Yes, I believe that.” She turned to Elle’s mother. “Take her to the infirmary. I’ll send someone to prepare a room for her.”
“Thank you, Mother Prioress,” Elle’s mother said. Tears of gratitude were shining in her eyes. “Thank you.”
Elle took her mother’s hand and together they started from the room.
“Eleanor?” the Prioress said.
