Sister Teresa leaned back on the railing, hooking her elbows over with un-nunlike casualness. Isabella and I stood on either side of her against the fence.
“Do you see him?” I said. “Your father, I mean.”
She shook her head. “I don’t have contact. My mother did for a while.”
“But—” My mouth wouldn’t shut.
Isabella leaned forward and caught my eye. “Leave it, Briddie. She doesn’t want to talk about it.”
Sister Teresa shook her head. “Really, it’s fine.”
My mind was crowded with questions. I took another two drags before speaking, trying to measure my words. “He’s here, in Italy?”
She nodded.
“You could find him.”
“That assumes I want to find him,” she said. A wry smile appeared on her face. Again, I was unsettled by the transformation from nun to girl. I thought suddenly how Isabella had been right to uncover her other name. And how in disclosing her name, her other identity, Isabella had allowed me to trace how she shifted from Sister Teresa to Rosaria and back again.
“But—” I cleared my throat. “You only have two years, don’t you? Until another sister has her turn speaking.”
“She only has one year of speaking left, actually,” Isabella said.
“Is that true?”
“Yes. Ten months have already elapsed.”
“But then, time is running out!” It sounded terribly overdramatic, but my heart began to beat quicker, for it was quite romantic. A young, beautiful nun, cloistered away, with only months to find her long-lost father. What if he was dying? I saw Sister Teresa approaching the deathbed of her father. The sheet was tucked over his belly, his face gleaming with sweat in the murky light of a single candle. “My daughter,” he would say, “forgive me.” The scene had raced in front of me so vividly my expression must have been hectic.
Sister Teresa sighed and rubbed her neck. “I think there has been plenty of time,” she said, “and if God means it to be, then it will.” She stabbed her cigarette on the post with unnecessary force.
“How wild,” I said, breathing out. “I never would have guessed.”
“You know what’s really wild?” Isabella said, her eyes shining. I recognized the expression. She was desperate to tell me something. I looked between the two of them.
“What?”
Isabella glanced around us, but there was no one in sight. The day was overcast and breezy; a paper bag had become snared in one of the apple trees and was crackling in the air. “She’s mixed, just like you,” she whispered.
I didn’t understand her meaning at first. “Mixed?” I pictured blue and white paint, swirling together. Isabella’s brows were raised. She was breathing shallowly. Then I understood.
“Oh,” I said.
The ground slanted. I swallowed.
“Isn’t that a kick?” she said.
I caught Sister Teresa’s eye, and I must have blinked or twitched, because she said softly, looking to Isabella, “Maybe you should talk about this privately.”
“You told her?” My palms began to sweat.
Isabella’s eyelids fluttered. “I wasn’t going to lie to Rosie.”
I opened my mouth and shut it again.
“I’ll leave you alone,” Sister Teresa said.
Isabella frowned. “No. Why—what’s the big deal?”
“I can’t believe you told her,” I said. Something inside my chest was wobbling.
“I thought it was neat.” Isabella shrugged defensively. “You’re both mixed African and European. It’s neat.”
I pressed my fingernails into my palms. I could feel Sister Teresa watching me. “It’s not the same at all,” I said.
“But don’t you get it? Isn’t that a kick?” Isabella said again, louder. “That you should both be here at the same time?”
My lips were numb.
“It’s cool, right?” Isabella prompted. “For there to be two of you here at the same time—”
“Two of us?” I repeated woodenly. Me and Sister Teresa weren’t “two of us.” The shells of my ears tingled. “What did you say to her?”
“I just . . . just about your family and stuff—” Isabella frowned at me as if I were an imbecile. “You know—how your mom . . . and your sister . . .” She trailed off.
The loose, cracked thing in my chest swerved to and fro. “Who else have you told?” I said.
“Nobody. Just Rosie here.” Isabella tried to smile, but I stared at her until the corners of her mouth dropped.
Icy tingles of shame thrummed over my skin. After how nice it had been, how easy. Now everything was ruined. Why would she do this to me? For what? For the sake of idle gossip with a nun? And how long before everyone in the academy knew? Before all the girls were asking me dumb questions about pharaohs and snake charming. Trying to draw me into dinner-table debates about Suez. Interrogations about the Labor Day parties and Christmas parties and skiing holidays. My palms were slick, my scalp buzzing. After everything I’d said. About Connecticut. About why I’d gone home. About being an only child.
I walked off toward the gate.
“Bridget!” Isabella called.
I didn’t turn around.
I let the gate slam behind me and strode through the bare orchard. As I stamped through the fallen leaves and the wet grass, I realized what I should have said. I should have said that just because Mama is from Egypt, it’s not the same kind of Africa. That it doesn’t make me and Sister Teresa part of the same club. I should have said how I didn’t even look mixed. Not like Sister Teresa—no one would have guessed she was mixed. We used to call her the African nun. That’s what we called her, and Sister Benedict. The African nuns. Because they were obviously from Africa. Mama wasn’t even obvious, hardly even that different at all. I kicked a tiny apple lying in the grass until it spun over the hill. Isabella was sneaky and selfish and stupid. She was so stupid she didn’t even understand how basic geography worked. My throat tightened. Isabella was supposed to look out for me. She was supposed to help me. And instead she’d broken everything.
21.
November
That evening I didn’t go down to dinner. I paced my room, shaking out the bedspread, lining up my grammar books. My anger at Isabella had brewed into resentment and a slimy, creeping fear. She said she hadn’t told anyone. But surely it was only a matter of time. Who would she tell first—Sylvia? I pulled open my drawers and individually rolled each stocking. I wiped my earrings with a damp cloth. Difference was borderline forgivable. But phonies stood no chance. How could I begin to explain myself? Joan’s face when she thought I couldn’t be trusted. Greta, closing her door quietly as I approached. My chest was tight with a sickening, shimmying heartbeat. I smoothed the bedspread again. Would I have to wait for the whispers and the looks? Or perhaps someone would come to me first—Nancy, probably. She’d knock at my door, tentative, concerned. “Can I talk to you for a moment?” she’d say.