I Shall Not Want

The blessing was given by a rabbi from Clifton Park, and the three men, who all seemed to know one another, fell into a discussion of their grandchildren before Clare had even buttered her roll. The nun rolled her eyes at Clare.

'This is just like the get-togethers in my town.' Clare kept her voice low. 'Dr. McFeely and the Reverend Inman always wind up getting out their brag books.'

The sister laid her hand over Clare's. 'I can guarantee you I don't have any grandkids. That I know of.'

Clare almost expelled her bite of salad.

'Sorry,' the nun said. 'My favorite soap opera just managed to introduce a secret-baby story line where the father knew but the mother didn't.'

Clare had to ask. 'How? Amnesia?'

'Split personality.' The nun speared a cherry tomato. 'So I figure, you never can tell.'

Clare's laugh drew attention from several tables away. She covered her mouth with her napkin and coughed. 'I'm Clare Fergusson. Rector of St. Alban's, in Millers Kill.'

'Lucia Pirone of the Sisters of Marian Charity.' She nodded as the waitress reached for her salad plate. 'I'm guessing from your accent you're not from this neck of the woods. North Carolina?'

'Close,' Clare said. ' Southern Virginia. Then around and about a bit with the U.S. Army before seminary.'

'Really? One of my brothers was career army. He's retired now, of course. What was your MOS?'

'I flew helicopters.' She caught herself. 'I fly helicopters. I've just recently reupped with the National Guard.'

'Really?' Sister Lucia leaned toward Clare, heedless of the silverware in her way. 'With a war on? And you say you're a rector?' The nun's sharp eyes seemed out of place on her wrinkled face. Clare suspected the sweet-old-thing look was a clever disguise. 'Whatever did your bishop say about that?'

'It was… he supported my reenlistment. He felt it would help me clarify… where my vocation lies.'

'This is supposed to help you see if you have a true calling?' The sister's glance went to Clare's white collar. 'Bit late in the day for that, isn't it?'

'It's not my calling that's in doubt. Just… what it is I'm called to do.' She dropped her voice. 'I think the bishop's hoping Uncle Sam will take me out of his hair.'

Sister Lucia's eyes lit up. 'Ah. You have bishop troubles.'

'I'm sure the bishop would say he has Clare Fergusson troubles.'

'I'll drink to that.' The nun lifted her water glass and looked at it. She sighed. 'That's the only problem with these ecumenical things. No wine.' She glanced meaningfully at the Baptist preacher before swigging her water. 'At any rate, my sympathies to you. I have bishop problems as well, and he's not even my bishop.'

Clare leaned back to let the waitress deposit a chicken breast on a bed of wild rice in front of her. 'Not your bishop?'

'Are you familiar with the Sisters of Marian Charity?'

'Sorry. I'm not as knowledgeable about Roman Catholic orders as I probably should be.'

Sister Lucia thanked the waitress for her salmon. 'The order was founded in 1896 by a pair of rich sisters who wanted to better the lives of impoverished immigrants in Boston.'

'You mean like Jane Addams and Ellen Starr in Chicago?'

'Exactly. Over the last century, the order's mission became focused on the plight of migrant laborers. The motherhouse relocated west during the dust-bowl, and the bulk of our work has been in California and Arizona. I'm here as a missioner, the first one in the northeast dairy country.'

Clare paused before forking a bite of chicken into her mouth. 'Why? I mean, Washington and Warren counties are whiter than mayonnaise. Shouldn't you be in-I don't know- Albany or somewhere?'

'What would you think if I told you there were upwards of three hundred year-round Hispanic farm workers in Washington County alone?'

Clare blinked. 'Three hundred?'

'Or more. Some with guest-worker papers, most illegal. The number may double in the summer.'

'I'd say… that surprises me. I didn't think this part of New York had the kind of large- scale agriculture that requires importing labor.' She stabbed several green beans, wondering, for the first time, whose hands had picked them.

'It's dairy farming country,' Lucia said. 'Hard, thankless work. Dairymen have to be able to fix machinery, repair barns, bring in crops, deliver calves, and, most demandingly, milk. Corn or soybeans or wheat can wait twenty-four hours for attention, but cows have to be milked, morning and evening, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.'

'You sound like someone speaking from experience.'

'I grew up on a dairy farm in Vermont. Last year, I went back to Rutland for a family funeral and discovered my brother's neighbor had six Guatemalans working for him. That's when I realized we were needed back East again.'

'So you got your superiors to send you.' She cut a slice off her chicken breast. 'But they must have had to get the diocese's support.'

'I have my superiors' blessing. I have the Diocese of Albany's permission. They weren't too wild about giving it, either.' Lucia gave Clare a dry smile. 'Caring for illegal aliens is Christian, but it's not very convenient. Especially when you have a large conservative element in your diocese that believes everybody without papers ought to be rounded up and sent back to Mexico.'

'So what is it you do?' Clare wiped her mouth. 'I mean, it sounds as if you're shooting for more than getting these people to a Spanish-language Mass. '

'We start with basic services, like transportation away from the farms and translators to help them deal with government bureaucracies. Then we act as advocates. Guest workers don't have the right to disability or unemployment insurance, to overtime, or even to a day of rest. The men who are here without papers won't seek health care, won't report safety violations, won't complain if they get stiffed on their pay, because they're scared of the authorities. They keep their pay in cash because they don't have the ID to open bank accounts, and if one of them is the victim of a crime, he won't go to the police. Some of them live in appalling conditions, in ancient trailers that wouldn't have passed safety inspections in 1958, eight or nine men sharing a space.'

'Wow.' Clare pushed her plate away so she could prop her elbow on the table, a bad habit she had never gotten rid of. 'That sounds amazingly challenging. And worthwhile.'

Sister Lucia nodded. 'I'm glad you see that. Now I just have to find some congregations to partner with me.'

'Doesn't your order support your mission financially?'

'I get a modest amount. And by modest, I mean it's swathed in a burka, unseen by human eye.'

Clare laughed.

'No, the problem is, we're stretched thin up here in the North Country. Small parishes, every priest responsible for two or three of them, donations down… Without the bishop behind me, my tiny little mission's needs get squashed on the bottom of the pile every time.'

'Let me help you.'

The nun sat back in her seat. 'I beg your pardon?'

'I have some friends at the Episcopal Development Fund. This sounds like just their sort