‘Sit down,’ Sister Bernadette said. It was a command, not an offer.
Annalee sat down in the straight-back wooden chair in front of the desk.
Sister Bernadette stared at Annalee’s face for half a minute, then shifted the gaze to her belly. A muscle twitched in the Sister’s flaccid cheek. ‘I understand you are pregnant,’ she said evenly.
Annalee shifted her weight on the hard chair. ‘I think so.’
‘You were raped,’ Sister Bernadette almost whispered. ‘The child will be put up for adoption.’
Annalee shook her head. ‘I wasn’t raped. I was fucked by a man I loved. I liked it. I want the baby.’
‘And
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know.’ Sister Bernadette blinked slowly, folding her hands on the desk. ‘Is that because you never got his name, or because there’s too many names to remember?’
Annalee hesitated a moment, then said firmly, ‘Both.’
‘So,’ Sister Bernadette nodded curtly, ‘you’re a slut as well as a thief.’
Blue eyes flashing, Annalee stood up.
‘Sit down, slut,’ Sister Bernadette screamed, slamming the desk top with her open hands as she jumped to her feet. ‘I said
Annalee, just under six feet tall and a little over 130 pounds, broke Sister Bernadette’s jaw with her first punch, a roundhouse right with every bit of herself behind it.
Annalee spent three months alone in what the girls called ‘the blocks’ – a row of tiny cinderblock sheds that had been used for smokehouses when Greenfield was a pig farm. Except for the series of ventilation slits high along the roofline. Annalee’s room was windowless. Nor, with just a saggy cot and a toilet prone to clogging, were her quarters particularly well appointed. She received two meals a day, invariably thin soup, stale bread, and a withered apple. Once a week she was allowed a shower, and once monthly a visit to Greenfield’s doctor, a retired physician deep in his dotage whose main diagnostic technique was having patients do jumping-jacks naked in his office.
For the first time in her life Annalee began a program of daily exercise, which did not include naked jumping- jacks for the doddering doctor. The exercise helped burn off the rancidity of confinement and answered some faint maternal intuition that she needed to be strong for this birth.
Annalee’s regimen occupied about two hours a day. The rest of her time she daydreamed, long spiraling reveries. A week later she felt the baby move inside her for the first time, and her entire attention began a slow pivot inward. Using the spoon that came with her meals, working in the few minutes available between eating and the retrieval of her tray, she scratched what she’d learned into the cinderblock wall: ‘Life goes on.’
When she returned to her dorm, she was welcomed as a heroine. Sister Bernadette was still eating through a straw, and it was rumored she was being transferred. Annalee didn’t particularly care about Sister Bernadette’s fate. She was worried about her own and her baby’s. The new Mother Superior – Sister Christine, who the girls said was ‘cool’ – told her that Sister Bernadette had decided not to press charges for assault.
‘Why not?’ Annalee demanded.
Surprised by Annalee’s aggressive tone, Sister Christine sat up straighter at her desk. ‘Perhaps Sister Bernadette found some compassion in her heart.’
‘Only if you could find some in a mustard seed. And if there is any, it’s not much.’
Sister Christine said softly, ‘It saddens me to hear you say that. I’ve given my life to Christ because I believe in His Divinity and His Wisdom. Central to both, in the heart’s quick, is the power of forgiveness.’
Annalee leaned forward, conscious of her swelling girth. Just as softly, she said, ‘Sister, I’ve devoted half my life to survival because I’ve found life mean. Forgiveness is a waste of spirit because there’s nothing to forgive. I believe in the wisdom of
Sister Christine, eyes bright with tears, reached across the desk and gently squeezed Annalee’s shoulders. ‘Oh, I wish they were all like you. There are so many who must seek God; only a few whom God must find. I’ll do what I can, but beyond Greenfield my influence is minimal. And I do think you should consider adoption, because you have no way to support the baby once you leave here – assuming by some miracle you’re allowed to keep it here – no skills, no home, no family. If you think life is mean so far, try it with a kid. You’ll end up a thirty-year-old waitress with hemorrhoids and a third husband, so depressed that drugs don’t help, and a kid who hates your guts.’
‘How would you know?’ Annalee said sharply.
‘Because I’ve seen it so many times I can’t even feel the heartbreak any more – or not until I meet someone like you, so strong, so real.’
Annalee covered Sister Christine’s hands with her own. ‘I’ll make you a vow of my own: If you don’t break my ass, I won’t break your heart.’
At the beginning of her last trimester, Annalee radiated a powerful and vital tranquility. Her roommates held her in awe. Their attitudes and touches softened. They made sure she had extra pillows and any food she desired. They asked her excitedly what it felt like. Annalee told them it felt like she was becoming someone else, and that it was the most amazing thing she could imagine.
The birth was without complications. Nineteen hours later, after the nurse had brought Daniel for his third feeding, Annalee swung out of bed, dressed quickly, and left the hospital with Daniel bundled in her arms.
It was drizzling outside, cold but not quite freezing. Annalee turned left and started down the street, looking for keys in ignitions. The drizzle thickened. She pulled the blanket closer around the child. ‘Okay, kid,’ she said, ‘here we go.’
Letting the road rock the baby against her breast, Annalee sang along with Smiling Jack Ebbetts, the Singing
