Five minutes after Sister Beatrice departed, one of the laywomen from the office came into our classroom looking harried and confused. “You are to take out your reading books and begin reading in silence,” she said. “If anyone speaks, I am to send you to the principal’s office.”
No one did.
Mickie did not show up on the playground at lunch, nor did she return to the classroom that afternoon. Neither did Sister Beatrice. She’d perhaps forgotten about Ernie’s and my detentions. Mary Beth Potts and Valerie Johnson sat like statues, paralyzed by their fear that I would tell on them. I never did. After school, Ernie and I ran out with our classmates like prisoners on a jailbreak, and we rode as fast as we could until we reached my front yard. When I walked in the front door, I detected an aroma familiar to every child—chocolate-chip cookies. My mother had just taken a tray out of the oven. She placed a plate on the table along with two glasses of milk. The right side of her mouth inched into a grin as she looked from Ernie to me.
“You have inherited your mother’s acting skills, Samuel Hill.”
17
Mickie returned to class the following Monday. So did Sister Mary Williams. None of us ever spoke of the travesty that was the all-school Mass. Late in the morning, Sister instructed us to take out our math books, then called my name and asked me to accompany her outside the classroom. I thought for certain this conversation would be about me paying the piper.
We sat on the red lunch bleachers, the masonry wall hiding us from the rest of my classmates, who were no doubt peering out the window.
“I heard about what happened,” Sister said.
“I’m sorry, Sister.”
Her watery eyes held a kindness and warmth. “I think we both know what you and Ernie did, Sam.”
I didn’t respond.
She sighed. “Sister Beatrice has . . . some problems,” she said. “She doesn’t mean the things she says and does. Do you understand?”
I knew it had to do with the silver flask. “I think so,” I said.
“You’re a good boy, Sam. God gave you a cross to bear, just as he gave me one.”
“You, Sister?” I asked.
She removed her thick glasses, which had already turned a dark shade since we had ventured outdoors, and I noticed that her eyes, without them, were rather small, beady.
“I’m legally blind, Sam. These glasses only partially correct my vision. As I get older, I will go completely blind.”
“When, Sister?”
“Only God knows.”
I felt myself becoming angry. How could God take the eyesight of such a warm, loving person and leave such a rotten person as Sister Beatrice with twenty-twenty vision?
“Everything happens for a reason,” Sister Mary Williams said, sounding very much like my mother. “I might not have become a nun, or a teacher, had it not been for my eyes. I am so sensitive to light I have always had to wear sunglasses, even as a young girl. The other children called me Bat Girl, because I was as blind as one. The only place I found comfort, outside my home, was in church. I could take off my glasses and feel normal. Everything God does is for a reason, Sam; every cross we bear is an opportunity. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” I said, though I was becoming less sure I wanted to understand.
She slipped her glasses back on. “You and Ernie will remain fifteen minutes after school to clean the chalkboards and the erasers.”
“Yes, Sister.”
When we stood from the bleachers, I felt a compulsion too strong to ignore. It surprised me, and it surprised Sister Mary Williams. I reached out and hugged her. After a moment, I felt the warmth of her hand atop my head.