and she left Father Joe with Sister Emanuel as she hurried off to the kitchen. There were a mountain of pots waiting to be scrubbed, a stack of platters, the pans the hams and turkeys had been cooked in, and the floor was a complete disaster. But for once, Sister Anne was so busy when Gabriella walked in, that she didn't even see her. Gabbie put an apron on, rolled up her sleeves, and dug into the stack of greasy pans with a handful of steel wool and a bottle of liquid soap. And it was hours before they had finished. By then the older nuns were sitting quietly in the main hall talking about what a good job the novices and postulants had done with lunch, the families had all gone home, and Father Joe was back at St. Stephen's, in his room, looking strangely serious, and staring out the window.
Chapter 10
FOR THE NEXT two months, Gabriella was busy with the other postulants, doing her chores, attending Mass, studying all that she needed to know, and working happily in her garden. She'd been working on a new story for a while, and it was so long that when Mother Gregoria read part of it, she said it was rapidly becoming a novel. But she was proud of her, she had done well, and even Sister Anne had stopped complaining about her for the time being.
It was already hot in New York and well into June when some of the older nuns left for their retreat at their sister convent in the Catskills. The younger nuns stayed in town, to continue working at Mercy Hospital and teaching summer school, but the postulants and novices rarely left the convent, and summer was no exception. Mother Gregoria also stayed to supervise all of them, and diligently run her convent. It had been years since she'd taken a vacation. She felt that was a privilege best reserved for the elders.
A group of missionary Sisters came to town, to stay with them, and the stories they told of Africa and South America were fascinating, and made Gabriella wonder if one day she might want to be one of them. But she said nothing to Mother Gregoria, for fear it would upset her. Instead, she listened intently to the tales they had to tell, and after they left, wrote wonderful short stories about them. And when Sister Emanuel read them, she insisted that they really ought to be published. But Gabriella only wrote them for the pleasure of it. Writing always released something in her. It never felt as though she were doing the writing herself, but rather as though there was a spirit that moved through her. She had no sense of her own importance as she wrote them, but felt instead as though she didn't exist at all, as though she were a windowpane that another spirit looked through. It was difficult to describe, and the only person she said that to was Father Joe, when he found her scribbling away one day, eating an apple and sitting at the back of the convent garden. He asked if he could look at what she'd done, and when he did, he was deeply moved. It was a story about a child who had died, and returned to earth to seek injustices and bring peace to others.
“You really ought to publish that,” he said, looking impressed as he handed it back to her. He had a deep tan, and said he had been playing tennis with friends on Long Island. Listening to him say it reminded her instantly of her parents. She hadn't heard anyone talk about playing tennis since her childhood, although she was sure that some of the people she knew had played while she was in college. But she had never talked to any of them, she just went silently back and forth to St. Matthew's. “I'm serious,” he said, going back to the subject of her writing. “You have real talent.”
“No, I don't, I just enjoy doing it.” And then she told him the feeling she had, about the spirit that seemed to just pass through her. “When I'm conscious of it, of what I'm doing, I can't write anything. But when I just let go, and forget myself, then it just seems to come through me.”
“Sounds pretty spooky,” he teased with a grin, but he understood what she was saying and was impressed by it. “Whatever's doing it, you ought