“All right, all right.”
“Come on, let’s go. We don’t have much time.” She walks briskly toward a weathered wooden bench. She seems more energetic than when she first met me this morning.
“You love this garden, don’t you?”
“Yes.” She sits down on the bench. “Step into my office,” she says.
I sit down obediently.
“Look over there.” She points to the right of the bench, where mounds of trailing green vines make a glossy carpet. “You know what that is?”
“Free parking?”
“No, wise guy. I planted it in our honor. It’s Italian bellflower.”
“I love it. Goombah foliage.”
She looks over at the vines. “They’re hard to grow. They’re like you, stubborn. I couldn’t get them to come up last year. But they’re lovely when they do. I saw them in a picture.” Her gaze is suddenly far away.
“What do they look like?”
“Little stars. Little bell-shaped stars. They call them Star-of-Bethlehem.” She keeps looking far away. I wonder what she’s looking at, what she’s thinking about. I follow her gaze over the garden, past the statue of some saint. I can’t see anything after that, except the wrought-iron crucifix on top of the gate.
“Remember when we used to read each other’s minds?” I ask her.
She doesn’t answer.
“What are you looking at, Ange?”
“The other side.”
“The other side of what?”
“The other side of the rose garden. On the other side is our new gazebo. Have you seen it?” She squints, as if she were trying to see through the roses.
“No.”
“It’s lovely. It’s made from the lightest wood, a blond color. Inside are statues of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart, both hand carved in Italy. Hand painted, too. The statues gave me the idea for the garden.” She pauses a minute. “The statues are in the middle of the floor, and there’s a skylight over the top. When the sun shines in, the whole room glows. The light inside is remarkable. It’s full.” Angie looks at me. Her eyes are bright. “Do you understand what I mean, that light can befull? Can you see that?”
I swallow hard. “You’re never going to leave this place, are you?”
Angie smiles. “You’re not a very good listener, you know that?”
“I’m a lawyer. We don’t get paid to listen. We get paid to talk.”
“But no one’s paying you now.”
“No, no, you’re right. No one’s paying me now.” It’s my turn to look past the roses.
“So. I was up last night, thinking about what you said and other things.” She folds her hands neatly in her lap. She seems tense again.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, hurt you. It’s just that I don’t want you here, Angie. I saw the cemetery out back. I don’t want you here then and I don’t want you here now.”
“I understand that.”
“I really think-”
“I know what you think. You want me to go out there.” She nods over the garden to the gate beyond.
“Right.”
“Because you think it’s better than here. Than this lovely place.” Her brown eyes move over the bright flowers of the garden.
“Not that it’s better. Just that it’s real. It’s the real world, and you have to deal with it. You can’t just ignore it. Run away from it.”
“No? Why not?”
“What do you mean why not?”
“Why not?”
“Because you have to live in it. Because you learn by dealing with it, by coping with it. We’re strong, Angie. Mom and Pop raised us that way. They taught us that we can deal with whatever comes our way. I know you can resolve what you have to on the outside. I just know it.”
“Do you think it’s important for me to do that?”
“More than important. Vital.”
She pauses. “Is it important for you to do that?”
I shrug. “Sure.”
“I see. Well, then, may I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“Why are you here?”
I look at her. She looks back. My eyes narrow, then hers. Identically.
“What?” I ask.
“Why are you here?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“It’s fairly obvious, isn’t it? If what you’re saying is true, then why are you here? Why did you run to the convent, from the vast and wonderful outside world?”
I have no answer for this. It doesn’t seem like a fair question.
“You tell me there are dangerous people out there, stalking you. They send you notes. They enter your apartment when you’re not there. They might havekilled your secretary. Yourhusband.” Her pained look flickers across her face. “You believe these things to be true.”
“I do.”
“So leaving aside the question of why anybody in her right mind would ever choose such a place as that over such a place as this, why was your first impulse to come here? Not even to call somebody else in the police department, somebody other than this Lombardo. But to come to a convent.”
“I didn’t come to a convent, Angie, I came to you. If you were in Camden, I would have gone to Camden.”
“But what canI do? I’m a nun. I have no money, no power, no resources. I don’t own a single thing, not even this garden. How can I help you?”
“By seeing me. By listening to me.” I rub my forehead. “I don’t get it. Why are you saying this?”
“I saw you. I listened to you. Now it’s the next morning and you have to leave. You have to go beyond the walls, into the world of wonderful and terrifying things. Intoyour world, where two people close to you have been killed. And what are you going to do? What are you going to do?”
I look at her, suddenly crushed, and not understanding why.
“You see, Mary, this is very hard for me.” She folds her hands again in her lap. “Because I have to let you go out there, into the world you love so much, into the world you ran from. I have to let you go. But I don’t see you reaching within yourself to deal with this situation, one that threatens your very life.”
I look at her wide-eyed.
“How am I supposed to let you go out there, when all I can do is pray to God to protect you and I don’t see you doing anything at all to protect yourself?” Her lips look parched, her expression pained. “You said we could handle anything, and I’ve always thought that of you, though not of myself. Can you handle this?”
“I…don’t know.”
She looks away, quiet for a minute. “You’re right about one thing. You know that light I was telling you about? That I said was full?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I never will leave it. I can’t. It’s inside me. In here.” She touches her chest with a slim hand. “Do you understand?”
I nod, yes, but she isn’t watching.
“It has a kind of substance to it, it’s tangible to me. It guides me, and I follow it like a river. It’s what I dip into when I need to know the answer. For me, it’s my faith in God.” Angie turns to me. “What is inside of you,
