There was a knock at the door. A bird flapped in my stomach.
Greta peered around the door. “You weren’t at dinner.” She tossed me a bread roll.
“No.” I squeezed the roll so hard I punctured the crust.
“What’s going on?” Greta frowned. I evaluated her expression. Had she heard? Had it begun already?
“I’m not speaking to Isabella,” I said tersely.
“Oh no! But you and Izzy are so close.” Greta bounced on the other bed.
I watched her, the back of my neck brisk with frosty shivers. Was she trying to trap me? Did she already know? After a moment, I said, “She spread a rumor.”
Greta’s eyes flew open. “No way.”
Her expression was so stricken, it was clear she had no idea. “You didn’t hear anything?”
“Of course not, my goodness.” She shook her head. “Izzy? Really? How horrible!”
“She can be horrible, you know,” I said, the vindication growing. “But no one ever seems to see it.” My voice cracked and I gulped back the wobble in my throat.
“Well.” Greta crossed her arms. “You should just stay away from her.” Her eyes flashed. “Keep your distance from her and I’ll make sure no one listens to any vile rumors.”
Her defiance tickled me. She looked like a little frog that had puffed up its mouth with air. “Thank you.” I squeezed her hand.
The next morning, I sat with Greta and Sally and drank my coffee quickly, hoping to finish breakfast before she came down. When Isabella appeared in the refectory, her face was puffy and red—she’d clearly been crying. She conspicuously looked away from me.
“Bella, what is it?” asked Sylvia with horror, holding out her arms.
“Nothing,” Isabella muttered, sitting on the bench. Sylvia hugged her. Katherine stroked her hair. Over Isabella’s shoulder, Sylvia gazed at me in disbelief. They began to whisper and Katherine glared at me contemptuously. I think Isabella was crying, because Sylvia took a napkin off the table and dabbed Isabella’s face, then embraced her again.
“Just ignore them,” Sally said. “And the second they start spreading stories, me and Gigi will give them a piece of our minds.”
“Thanks,” I said weakly. My guts were swarming. I stared around the refectory, interrogating every glance. Once I had been found out, Katherine and Sylvia were sure to take Isabella’s side. Mealtimes would be insufferable. The whispering. Sitting by myself at the end of the table. Sideways looks, graceful disdain. I’d have to sit alone in my room after dinner instead of going to the common room. I drank the rest of my coffee so quickly it scalded my tongue. As I stood up to leave the refectory, I gripped Greta by the arm.
“Tell Elena I’m sick,” I whispered. “I’m not in the mood for Italian today,” I said.
“Of course.” She patted my shoulder.
* * *
Iwaited until ten minutes after the start of class and slipped out across the courtyard, through the gate, and toward the allotment. As I approached the yard, I could see Sister Teresa was working in the garden alone. She was wearing men’s black gloves and it made her costume look unwieldy and comical.
I walked toward her, wrapping my coat about myself.
“Hello,” she said.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“I’m checking on the vegetables,” she said.
“Sure.” My jaw was tight.
“Isabella’s not here,” she said.
I let myself in through the gate. The ground was glittering with crystals of ice. What was she even doing out there? Maybe she was just wasting time, knowing that none of the other nuns could admonish her. “Do you even have work to do?” I said, sniffing. “Since it’s actually winter?”
“Some vegetables—carrots, leeks—they taste sweeter after the first frost,” she said.
“Oh. Right.”
“You don’t have lessons now?” She leaned on the rake, her weight probing divots in the earth. “Or have you caught up with your studies?”
My cheeks flared. Isabella wasn’t content gossiping with her about my family; they’d been talking about my schoolwork too? “My studies are great, actually,” I said. “But anyway—I need to speak to you about something else.”
“Oh?”
“It’s about what Isabella said yesterday—about my family.”
Sister Teresa nodded. “I’m sorry for your unhappiness. I’ve felt very contrite.”
A flutter of the old quip about her vocabulary bubbled up, then subsided. For a reason I couldn’t place, I knew Isabella and I would never be able to summon that joke again. Sister Teresa had sailed past it. I felt foolish and ashamed we had ever employed it in the first place. The shame bundled up with my resentment and lay heavy in my stomach. I concentrated on my mission—there was no point in feeling sorry. Sister Teresa could spoil everything for me now. I needed to focus on securing her silence.
I pushed my hands into the pockets of my coat. In the bottom of my right pocket was the hard nugget of an old register receipt and I dug my fingernail into it. “I just—”
She watched me, pushing the handle of the rake out to the side and balancing it in the center of her palm. How could I justify the lies about my family? It probably seemed as if I was an untrustworthy sneak, when really, Isabella was the untrustworthy one. I bet she was whispering to Sister Teresa minutes after I left for the States. I bet she was gossiping about me even while I was on the plane. For all she knew, Rhona could have been on her deathbed even while she blabbed.
“Please don’t say anything to the other girls about my family.”
Sister Teresa looked into the dirt, where the tines of her rake were tapping crumbs of soil. “I’m sure Isabella didn’t mean to break your confidence. She has a very big heart,” she said.
“Hmm,” I said, just to say something. Now that I considered the idea, it didn’t sound right. Rather, I thought of Isabella’s heart as a puckered little pouch, one that swells when love is tucked into it and shrivels without nourishment.
Then a strange moment of understanding crossed over me, and I looked at Sister Teresa there scraping the earth with her rake. Not only did Sister Teresa know the truth about my family, but Isabella had chosen her as a confidante. Deliberately. It was one thing to be friendly with a nun, but I was Isabella’s closest friend. Her best friend. The most important one. The unfairness of it singed my lungs.
“I need you to keep it a secret, what she told you—about everything. My mom or my sister or—” I pulled the sleeves of my sweater into my fists. My eyes stung. Sister Teresa was hardly even a real girl. She wouldn’t understand what it would mean for me. The prickly kind of embarrassment, the genteel, self-righteous snubbing I would have to live with for the rest of the year.