SO much has happened! Betty was boo-hooing all night because she was homesick and she left practically in the middle of the night. Also Patricia has a very unfortunate-looking twin. And the academy has its own rowboat—the sisters have to row over to Brancorsi sometimes and it’s the funniest thing I ever saw. Rosaria fell in and I almost split a gut! Katherine isn’t talking to Mary L. anymore.
Betty had been homesick and gone home—I already knew. Katherine and Mary L. weren’t talking—I already knew. How like her to assume nobody else would have told me. What did she think I’d been doing since I arrived? Sitting alone in my room? And Patricia’s unfortunate-looking twin—well, she knew I knew about that because we’d talked about it at length! How could she have forgotten? And the rest of it made no sense to me at all. I couldn’t even place Sister Rosaria. I decided not to ask her, as a matter of pride. I scanned the note again. There was another thing—she hadn’t asked me a single question. Had she even received my letters? My chest prickled. Rhona could have died for all she knew. Rhona could be dead and buried and she hadn’t even bothered to check.
She yawned dramatically, and Elena looked up.
“Sei annoiata?” she said archly.
“No,” said Isabella.
“Continuare da questa pagina, Bella,” Elena said.
Isabella picked up the textbook and began to read. At one point everyone tittered and I searched the page for the joke, but I didn’t know what they were laughing at.
At lunch I decided to ignore Isabella, but she wasn’t there. Instead, I saw her loping across the courtyard, eating her sandwich from a paper napkin. All my determination to ignore her vanished, and I hurried from the refectory to follow her. Halfway across the courtyard I called out.
She turned and saw me. “Hi,” she said, although her smile was not entirely genuine.
“Sneaking off to smoke?” I said. It came out false and overly jovial.
“I was going round the back.” She pointed vaguely to the convent gate.
I stood and waited.
“Want to come with?” she said.
As we walked, I cleared my throat. “Did you get my letters? I know how bad the mail is.” I tried to keep my voice neutral.
“Oh yeah, they were hilarious.” Isabella stuck her tongue out. “St. Cyrus is just the most tedious place on the planet.”
I nodded, fixing my face into a smile. But the letters weren’t supposed to be funny. Despite all her protests, I thought Isabella would enjoy having updates about our town, our teachers, our old friends.
Sister Teresa appeared at the gate. She squinted as she saw me, then broke into a smile. “Bridget,” she said. “Welcome back.” She crossed to take my hand and held it between her own. Her fingers were rough and calloused on mine. She looked carefully at my face and I willed myself not to blush.
“Thanks,” I said.
She bounced my hand up and down. “I’ve been praying for you.”
“Thanks.” I focused on the flagstones under my feet.
“And your family?” She was still holding my hand. I was conscious she’d feel my sweaty palm in her dry one.
“Yes, thanks. Everything is fine.”
Isabella was growing restless; I saw her walking deliberately within our periphery, kicking a loose stone at the edge of the courtyard.
Sister Teresa released my hand. “So, have you come to see the garden?”
I glanced at Isabella. Had she been going to the garden? “Sure,” I said uncertainly.
We passed left of the bell tower, then around the back of the convent. I tried to snoop through the windows into the cells, but the glass was thick and mottled. The earth behind the convent building was muddy, and the grass had been trampled bare. As we wove past the laundry room, the scent of warm soap floated in a damp gust of air. All the while, Sister Teresa chatted about the garden and what a great help Isabella had been with the planting and weeding.
I glanced at Isabella over my shoulder. “Weeding?” I said, expecting her to grin, that we would pull faces at each other.
“Yes,” she said, shrugging. As if she had always taken a great interest in gardening. The closest I’d seen her come to horticulture was clipping her split ends.
Sister Teresa dodged another shed and we approached an allotment hidden from the orchard by a waist-high hedge. She pushed open a squeaky gate with patchy chicken wire wound between the bars. I didn’t know how to react appropriately. Was the yard dying? Wilted flowers tangled with mushy, browning leaves. The gaps in the wire fence shone with spiderwebs.
“Has Bella shown you before?” Sister Teresa asked.
I shook my head.
“Here, for example, are herbs for cooking. We have rosemary and oregano and fennel and basil and thyme. Isabella has been helping me to dig here,” she said, walking to a rectangular patch of crumbly soil. The hem of her skirt dragged in the mud and I winced. She must have to scrub her skirt every single day to get the spots of earth out. “We’ve been planting garlic and winter lettuce,” she said.
Even as I smiled and nodded at the indistinguishable lumps in the earth, I struggled to keep my amusement in check. I watched the focus on Isabella’s face as Sister Teresa pointed to furrows in the dirt. Had she really been so lonely without me that she was digging lettuce with a bunch of silent nuns? There I had been worrying about what a jolly time she was having, and instead she was acting like an old lady. Worse. Even Granny didn’t dig in her own backyard.
“Isn’t this kind of a waste of your time?” I said.
“Bridget!” Isabella snapped.
Sister Teresa blinked at me.
“I don’t mean it in a bad way.” I felt the heat rise to my cheeks. “Just—since you’re the only speaking nun, isn’t it kind of wasteful that you’re planting cabbage, instead of—” I hesitated. What was it Sister Teresa did exactly? I cleared my throat. “Conducting convent business?”
Sister Teresa cricked her neck. “Ah. I understand.”
“Growing food is still important work,” Isabella said defensively.
“What work have you seen us conduct?” Sister Teresa said, watching me with the sharp, encouraging eye of a teacher.
“The sisters?”
“Yes.”
“Um.” I thought of the bags of our laundered clothes, which appeared weekly in our rooms. The plates whisked away after every meal. The perpetual sound of brooms swishing against marble. “Sort of—housework,” I muttered.
Isabella was shaking her head. “I’m sorry,” she said to Sister Teresa, shooting me a contemptuous look.