The NUN
THE NUN scrutinizes the girls, their pleated skirts swishing, their starched shirts buttoned to the neck, ties in place, blazers tacked together in front for the first time in months. There is a hushed excitement in the air, whispers and giggles. Sisters, in their black robes and sensible shoes, flow through the mass of hormonal hysteria, giving a warning eye here, a sharp correction there. Reverend Mother Mary Michael sighs. She is not looking forward to this day. The Bishop will be arriving at any moment, celebrate a full Mass, and then they will march. For the girls of Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic School, it means a full day out of the classrooms, hence the hysteria. For Reverend Mother Mary Michael, it means a day of carefully crafted sentences, subservient demeanor, and the temporary acquiescence of her leadership position that she has enjoyed for the past eighteen months. After Reverend Mother Harriet’s passing, may she rest in peace, Reverend Mother Mary Michael was finally in charge, though in reality she’d been running the show well before the ancient Mother’s death. She’d fought tooth and nail for this position, edging out the other sisters, as she had known she would. She knew every nuance of the school and its inhabitants, just as she knew every nuance of the management of Father Damien’s parish and Bishop Carson’s diocese. She made it her business, especially, to know the ugly secrets, the favors owed, the misdeeds done. The curtain was pulled back quickly once the postulancy was behind and the novitiate phase began. There is all manner of posturing, sneaking, and manipulation involved in surviving as a nun. Mary Michael had caught on quickly. She had good instincts for the game: knowing which information to file away to be used later, which to use now, whom she could bend to her will and those to avoid at all costs; and she finally had her own school to show for it. Who cares if it was in a dumpy city in Ohio? She’d been sent worse places. Far worse. She would play the game she’d been forced to play, and God would reward her.