an envelope with the money she had promised her, most of it from the small bank account she kept, with small gifts sent to her by her own brothers and sisters. And with it, she handed Gabriella the slim journal she had kept for Joe. They had found it under her pillow, but the young nun who had found it suspected what it was and hadn't read it. Gabriella recognized it instantly and her hand shook as she took it from her.
The two women stood looking at each other for a long moment, and Gabriella's sobs filled the air as she reached out to her, and Mother Gregoria took her in her arms, just as she had when her mother left her.
“I will always love you,” she said to the child she had been, and the woman she would become when she reached the other side of the mountains life had put before her. Mother Gregoria had no doubt that she would arrive safely on the other side, but she knew that she had a long journey ahead of her, and the road would be far from easy.
“I love you so much… I can't leave you…” Gabriella sounded like a child again as she clung to her, feeling the stiff wool of the habit against her cheek, knowing her own was about to be taken from her.
“You will always have me with you. I will be praying for you.” And then, without another word, she walked Gabriella to the door and opened it, and signaled to the nun waiting outside to take her to the robing room where she would change her habit and be given two ugly, ill-fitting dresses left there by someone else, and a battered suitcase. The rest of what she needed, whatever it was, she would have to purchase with the money they gave her.
Gabriella stepped out into the corridor on trembling legs, and turned to look at Mother Gregoria for one last time, as tears ran down her cheeks in rivers. “I love you,” she said softly.
“Go with God,” Mother Gregoria said, and then turned slowly around and walked back into her office without looking back, and closed the door gently behind her. Gabriella stood staring at it in disbelief. It was like watching the door of someone's heart close, except that on the other side, the old nun had buried her face in her hands and was silently sobbing. But Gabriella would never know that.
She followed the nun to the robing room silently, both of them still bound by the silence Mother Gregoria had imposed on them. And the young nun pointed to the two dresses that had been left for Gabriella, one an ugly navy blue floral print polyester that was two sizes too large for her, particularly after last week, and an even uglier shiny black one that had stains down the front that hadn't come out no matter how often the Sisters washed it. But it fit Gabriella better than the first one, and the somber color suited her circumstances. She was in deep mourning for Joe, and she exchanged one black dress for the other, and slowly took off her coif, remembering the many times she had done it for him, and left it in the car when they went for walks in the park, or to the borrowed apartment. This was the price she had to pay now. She had lost the coif, and all it represented to her, forever, and all the people who went with it.
She stood in front of the nun who had been assigned to assist her with her departure, and their eyes met and held, and without a sound they embraced as tears ran down their cheeks in silence. It was a sad day for both of them, and the one remaining knew she would never be able to tell anyone what she'd seen, or the sorrow she had seen so clearly on Gabriella's face as she left them. It was a lesson to all of them. She was being cast into the world, alone, with nothing, and no one to help her.
Gabriella put the money, the journal, and the blue flowered dress carefully into the cardboard suitcase, and then left the robing room behind the woman who for twelve years had been her sister and would soon be swept away by the tides that had overtaken Gabriella.
They reached the front door in the main hall all too quickly. She stood there for a