still. I feel happy, and so safe. When I’m finished, she leaves and tells me she’ll be right back.
But the next time the door opens, it’s the Mother Superior. “Come with me, please, Miss DiNunzio,” she says. She reaches into the desk for a flashlight. The oak drawer closes with a harsh sliding sound.
“Where’s my sister?”
“She’s completing her prayers. I’m sure you’ll be in them tonight. Please follow me quietly. We have a room for you in the retreatants’ area. The rest of the convent is fast asleep.” She flicks on the flashlight, pointing it toward the floor, and leaves the room.
I follow her into the corridor, feeling like a kid late to a scary movie. The lights seem even dimmer than they were before, but I realize it’s just gotten darker outside. We walk down one bare corridor after the next, past closed door after closed door. Over each is a stenciled description:
WORK ROOM
DEDICATED TO ST. JOSEPH
SILENCE
KITCHEN
DEDICATED TO ST. MARTIN
RECOLLECTION
REFECTORY
DEDICATED TO ST. BERNARD
MORTIFICATION
ASSISTANT’S OFFICE
DEDICATED TO OUR LADY
RETIREMENT
The Mother Superior moves quickly for a woman her age, sweeping from side to side like a whisk broom. I hustle to keep up with her as we climb a creaky staircase and walk past a series of doors that have no descriptions above them. They stretch down a long corridor as it veers off to the left. Beside each door hangs a clothes brush on a hook. “What are these rooms?” I ask.
“The sisters’ cells,” says the Mother Superior, without looking back.
I wonder which one is Angie’s but decide not to ask. At the top of the wall it says,YOU CANNOT BE A SPOUSE OF JESUS CHRIST BUT INASMUCH AS YOU CRUCIFY YOUR INCLINATIONS, YOUR JUDGMENT, AND YOUR WILL TO CONFORM YOURSELVES TO HIS TEACHINGS. I stumble, reading the long inscription.
“Watch your step,” says the Mother Superior.
I gasp.Watch your step, Mary.
She whirls around on her heel. “Are you all right? Did you trip?”
“No. Uh, I’m fine.”
“You’re safe here, dear. You have nothing to worry about tonight.” She strides past a library and an infirmary, both dedicated to saints I’ve never heard of, as well as virtues I have. She stops before a door and opens it. In the half-light I see a single bed and a spindly night table. “It’s not the Sheraton, but it’s not meant to be,” she says, with a slight smile.
“Thank you. I really am grateful.”
“Don’t be too grateful, we rise at five. Sleep well.” She leaves and shuts the door behind her.
It plunges me into pitch blackness. I can’t see the bed in the dark. I wait for my eyes to adjust, but they don’t. I stumble in the darkness, then find the bed’s thin coverlet with my hands. I crawl onto the mattress, feeling safe and exhausted, and drift into sleep.
The next thing I know, my shoulder’s being touched. I look up, blinking in the gloom. There’s a shadow standing over me. Suddenly, a hand covers my mouth.
“It’s me, you idiot.” Angie removes her hand.
“Jesus, you scared me!”
“Shhh! Whisper. I’m supposed to be asleep.” Angie flicks on a flashlight and sets it down like a lamp on the night table. She’s still dressed in her habit, and her silver crucifix catches the light.
“Do you sleep in that getup?” I whisper hoarsely.
“I had Hours.”
“What’s that?”
“Nighttime prayers. I had from three to four o’clock.”
“You mean you wake up in the middle of the night to pray?”
“We pray all night, in shifts.”
“Are you serious?” Something in me snaps at the thought of these poor women-my twin included-praying all night long for a world that doesn’t even know they exist. “What’s the point of that? It makes no sense.”
“Shhh!”
“It’s crazy! It’s just plain crazy, don’t you see that?”
“Mary, whisper!”
“Why should I? You’re an adult and I’m an adult and it’s a free country. Why can’t I talk to my own twin?”
“Mary, please. If you don’t whisper, I’ll leave.” She looks grave, and her mouth puckers slightly. I know that pucker. My mother’s, when she means business.
“All right, I’ll whisper. Just tell me what kind of place this is. They don’t let you talk. They don’t let you out. They barely let you see your family. And these sayings on the walls, it’s like a cult! They cut you off from the world and they brainwash you.”
“Mary, please. Do we have to fight?”
“It’s not a fight, it’s a discussion. Can’t we just discuss it? I’m whispering!”
She sighs. “It’s not a cult, Mary. It’s a different way of life. A contemplative way of life. A religious life. It’s just as valid as the way you live.”
“But it’s a lie. A fiction. They pretend they’re your family, but they’re not. She’s not your mother and they’re not your sisters.”
“You sound jealous.”
“I am, I admit it! Mea culpa, sister. Mea culpa-Sister.”
Angie looks hurt.
“I’m sorry, but this makes me nuts! I’m your sister, your twin. I know you, Angie, like I know myself. And I agree with you. This is a perfectly valid way to live, but not for you.” I search her round brown eyes, identical to mine. We’re mirror images as we face one another in the tight cell.
“I’m here for a reason,” she whispers. “You just can’t accept that.”
“Maybe if I understood it, I could accept it.”
“You won’t try.”
“Give me a chance. I’m smarter than I look. What’s the reason?”
“To serve God. To live a spiritual life.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Angie averts her eyes but doesn’t say anything.
“I believe it from the others, but not from you.”
Still she says nothing.
“Why don’t you talk? You hate silence. You love to talk.”
She lifts her head abruptly. “No, Mary,you love to talk.”
“So do you!”
“No.” She points at me. “I am not you. We look the same. We sound the same. ButI am not you.” Her lips tremble.
“I know that, Angie.”
“You do? Are you sure?”
