She prayed and meditated, taught her classes, visited the sick, laughed and joked with the small group of teenagers from town who came to the weekly youth group. But in a terrible literal sense her heart was not in these things. She was discovering the tyranny of love, that awful dependence on a look, a smile, a gesture. She hated feeling this way. But suddenly she would feel a surge of happiness during her work, thinking of his smile, the deep tones of his voice.
She kept repeating to herself St. Thomas Aquinas’ definition of love: “To love is to will the good of the other.” If she loved Tom Lynch, she wouldn’t hurt him. That was the question, wasn’t it? What was good for this man? She decided at last that she could never tell him how she felt. She would enjoy seeing him, talking to him, knowing that he existed in the world. Then one of them would be transferred away and that would be that. He was a priest forever. She could not damage that and still claim she loved him. At night she wound her rosary though her fingers and tried not to remember his hands on her shoulders as he’d helped her with her cloak that night.
By February, Kate found herself more at home in the world of Santa Catalina. She had grown to love little Tito and spent time reading to him from a few small children’s books she’d found. He sat sprawled on her lap in the garden after lunch while she read to him Anibal Busca Aventuras. She inhaled the dust and sweat of his hair, combing it with her fingers. She loved the shape of his bottom in her lap, the feeling of his head against her breast as he sucked his thumb while she read to him.
Now when she walked with Marta to the market, the vendors called out her name. “Buenos días, Madrecita Catalina.” Alejandro, Tito’s father, was still a mystery to her. She often wondered what he was thinking. He worked so closely with the priests and nuns; he saw them when they were short-tempered and grouchy and when they made big mistakes in understanding the people. When she tried talking to him about his hopes for the future, he would usually smile shyly and say only that he was very happy working with the padres and hoped his son would grow up to be educated. Once he taught her a word in Aymara, chaskanawi, and she loved saying it over and over, its consonants exploding on her tongue. It meant “girl with stars in her eyes.”
So, one day at lunch when she glimpsed the letter addressed to her in heavy black ink with the Lima postmark on the buffet in the dining room, it felt like a disturbance, a threat to the precarious peace she had achieved.
“Hey, that looks like Father Tom’s writing,” said Jeanne Marie looking over Kate’s shoulder at the letter. Sister Josepha looked at Kate and rang the bell for grace, saving Kate from having to respond. Kate left the letter on the buffet, and then, after she finished the dishes, she slipped it into her pocket and went upstairs to her room.
Her heart was thundering, and she knew it wasn’t the altitude this time. She tore open the thin airmail paper, ripping a piece of the letter in her eagerness.
Dear Kate,
I have started this letter to you many times and then torn it up in disgust at my inability to say what I need to say to you. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve fallen in love with you. . . .
Kate stopped reading and took several gulps of air. Her cheeks flamed.
It wasn’t anything I planned to do, and I can only say that I tried hard to deny it to myself. But those mornings in church I’d see you sitting there so calmly, staring up at me while I nattered on in my sermon, laughing at the jokes no one else even knew I was making—that’s what really did it.
You are like springtime, young and lovely and breathing hope into me when I’ve felt so dry and stale. I’ve begun to see the world through your eyes; you make it new and fresh for me. This is getting really incoherent, I know. Then the snowy night when I came to the convent, hoping you’d be alone and you were. When I held your cloak for you I had to force myself not to take you in my arms. Oh Kate, this is impossible.
I’ve had time to think it through a bit here in Lima. I don’t want to hurt you, and I think I could, badly. You see, I still want to be a priest. It’s the deepest core of who I am, and even though it is a frustrating, foolish, at times even God-forsaken life, it’s the life I vowed. And you are a wonderful nun. You make it seem easy to be happy, and I’ve met very few nuns who did that. So what do we do? I will stay away from you. It’s the only way to avoid hurting you and sullying something true and pure. But always know that I love you.
I thought of asking for a transfer, maybe to Bolivia. But I think now that I can handle this if I just don’t see you alone or look for excuses to be with you.
God bless you, Kate. This is the hardest God-damned letter I’ve ever had to write.
Forgive me,
Tom
Kate read
