ones. Most of the nuns taught at nearby St. Stephen's School, and the others worked at Mercy Hospital, as nurses. And their conversation during dinner ranged from politics to medical issues, to anecdotes from the classes they taught in school, and funny little household hints that touched on everything from the garden to the kitchen. They told jokes and teased each other, used nicknames, and by the end of the meal, it seemed as though every nun in the convent had stopped arid said a kind word to Gabriella, even the old scary one who had opened the door to them and terrified her only that morning. Her name was Sister Mary Margaret, and Gabriella learned quickly that everyone in the convent loved her. She had been a missionary in Africa when she was young, and had been at St. Matthew's for more than forty years. She had a broad, toothless smile, and Mother Gregoria chided her gently, as she always did, for forgetting to put her teeth in. “She hates wearing them,” one of the younger nuns explained to Gabriella with a girlish giggle.
Gabriella was more than a little overwhelmed by all of them, it was like having been dropped in the middle of a family of two hundred loving women. And for the moment, at least, there didn't seem to be a sour one among them. She had never before met or seen so many happy people. And after ten years of walking through a minefield with her mother, trying to avoid her constant bad temper and devastating rage, it was like falling into a cloud of gentle cotton. So many of them stopped to introduce themselves and talk to her, and she tried valiantly to remember their names, but it was impossible… Sister Timothy… Sister Elizabeth of the Immaculate Conception… Sister Ave Regina… Sister Andrew, or “Andy,” as they called her… Sister Joseph… Sister John… and the one whose name she remembered instantly was Sister Elizabeth… Sister Lizzie… She was a beautiful young woman with creamy fair skin and huge green eyes that laughed from the first moment she met Gabriella.
“You're a little young to be a nun, Gabbie, don't you think? But God can use help from all quarters.” No one had ever before called her “Gabbie,” and the laughing eyes that played with her were the gentlest and the happiest she had ever seen. She wanted to stand next to her and talk to her forever. She was only a postulant, and was soon to become a novice. She said she had had the calling since she was fourteen and had seen a vision of the Blessed Virgin when she had the measles. “That probably sounds a little crazy to you, but it happens that way sometimes.” She was twenty-one by then, and she was a nursing assistant in the pediatric ward at Mercy, and she was immediately drawn to the child with the huge blue eyes so filled with sorrow. It was easy to see that there was a long story there, one she might never be able to share with them, but one that had cost her dearly.
But the encounter that had meant the most to her was her meeting with Mother Gregoria that morning when her own mother left her. She didn't have the words to explain what had happened to her, but she knew that she had found the mother she had never had before, and she was just beginning to understand why the others wanted to be here. And the Mother Superior watched her carefully as she interacted with the other nuns. She was a shy child, and in some ways seemed very frail, yet in other ways there was a quiet strength about her, and a depth to her soul that belied her age, and the cautious way she had of dealing with people. It was easy for the Mother Superior to see that in some vastly important way, Gabriella had been deeply wounded. And having seen her mother speaking to her, Mother Gregoria suspected the source of the grief she wore like a veil between her and the others. This was a child who had survived the torments of hell, and for some reason perhaps known only to God, had managed to reach beyond it. And the Mother Superior was intrigued to see if the soul she sensed within was one that was destined for a life of reaching out to others. There were others in the community