a different destiny

by Melody Clark

Notes from the author: Yes, it's Carlos/Elsie (aka Sister Bertrille). If you have a problem with that, hit the back button. Not intended to infringe on Screen
Gems, Swackhammer Productions, Sally Field or the estate of the late Alejandro Rey. Be advised: if you're a reader of my more cynical fic, you may not like this one. :)

The blessings of sunny weather all year long gave no time for the passage of seasons. It was only in the dance of seasons, in its ongoing equation of life, that humans truly marked the progress of time. It was easy to think that life was as constant as springtime— the years as endless as the breezes off San Juan. There were, of course, the little signs, in the more fixed points of life: Babies grown into children, yesterday's children now joined as young adult couples with long, dreaming gazes, and soon, the inevitable newborns to replace the babes grown into children. Around it all, like the drifted leaves that brought color to the seasons, the middle-aged mothers and fathers with their watchful gazes, and the smiling grandparents tightly holding hands, as if they knew, finally, their time together did have an end.

And the convent Sisters, for whom life changed only as they watched time pass through their people.

It all seemed so impossibly sad to one of the sisters of San Tanco. But then most things were seen through a glass darkly, to her these days.

Her friend beside her, the woman who would have been her best friend, had a man not first assumed that place, offered her a sympathetic smile.

"It's spring, Sister, be happy," Sister Jacqueline said.

The younger sister shrugged a little, made a valiant effort at forced good cheer. "Spring happens once every year," she answered.

"But not the same spring. Each one is different."

Sister Bertrille nodded. "Some more so than others," she muttered, strictly to herself.

The small woman arose from the bench, the lonely keeper of thoughts she could not share, and picked up the bushel basket of golden pears they had brought to the park for the children. She moved away from her friends, beginning the process of giving away their bounty. With the children, she extended a pear, then fondly...perhaps sadly...touched their hair in parting.

"She is seeing her children in their faces," Sister Sixto said, counting through the change from the winter preserves sale.

"Yes." Sister Jacqueline nodded. "It's more obvious than ever."

"It is as you said, though, last year, we all go through that at first."

"We all go through it a little, I said. And she's not getting past this. It's been over a year now, this depression."

Sixto nodded, again considering the subject of their discussion, who was now leaning down to talk to a small black-haired boy.

"She is not just seeing her own children," Sixto said.

"No." Jacqueline nodded. "She's seeing their children. And that's the difference." She dragged the old brown box with the last of the preserves toward her, wishing that was her only burden to bear.

"So," Sixto continued, gently. "What will you say to Reverend Mother? You know she will place great impertinence on your opinion."

"Importance, Sister. And I don't know what I'm going to say. What will you say? What will any of us? We've only been discussing this for years, we thought we had time. I had hoped Sister Bertrille would come to this herself. But suddenly her vowing ceremony is next week. Whatever we decide to say, we'd better say it, and soon."

Sister Sixto shook her head. "Either way, I feel like a big traitor."

Jacqueline pressed on, as if speaking to her own heart, as well as to her friend. "Sister, we don't even know for certain where either of them stand. We have only our supposition."

"Not me. I know. And you know, too. So should Mister Two-Timing Heartbreaker."

Jacqueline smiled in sympathy, shaking her head. "You shouldn't be so harsh on Signor Ramirez, Sister. What was he to do, wait forever? It would have seemed a hopeless cause for the most optimistic person. Besides, there also may be extenuating circumstances, of which you're not aware."

"Exteney-what?" Sixto said, hiking an eyebrow.

"Extenuating circumstances. That is..." she strained for her own middling store of Spanish. "Extenuating del circo?"

Sixto exploded in a gale of laughter. "I don't think that was what you meant, but I get the pitcher."

"Picture, Sister. And is my Spanish that bad?" she asked, already knowing.

"No worse than my English was," Sixto said, finishing her counting. "So, what are we to do? Give the situation a little oomph."

"Sister," Jacqueline said. "You're talking about meddling in matters of God and human hearts."

"Like this would be the first time?" Sixto's all- seeing eyes focused harder on her old friend's face. "Don't think I am not onto you. You are up to something."

"Such as?"

"Such as your extenuating circus." Sixto tapped her watch. "We have duties in an hour. You want to reclaim our lost little sheep or should I?"

"Why don't we let her have the afternoon to herself? Thinking might help her more than her duties would help us. I can cover for her today."

"But you have a meeting in a half hour in San Juan, Sister," Sixo said, smiling to imply her continued suspicions.

"Oh, yes," Jacqueline said, innocently. "I have. Well, perhaps I can delay it until later in the day."

"No reason, Sister Ana and I will cover for both of you," Sixto said, nodding toward the third sister in the distance. She stood up to make her own way back to San Tanco. "Good luck with our two circus folk."

Good luck indeed, Jacqueline thought, hearing the sound of one friend'ssteady march on her way, while Sister Jacqueline herself crossed the small park's greenway to where Sister Bertrille stood aimlessly. She stared off in the distance—toward San Juan, Jacqueline could not help but notice.

"Sister," Jacqueline said.

Bertrille whirled around, as if caught plucking a fresh cookie from the bakery rack. "Sister, you startled me."

Jacqueline smiled fondly. Why couldn't life's choices ever be simple ones? "I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you I have an appointment in town. San Tanco business. I wonder if you would mind holding down the fort here, passing out the rest of the produce to the children and the older people."

"Of course, but what about duties?"

"Sister Sixto will see to them. There aren't many today. Besides, we have the new novices to take care of the extra things. You deserve a day in the park."

Bertrille smiled, grateful, a little apologetic. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be such a bother."

"Don't be, you aren't one." She reached to touch her friend's arm. "We're all only human. That's why we are here in the world."

"You're going into San Juan?"

"Yes, I am. Can I get something for you while I'm there? Or perhaps give a message to Signor Ramirez? He's missed you so. He tells me you haven't been to see him in several weeks."

"Carlos knows my very, very best wishes are always with him," Sister Bertrille said, looking away, to briefly look back. "It's just so hard to get over there, what with my vowing preparations, and the work with the children. I'm sure he understands."

"But you haven't even met his fiancée. You know how important your approval is to him."

Bertrille laughed nervously, to prop up the shakiness of her words. "You know how I am. Busy me. Busy me."

Sister Jacqueline smiled in innocent agreement, shielding her eyes to see skyward. "The skies have been awfully clear lately, if you see my point."

Bertrille nodded a little. "Yeah, not a lot of time for that, either, really. My head's been in more serious things." She took a step backward, hiding her hands behind her, as she did in the early days, to disguise the fact she chewed her nails. "So, is she nice?"

"Who?"

"The new …almost… Signora Ramirez," she said tightly, no masking the effect.

"Nice? I would say so. They're actually just old chums, not a romance, really.”

“Yes, so Carlos said."

“They made an agreement that if either one wasn't married by the time they were thirty-five, that they would be wed. More a friendly arrangement, really. She sort of reminds me a little of you, actually."

"Me?" Bertrille said, laughing more loudly, more nervously. "Oh, that'll start the rumors flying again. I hope Reverend Mother hasn't noticed."

"I'm afraid she has, yes. But then Reverend Mother notices everything."

"True," Bertrille said, nodding, a tragic twist to her smile. "So, you say she looks like me. Is she... you know...a lot like me?"

"Who?" Jacqueline feigned innocence. "Reverend Mother?"

"No. You know, the future Mrs. Carlos. I mean, in the face and that kind of thing? Just so I'll know to speak with her in town…if I go there...when I go there."

"Oh, oh. I'd say, on a purely vain level of course, you're much prettier than she. You have greater strength of character, too, of course. But please don't tell Carlos I've said that."

"Oh, of course not," Bertrille said, a bit happier now. She locked her lips and threw away the key. "Not a word."

San Tanco's bell—its own little miracle—tolled the hour.

"Ah, there's my signal. Off to San Juan." Jacqueline waited only a moment more, asking gently. "Isn't there anything you'd like me to say to Carlos?"

Bertrille shrugged a little, studying her once- hidden hands. Finally, she folded them together. "Just give him all my love."

Jacqueline smiled sadly, patting her arm in as yet unspoken understanding. "I will.”

The Ramirez Enterprise had seen stronger days, and so had its valiant champion.

It had been said that no one had ever seen Carlos' face without a smile.

These days, it was rare to see it with one. He was deposited in his office chair, turned toward his window, across which his heavy drape had been drawn. He was staring, on purpose, at nothing. His door had been left open, as if for the Sister’s own arrival. Open on his desk was a bottle of old French wine, the sort Signor Ramirez kept for "special occasions". There was an abandoned, empty glass.

"Sister Jacqueline," he said to her, not seeing her. Sister Bertrille once had suggested that Carlos had eyes in the back of his head. "Forgive me, Sister, I have been drowning my hopelessness." He reached for his empty glass, regarding it with a glare. "It has been fifteen minutes since my last confession."

"I'm not here to absolve you of sin, Carlos. I'm here as your friend."

He was clearly inebriated. "Friends. I have many friends who are nuns; did you not know that? Sister Sixto, Sister Ana, you, Sister Jacqueline, and of course, sweet Sister Bertrille. I have more nun friends than I have accountants and I have many, many of them. I am a lucky man, or so I'm told." He gestured to the office. "I am a Latin American millionaire, I have prestige, I have respect. I could have the most beautiful, wonderful, intelligent women in the world. Movie stars want to meet me…they want to meet me.”

“I can imagine—“

He pressed on. “I am in a position so obvious to everyone that, even though it has never once been spoken of in plain language to anyone, I have had ten phone calls just today from friends who are concerned about me. Pedro brought me baked goods from his mother, because he was worried for my health…in my situation, he said. No one says a thing about what everyone seems to know.”

Ramirez turned around in his chair, weakly saluting Sister Jacqueline with an empty glass. "Forgive me, but if you do not see the hopelessness in that, then I behold before me Sister Candide."

Jacqueline positioned herself on the edge of the chair beside her. “Our plan is working."

"Really?" He reached for a clutch of pages folded into a letter, then slung them into mid air. "I read in letters from Jennifer of all the glad plans for her sister the sister's final vows. I have received an engraved invitation, the printing of which—lovesick idiot that I am—I paid for. In one week, Miss Elsie Ethrington will forever become a bride of Christ, the Holy Sister Bertrille of San Tanco's teaching order. Yes, this is all most hopeful to an idiot in love."

"The Ordination itself will go forward. There are other Sisters set to take their final vows. Ana, for one. It's not just Elsie. And you know very well that Jennifer is on our side."

"Yes, yes, I know. So much so that she told you what I told her to never tell anyone else because I thought I could never tell anyone else, which is why we are here. And now she keeps telling me 'Elsie will come to her senses'. But all I can do is sit and wait."

"Wait, perhaps, but not sit. Sister Bertrille was asking very suspicious questions about the—as she put it—new Signora Ramirez."

Carlos released the glass to his desk. "She probably has seen through our scheme.”

"No. In fact, if I had heard such a thing in my life before the Order, I would think she sounded positively jealous. She wanted to know what your fiancée looked like, what she was like, if she was pretty."

His mood lightened a bit. He leaned forward, for the first time, from the distant reaches of his chair. "That is interesting."

"Yes, and she was gazing wistfully at the children again. She's seeing her own children in their faces, Carlos. Your children. It's plain to all of us at the Order. Most especially our Mother Superior. And it is the Reverend Mother's opinion in this that matters most of all."

"Really? I have been surprised she has not locked me out of the convent by order of the Church until after the Ordination."

“Don’t think she hasn’t, at times, considered it." Jacqueline smiled. "But Mother Plaseato is not so parochial as she may seem. And she's very fond of

Sister Bertrille. Fond enough that she wants nothing more than what is right for Elsie Ethrington."

"I hope to the depths of my heart you are correct, Sister. But I have hoped for so long now, I am nearly bereft. And Sister Bertrille's absence from my life lately has given me little reason to go on hoping."

"That should give you greater reason still. The Sister is very fond of her friends. She tends to meddle in their lives, as you may have noticed.”

“No,” Carlos said, in fake indignance. “Our Sister Bertrille?”

“Yes, yes, it’s true, hard as it is to believe. And the very fact she has placed so much distance between the two of you during this time of a great decision in her life, assures me that what she feels for you is much more than friendship."

Carlos closed his eyes, surrendering forward to his graceful hands that wove a bridge to his longing with lengthy fingers. He placed his forehead against their tips, then finally gave a gesture of despair. "And all these years, I have strived to convince myself I wasn’t in love with her, but I am ... Reverend Mother knew. Jennifer knew. She threw it in my face, several years ago, right after I met her. All this time. And it has never wavered. And it will never die. Ever. Of that, I am certain. Even in my despair that she returns what I feel, there is nothing else I can do. If this were another man vying for her affections, I would know what to do. Talk to him man to man. Out-charm him. Win her over. All is fair in love and war, so the poets say. But it is a much different thing when the other man is the Son of God."

Jacqueline laughed, nodding. "Perhaps. But there is one thing you can do."

“Something tells me,” he said, smiling sadly, “you have a plan. Sisters of San Tanco always seem to have a plan.”

She grinned widely. “In fact, I have.”

Blueness into black, a soft day had faded into a gentle night, around the bay of old San Juan. The soft glowing dusk lent it all a kind of old-world sanctity, this

seaport city. It might have been a master’s painting — a Dutch seascape perhaps in candlelight oil. The San Tanco bell had tolled its last. The surf murmured softly, eternally, and always to itself.

Sister Jacqueline was reading a novel set in Ancient Egypt, while Sister Sixto, having settled matters with the kitchen, was relaxing near her with her own book. Sister Ana's rice paper footsteps paused between them.

"Reverend Mother would like to speak with you in her office, Sister Sixto," Ana said gently.

When Jacqueline looked up, she saw the glint of hope in the younger woman's eyes. It seemed everyone had this same very human agenda.

"How many does that make?" Sixto asked.

"Seven!"

"Seven?" Jacqueline said. "She has never spoken with more than four of us before rendering a decision. But then she has never—"

She stopped herself before saying what the other women had already filled in—that Reverend Mother Plaseato had never once rejected a full-term novice from taking her Full and Final Vows.

Sister Sixto blessed herself, and then pulled her rosary from her blue prayer sash. "Alright, I guess it's my turn. Let us hope I am given the right words to say. And that I say them the right way."

Sister Jacqueline reached for her old friend's hand to squeeze it once in support. "Speak from your heart, Sister."

Sixto nodded, and the woman who had entered the convent with her, who had taken the Vow beside her, and who was now one of her oldest friend, walked away. Her head bowed, perhaps from the weight of the decision she had now to make.

Sister Ana sighed, sinking deeply onto Sister Sixto's now empty chair. "It is so difficult," she said.

Jacqueline nodded. "Yes, it is."

"I am not certain what I should hope for."

"Hope for the greater good to prevail, Sister."

"The greater good in what?" asked the doorway's lilting voice in its own unintentionally intrusive way. The doorway was filled with Sister Bertrille, nibbling at her lower lip, as if holding back the words she had searched for. "Everybody looks like we're on a death watch."

Sister Jacqueline looked to Sister Ana, conveying a question with a deliberate glance, as she could do better than any of them. "Sister, would you excuse Sister Bertrille and me?" She looked toward the smaller woman. "Sister, would you join me in an evening stroll?"

Bertrille tugged at her habit, with the simple awkwardness of the young girl she once had been. "What's going on? Am I being taken to the woodshed?"

Jacqueline laughed. "No, not quite. Just down to the chapel to open the door for Midnight Mass. I'd like some company, if you wouldn't mind."

"Not at all."

As they passed her, Sister Ana smothered a whimper behind a hanky, then turned to shuffle quickly down San Tanco's central hall. "Is Sister Ana—"

"She's fine, Sister. A bit of distress over all this week's events." Sister Jacqueline held open the old wood door. "After you, Sister."

The darkness touched the tide as an unlikely perfect comrade, completing the illusion of an endless evening sky. Elsie had been little more than an emotional teenager when she had come to San Juan. She thought she had been "found" by this gentle little bay, but life was so simple in youth. Tonight, the vision of this place, this harbor, had taken on one person’s face.

The pearl necklace along the harbor...Casino Ramirez...

Elsie felt the bay’s cross winds move her slightly, to and fro. With her heels dug firmly into the small hill’s loamy soil, she stayed in place. The cold winds stung her eyes, but that was not what moved her to tears. She wished time could go on as it was. That change was not the lot of all humans. She wished she were young enough again to have some time to think. Or not to think.

Sister Jacqueline had opened and closed the door, which had been only her excuse for taking this walk, Sister Bertrille knew well.

Sister Bertrille waited for her to approach, still staring off this palisade, to the circle of sea and sky.

"I would love to take a walk to the old chapel," Sister Jacqueline said. "Would you join me?"

She laughed nervously, shrugging. "Of course."

They walked down the trodden path, which came around the cliff and up to the level of the small, vaulted chapel rarely used these days. Above it, in the bell house, Sister Bertrille could see the miraculous bell that had been Carlos' first gift to the Church...his first gift to...

"My mother was Irish, have I ever told you that?" Sister Jacqueline said breezily. "I mean, born there, not merely of there. She came here as a teacher, to only stay a month or so. But she met my father, and destiny clearly had other plans."

Sister Bertrille fought to take an interest in her words. "I didn't know that. Funny how that happens. I guess we're all carried on the wings of fate, so to speak."

"Well said, however spoken," Sister Jacqueline replied. "I was born, and I was named for my mother's mother, Agnes. And now Agnes would like to speak openly with her friend Elsie, if Sister Bertrille wouldn't mind."

The younger woman nodded, as if her worst fears and best hopes at once had been realized.

“Please,” Elsie whispered. “I can’t… I can’t talk about—“

“You must." Sister Jacqueline smiled patiently, as if with the smile of all mothers. "Everything said here, stays between us. Whatever that is. You know Reverend Mother will be calling me in shortly to ask my opinion on your final vows. What I will say depends upon what you will tell me now."

Sister Bertrille exhaled slowly. "I wish you wouldn't. If nothing is ever said, I might be able to pretend none of this is real."

"But you won't. And you can't. You can’t go on as things are now. The time for your choice is soon.”

“I remember. Believe me." She pinched at the bridge of her nose, as if trying to suppress a thought, or something more within her eyes. “I remember every second of every day."

“I’ll tell you now what I intend to say. What I will say is that my decision is your decision, if nothing you say to me now persuades me otherwise.”

Sister Bertrille nodded, as if understanding the rules to the test, and preparing to answer the first question. “Okay,” she said. “Ready, set, go…”

“I am speaking now as Agnes, to my friend Elsie. Two women, not two sisters. I believe you know the question I have to ask…”

Bertrille spoke carefully and certainly, as if assuring her own heart more than the concern of her friend. “Carlos is my friend. My best friend." Her

voice broke again, run aground on her answers. “Anything more was just a young girl’s crush… just as a test of my faith—“

“I don’t think so—“

“Of course it is,” she said, her voice tightened to a broken whisper, throttled by tears. “Father Pastor told me he thought it might be. You thought it was, you said so!”

“I thought so at first. I haven’t in years. I had hoped you would come to that yourself in time.”

“But it has to be. It can’t be—“

“If it isn’t real…if you’re not in love with Carlos… why is it you know my question before I’ve asked it? And how is it you speak of what you feel in the present tense?”

The younger sister stared down into her hands, moving her mobdrape around her face, as if to give her some edge of privacy. Her words were grim, certain, mathematical. “My answer is it doesn’t matter. Carlos has gone on and so must I.”

The older woman breathed deeply for strength and guidance. She asked softly, “What if he hasn’t?”

“Don’t say such things,” Bertrille said, as if the idea frightened her more than it made her mad, “of course he has…”

“What if he hasn’t? What if the knowledge of your feelings for him would give him a similar conflict to the one you’re feeling now? Would that make the difference in your decision on Tuesday? If you knew you could have a future with Carlos, would you still go on and take your Final Vows?”

Six years of uncertainty, five years of turmoil, four years of yearning, three years of knowing, and two years… two years….of an embattled numbness, twisted around in her until Sister Bertrille until she could no longer stand.

She felt herself sinking: Jacqueline caught her from behind.

“Oh, my God,” Elsie said, a tiny broken sound, not even real words. She covered her face in small, knotted fists, gripped in realization. “Oh, my God. I can’t make this decision…not this one… What am I going to do?”

Sister Jacqueline drew the wrists around to hold the younger woman against her shoulder, feeling the sobs thundering through the girl before the older woman heard them whispered against her arm. Jacqueline said, “I don’t know. Only you do.”

Elsie smeared the cold tears off her face. She accepted a handkerchief from Jacqueline, pinching it at her small, red nose. “If I don’t go forward, I fail everyone.”

“If you do, you fail yourself. And Carlos.”

Elsie nodded, her face pale but seemingly delivered of a burden with which only Atlas could empathize.

Sister Ana had come around the trail, following their voices. She waited at the edge of the footpath where the two women stood.

Ana’s face was lit up in a resolute smile. “Reverend Mother would like to speak with you now.”

Jacqueline reached across, to pat her younger friend’s tear-damp face. “Here’s my entrance.”

“No,” Ana said, shaking her head. Her resolution weakened a little into sympathetic fear. “Reverend Mother wishes to speak to both of you. Together.”

Sister Ana had pledged with Sister Bertrille. They both were slated in the week before them to promise themselves for the next series of years to the Church. Ana had never spoken of the destined day to her friend, but had twice mentioned that it would be all right if Sister Bertrille made another choice.

Bertrille wondered how obvious what she felt was… how obvious it had ever been.

Bertrille faked a small, twisted smile. “She wants to speak to me. Now if only knew what to say to her...”

Mother Superior counted her own blessings, fingers slipping over the beads, as unconsciously now as she buttoned a sweater or opened a door. She had laid aside her glasses, to rub at tired eyes, considering for a moment the night-flowering tropical jasmine outside her office window. The small greenery planter inside the sill.

The Internist record lay open before her. Novitiate Register, Bishopric Counsel: S. Bertrille (ST, PR, US). It was a deep folder, meticulous and detailed, the earlier disciplinary data being the most copious. The more recent records were few but spare in detail, as if a certain youthful spirit had been altogether depleted of its subject. Was a time, she had prided herself on her role in this Sister's "maturing". At a later time, she chided herself for having dowsed the young novice's spark of life. More recently, the Reverend Mother had come to know another truth behind the procession of life events this cumulative file before her represented.

Reverend Mother Plaseato plucked at her own wild leaves, as she pruned the window planter. She picked up the watering can to give it sustenance. Brown patches on one leaf, yellow another. Wasn't that always her way?

Your path is not the only one. It is, often, not the best one.

Those cautionary words from Il Manuale per la Madre di Prete had, at one time, seemed a simple statement of the obvious. Now she realized what a difficult personal commandment that was: to set one's own life goals and opinions aside, for the good of the Betrothed Novice or the Order Adherent before her.

There was the personal attachment to the Sister... there was the vision of what she could be in the Order ... and there was, always, the knowledge that a third and unseen destiny for Sister Bertrille might be even more important.

Reverend Mother longed not for the first time, that there was a third choice, a different destiny. But these decisions did not fall to her.

Was the call of human hearts equal to that of a mission in the Order? Surely, it must be. God's own creation testified to that, in the greater pageant of life. Spring bore testament to the miraculous union of souls, the ongoing wisdom in the earth.

If Sister Bertrille's heart had traveled elsewhere...if she now loved someone who loved her in return...how could the Sister's sense of loyalty to the Order be commended before her internal call to the greater wisdom of her own heart? It would be the sin of pride itself to think a calling to love and marriage and family any less a calling than one to the Church.

There are three things that last: Faith, Hope and Love. And the greatest of these is Love. And to that last word, there had been no footnote to make exceptions.

Behind her, shadows passed easily through her door. She had learned to easily tell one Sister’s approach from the others through the years. Sister Bertrille’s eager, certain footsteps were once the easiest of all to discern. These days, her pace had slowed with great deliberation.

Her small face surfaced from the shadows. It was writ in so many doubts, so much fear.

“Come in, child. You look positively exhausted. Are you ill?”

Sister Bertrille shrugged a shoulder. “Fine, just fine. Just heavy with my thoughts, Reverend Mother."

"Mother, you wished to speak with us?" Jacqueline said, drawing the focus away from her friend for a moment.

The Reverend Mother smiled. "Yes. Please. Sit, both of you. We have much to discuss.”

Mother relinquished her watering of flowers, moving to her electric teakettle making a stealthy hiss with escaping steam. “May I offer either of you tea?”

Sister Bertrille merely shook her head, staring fully into her hands. Sister Jacqueline smiled her response, shaking her head also.

“If you’ll forgive me then, I find this one of the few pleasures of my old life of which I still take advantage." She poured, and returned to her chair. “Sadly, it is the only thing English I still maintain, except of course for my hint of an accent, and the testament of my unwieldy English Christian name hidden safely behind my Sacred Designation.”

“Unwieldy English surnames,” Sister Bertrille laughed nervously. “Gosh, I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

Mother Plaseato smiled. “Yes, yes, very true. So I speak with you as I might speak to one of my own nieces.”

Bertrille nibbled at her lip. “I’m Sister Jacqueline’s friend and now your niece. I’m rich with friends and family today."

Mother nodded. “Despite my earlier concerns about your more eccentric traits, you have shown yourself to be a dear soul. You know you have and will always have my deepest concern for your well-being and happiness.”

“Yes, Mother,” Bertrille said, wondering if the hitch in her voice had been obvious and wondering yet again what it was her own heart wanted to hear…what she wanted to say…

The Reverend Mother folded her arms within her blue vestment, as she did when mired in the thickest of thought.

“There is the matter, of course, of the final ordination of our oldest cloister of novices, you among them. Before this afternoon, I had with the Bishopric Officiate, made decisions on all but one. You are that one."

“Yes, Mother,” Sister Bertrille whispered, just over the edge of sound.

Mother Plaseato pressed on, “You are a wonderful teacher, Sister. You do not need the Church for that life’s calling. The Church will be the better for having you in it, but I can’t say that I’m certain your interests are best served by staying in the Church.”

“I wish I knew what to say to that. I wish I knew what to say to anything these days.”

“It would appear. I have received from the Bishopric Officiate your request from three months ago for transfer after your final vows to the Holy City. With all your friends here in San Juan, that told me much that I needed to know to make my decision.”

Hearing news she hadn’t known, Sister Jacqueline turned quickly to consider her friend—the awkwardness of her youth returned in full flower. Bertrille was looking away, holding her face in her hand.

“Sister,” Jacqueline said softly, sadly.

“I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to disappoint anyone. But I couldn’t stay here … ” She shook her head again, nibbling nervously at her lip. “What was I

supposed to do? I was terrified. I’m still terrified. This is the life I know. It’s the one I feel comfortable with.”

“Comfort and dependency are not reasons for a lifetime’s commitment, child. A fallback position is not an order in our Church. If I allow you to go forward, you must not be running from your life’s calling, but going toward it. Which brings me to the matter of Signor Ramirez…”

Sister Bertrille was pleased she was seated for the words. She was seated and leaned over, an altar made of her own arms. “And here I’d always prided myself on my poker face.”

“Indeed,” the Reverend Mother smiled. “But then I’ve always been convinced of the matter, of which I have made no secret.”

Jacqueline smiled with a healthy twist of guilt in the light of the Reverend Mother’s obvious admonishment. “So much for having to tell the Reverend Mother anything,” she said.

Mother Plaseato shook her head fondly. “I have presided over the ordination of a generation of young women, my friends. I have not risen to my place without a deeper knowledge of even the most unchurchly of human emotions. As such, we must have you speak with Signor Ramirez. We have served all these years as the impromptu San Juan airport, to say nothing of our thankfully brief flirtation as a gambling establishment. I imagine we can safely add dating service to our précis.”

Jacqueline smiled. “Even our Lord found cause to act in unusual ways.”

“This is true,” Mother said, nodding. “And at that, Our Lord had never even met Sister Bertrille.”

The once and future Elsie stood up from her chair, advancing for want of anywhere else to go toward the window, as if to position herself on a lectern to sway the jury. “I can’t say this to him, Reverend Mother. It’s just not in me. I’ve forgotten how those things are done, for heaven’s sake.

Mother shook her head thoughtfully, pressing the bridge of her nose where her glasses settled. “Granted, it has been an even longer time for me, but if my fossilized memory doesn’t fail me, it does seem these matters require little but the most honest expressions of human emotion.”

Sister Bertrille looked last toward the window. “How could something so hard sound so easy?”

“It is only difficult if made so. In fact, I have tried to make it simpler for you. Sister Ana had two missions when you met her. One was to send you both here. And the other was to summon Signor Ramirez. He is to be waiting for you, my dear, at the old chapel.”

Bertrille looked back to them, as if throwing herself on the mercy of the court. She shook her head. “But I can’t do this.”

“You can and you will." The Reverend Mother Plaseato walked around her desk. She removed Elsie’s stole, and opened her hand for the cross and betrothal. “They will be here for you, my dear, should you want them. I don’t anticipate, however, that you will.”

“Yes, Mother." She still clearly had no idea what to do.

With numb and half-knowing fingers, Elsie removed the tiny cross and beads from around her neck, slipping them silently into the Reverend Mother’s open hands.

“God bless you, child,” the Reverend Mother whispered, kissing the now ex-novice’s forehead. She lifted the girl’s chin, smiling into her clouded eyes. “What’s the saying these days? It isn’t rocket science.”

Bertrille pushed awkwardly back at her bangs…an experience she hadn’t had in many years. She smiled, shrugged. “You could’ve fooled me.”

Fitting he would be waiting here.

Sister Bertrille determined that it had been no accident that Carlos had been summoned to wait for her here. For this was the old convent chapel below the bell tower of San Tanco. The bell that Carlos himself had rescued from the bottom of the San Juan bay.

Sister Ana was by the entry. She smiled quickly and informed her someone was waiting for her in the chapterhouse.

The small room smelled of linseed oil, and the faint scent of mold from too many years by the sea. Old dust on older books in cluttered corners…and just the one place to stand. Barely room enough for four people to sit in one place. Was a time, this had been all the chapterhouse San Tanco had needed.

He was seated on a wayward pew turned to look the other away…thank heavens. His posture appeared a little dejected. Elsie wanted to comfort him, but knew that would only make the further mission that more impossible.

Before he could turn, she seated herself on the chair pulled up against the pew. Facing away from each other, this just might be somewhat not impossible, she thought. Maybe.

“Know what’s up there? Bet you can guess. You dove all day to find it.”

“I know,” he said, laughing a little sadly. “I remember it all quite clearly.”

“Binky? Was that her name? Your girlfriend at the time? I always thought that was a funny name for a person. Binky.”

“Yes. Binky. She married her old boyfriend a long time ago. She is Mrs. Florence Camallio of Houston, Texas now. She owns a horse ranch.”

“Does she? That’s nice. For her, I mean." Elsie looked up, as if seeking the next thing to say, “the bell was only the first thing you did. You’ve done so much for us over the years, for San Tanco. You’ve been more than kind. You rebuilt that old jalopy a hundred times. And the wing of the church when it burned… when I burned it…accidentally…down. To say nothing

of footing the bill for a lot of my other silly schemes through the years.”

“I did nothing for San Tanco,” he said.

“Nonsense!” Elsie said, beyond the point of mere nervousness now. “You’ve been our greatest benefactor.”

“You misunderstand me,” Carlos said, his head having turned, because his words could now be heard very clearly. “I am San Tanco’s number one benefactor, I must humbly admit, but what I did was never for the church.”

Even at that point, Elsie concluded the topic was turning to other things. She forced herself to stand, still looking away toward any vista beyond the one behind her.

“Come now, Carlos, you’ve always spoken of your affection for the Sisters.”

“Of course,” he said. “I admire so much what they do for San Juan’s orphans, as I was once one of them. I many times moved heaven and earth to provide whatever San Tanco needed, but the Sisters were never the reason I did this. But I would be happy to tell you the reason I did.”

She swallowed thickly. “And that is?”

He laughed gently. “I did it just to see you smile.”

If she had remained silent another moment, she would have surrendered to the enemy. Tears were her greatest enemy at this moment. She fought for thought. She folded her arms tightly. She battled internally for any possible word.

“You’re so sweet to say that,” she said, hearing the sound of swarming tears crowding her voice. “But I think you slight yourself considerably—“

“No,” he said quickly, definitely. “I know myself. Quite well. Just as I know you.”

The hour was at hand. She cleared her voice as best she could.

“What Sister Jacqueline and Reverend Mother are saying…isn’t it the silliest thing you’ve ever heard? You’re a playboy, for heaven sakes. I mean gorgeous women follow you around. Dozens of them in the first two years I was here.”

“But not a single one since. There are no multitudes any more. There is only one now.”

Elsie felt fear rising, along with a thousand other unqualified emotions, and one deeply evident one. “It’s just our friendship,” she said. “And some forbidden fruit thing, on your side. I mean, you’re a man, it’s allowed. For me, it’s just a crush…”

“No, on all counts. In the beginning, I thought it might be. But now…no…not now, Elsie. I must call you that, I fear, since to call you Sister with what I feel would be profane."

“Carlos—“

“No,” he said, walking around to stand beside her. “I will speak. Finally.”

She turned away again. “Do we really have to—“

“Yes. I must speak. You took a hollow, useless man and restored him to sanity. You did. Not the church…not the convent…not the Sisters of San Tanco…

What healed me at last was my love for you—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, feeling her edge on dignity moving away again. Her eyes were brimming, burning. “You exaggerate my worth considerably.”

“No. You misjudge yourself. I don’t. You brought me to my senses. I have always felt it. If you had some kind of…Calling… I believe in my soul it was only as a means to bring you to San Juan. To bring you to me, and not to San Tanco.”

“Carlos, for heaven’s sake, what are we doing here? This is ridiculous.”

“Then tell me, if everything I say isn’t true, why are you so conflicted? Why do all our friends know it to be true? Do you know how many? Have you asked them?”

A tear trickled down—one she couldn’t hold back. “I didn’t need to ask them. They made that abundantly clear.”

“Then you look at me. Elsie. Turn to me and tell me you feel nothing for me but friendship. Tell me you would rather join the church now, knowing what I feel, and I will move heaven and earth for you to do so. Say that and I will walk away, for all I want in the world is you to be happy.”

Elsie folded her arms around her, to brook the chill of confession… her own personal turning point. She tried to catch another tear with the back of her hand.

She glanced over at him shyly. She stifled behind her hand a tiny, crippled sob. “I’m a tiny midwestern doctor’s kid. I’d bore you silly.”

He shook his head with confidence. “Boring is not a word I could ever associate with you.”

“I have tons of bad habits. I bite my nails. Oh, and I’m nosy. I have a bossy disposition. I get into all kinds of trouble—“

Carlos flashed a look of mock astonishment, pressing his hand over his heart in a gesture of surprise. “Is that so? I would hardly be in a position to know such a thing, having borne the major brunt of seven years of your constant and exasperating meddling and demands.”

Her smile curdled a little. “Okay, Carlos, I get your point. No need to hammer it home.”

He smiled. For the first time in days. His gaze went to her uncovered head. “Why are you not—“

She felt of her hair. “Oh, that. Reverend Mother took my feathers temporarily. So that we could… talk…” She paused another moment, the topic having been brought to the fore. “You know, we might just kill each other.”

“No. If I have not been compelled to kill you before, I am very unlikely to harm you now.”

She smirked. “Yeah, I guess I haven’t exactly been a picnic.”

“No, you have been a party,” he said, smiling. “From the very beginning. Sometimes noisy, but a party nonetheless.”

He reached across, touching the soft, short curls that skirted her forehead, and then fell away.

She reached around, removing the gold crucifix embossed with the emblem of the Order. It was the last symbol of the old life.

Elsie knew well the line: the line the Bishopric had drawn: the line from which, the regent had determined, their friendship must be conducted. There could be no crossing this line, they were told, to greet each other or comfort each other or express their appreciation. Not even in passing. Not even in public.

“Good grief,” Sister Bertrille had said to Mother Plaseato at the time, “it’s like we’re Lucy and Ricky or something.”

“That,” the Reverend Mother had intoned, staring over her glasses, “is our very point.”

Elsie smiled up softly into his very deep eyes that watched her, in turns uncertain, but then joyful… relieved. She reached up to touch his gold brown face, which her hand had brushed so many times in an occasionally indulged dream. It was as soft as she’d imagined. She traced her thumb across his lips as they bent into a smile, and then lifted up to brush her mouth to his.

It might have been an avalanche, if the end effect was soft and uplifting. It was something held back years, having grown strength from its suppres sion. From its inhibition. If she hadn’t known what it was before that moment…and she had…the moment they touched, she knew it completely. His strong arms holding her…his soft lips touching hers…it would have shattered her resolve right

there, had she any left to give.

Pulling back, she saw her tears had spilled across his face, mingling with his own.

She touched his hair, loving the streaming darkness sifting through her fingers.

“There’s one big mystery solved,” she whispered, clearing tears away.

“A million more before us,” he said.

“At least.”

A soft clearing of throat announced the presence of two who had entered during the kiss. Elsie turned toward them, blushing deeply as she saw them.

But the Reverend Mother smiled her understanding. She opened her hand for what Elsie still had to relinquish.

The younger woman lowered the Order’s crucifix, without hesitation, into the other woman’s hand. “Thank you. For everything. And I’m sorry. For everything."

The Reverend Mother removed her eyeglasses, balancing them inside her hands. Her eyes were shining back at her friend. “We shall miss you terribly, my dear.”

Carlos’ arms encircled Elsie from behind, sheltering her against him.

“We both must thank you,” Carlos added.

“No thanks are necessary. I would imagine that while one Vowing ceremony is now not to include a Sister Bertrille, we will be hosting another ceremony of vows for Elsie and Carlos, hmm?”

“As soon as possible,” he said. “Just to be certain she will not change her mind. With Elsie, I take no chances.”

“As if you’d be that lucky,” Elsie replied.

Mother Plaseato smiled, with a good-humored gesture of warning. “Hurt her and you will have many very angry women on your hands.”

“I would never hurt her,” he said.

“I know this. Or we would not be having this conversation, hm? Besides," she added, grinning, "I would imagine Elsie’s temper alone would be retribution enough for whatever transgression you might manage.”