But there was humor and tenderness in the man, too. One day he startled them all by asking if they knew how to dance. After a few murmured assents, he took the hand of a pretty dark-eyed novice and led her to the front of the room. Then, humming a waltz, the priest grabbed her around the waist and swirled her around and around while Reverend Mother and Sister Mary Paul looked on unsmiling. All the novices clapped; Kate wished that she had been the one chosen.
Once on a damp gloomy Monday afternoon in November, Father LeBeau was trying to teach them a particularly difficult motet by Palestrina. Suddenly he motioned for them to stop. He leaned against the tall stool he sat on during practice, slipped his hands in the sleeves of his Benedictine habit, and silently regarded the twenty-four young novices before him. Finally he asked with amazement: “Why, what’s the matter? I feel as if I am at a funeral.”
When no one answered, he walked around among them, lifting a chin here and there to look into eyes that shied away from his. “Ah,” he said softly. “I think I know what it is. Yesterday you had a visiting day. It was your last one until Easter. Christmas is coming. You will not see the dear parents for a long, long time. Is that it?”
Several novices nodded. Kate kept her head held high, vowing she would show no tears. Father went on in the same unnaturally soft tone. “Well, you go on to the chapel when I dismiss you. Go sit and stare at the crucifix and tell Him you want to go home. Do you think He wanted to stay on the cross?”
The novices sat in silence as he packed up his books and swept out of the room. One by one they filed out, most of them heading for the chapel. Kate went out to the courtyard and sat on the single step leading into the garden. She hugged her knees and thought about the awful analogy Father had made between their lives and Christ hanging on the cross. Maybe he was talking about himself, she thought; at nineteen she was not ready to face long-term suffering.
Gradually Kate realized that she was not the only first-year novice having difficulties. One by one their number was dwindling. She would wake in the morning and see someone’s bed still made up from the day before. Then she would know that a novice had left the community and that they would probably never see her again. Kate hated the hugger-mugger secrecy of it all, as if it were shameful to leave.
She grumbled bitterly to her friend, Sister Francesca, as they took a long Wednesday afternoon hike through the brown, lifeless, early-January fields of dried cornstalks. They were supposed to stay with the group but had lagged behind to talk.
Francesca pulled her black shawl tightly around her shoulders and looked at Kate. “Were you surprised that Lucy was gone when you saw her bed this morning?” Lucy was a girl Kate had known in high school, and although not best friends, they had always been close, sharing news from home after visiting days.
Kate thought several moments before replying. “Not really, I guess. She had seemed so glum lately. About a month ago she told me that she’d gone to Sister Mary Paul to tell her she was thinking about leaving. Sister had asked her to wait and pray about it for a while. But she and that postulant called Anna had become great friends. I used to see them meeting secretly in odd corners, whispering intensely. When Anna left two weeks ago, I had a bad feeling about Lucy.”
Francesca faced her, a grim smile on her face. “Well, guess what? The rumor is that Lucy didn’t really leave with permission—she escaped!”
“But why? We’re all free to leave whenever we want to!” Kate strode more quickly now, not wanting to hear this.
“Evidently Sister Mary Paul kept urging her to stay. Lucy and Anna were thick, so when Anna left, Lucy arranged for her to come back with a car in two weeks. Then when we were all at Vespers, Lucy changed into a skirt and blouse she had in her trunk since her entrance, stuffed her habit into a laundry basket, and slipped out the front door to meet Anna.”
Francesca stared into the distance, kicking at the rows of dirt beneath her feet. Kate felt sick. The story was sad. If Lucy didn’t want to be a nun, why couldn’t she just tell them all? Why did she have to sneak out in the night, like a prisoner escaping her guards? She was a runaway!
Finally, with a fierce pull at the shawl that kept slipping off her shoulders, Kate said, “I’m going to ask Sister Mary Paul about this today during instructions. We need to get this out in the open. All this secrecy makes us feel a hundred times worse about people leaving than the truth ever would.”
Francesca struggled to keep up as Kate strode ahead. “She’s not going to like it,” Francesca warned Kate.
Kate knew that her friend thought she was too outspoken and enjoyed stirring up rebellions occasionally in the regimented world of the cloister. But Kate didn’t care; this secrecy was like a worm gnawing away at her sense of certainty in her vocation.
That afternoon Sister Mary Paul, apparently anticipating the approaching rumble of discontent, was unusually frank in making the announcement. “Sisters,” she began, “I know you are all very saddened by the departure of one of your classmates, Sister Mary Lucy. The circumstances of her leaving were . . . irregular, and I can only say that we have been in touch with her parents as well as her pastor at St. Roch’s, and I would like you all to pray for Sister in what must be a very difficult time.” She
