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can see snow-covered mountains above the dark trees, she says something diff erent: she picked me because she knows I have a green thumb. She doesn’t explain what a green thumb is or how she knows I have one, but I think I already know. Having a green thumb means you can feel the whisper of green things, deep down inside you, like a special kind of prayer.
Tiny fl ecks of snow are falling from the sky. Th ey fl icker
against the trees like little chips of light, and you can tell it’s going to snow hard some day soon. But right now it’s more like play, like the snow and the sky are teasing each other.
Part of me wishes we could stay out here forever, but the other part knows this won’t happen, of course, and that part isn’t even surprised when Sister Mary Kate bursts into the garden, squawking like a giant bird and swirling the falling snow into nervous fl urries.
“Sister! Sister! Th
ey’ve found a moose. Dead. On the highway.”
Sister Sarah brushes every last bit of dirt from the potato she’s just picked, moving very slowly, like she never even heard Sister Mary Kate.
“I imagine these things happen,” she says at last.
For some reason this makes me smile. I am not quite sure why Sister saying it’s normal for a moose to die on the highway should make me smile, but it does. I dig deeper into the cold ground, following the spidery roots, looking for another potato, trying to pretend I’m not really listening. But I can’t help thinking about that moose on the highway, the highway that threads up the sides of the mountain and disappears into 80
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R O S E H I P S A N D C H A M O M I L E / D o n n a the clouds. I am wishing as hard as I can that I could run right up into those cloud-wrapped mountains, where I’ve never been before.
Salvaging meat sounds like a frightening thing, the way Sister explains it. She looks at me helplessly, like she wants me to dig something out of the ground that will excuse her from salvaging, but all I can think of is how badly I want to go up onto that highway and see that moose.
“Well, surely it’s an act of Providence,” Sister Sarah says calmly. “We need the meat now.”
Sister Mary Kate tilts her head sideways, thinking. “Why, yes,” she says slowly. “It is an act of Providence, isn’t it?” Sister Sarah lays a potato in her basket and then carefully reaches down to run her fi ngers over the tops of the tiny yellow fl owers that grow on the edges of the potato garden.
“Chamomile,” she says. “Makes a tea that calms the spirit.
Did you know that, Donna?”
I shake my head.
“It’s a useful thing to remember,” she says, and I nod.
Sister Mary Kate remains standing above us, one hand worrying the other, waiting for Sister Sarah to say something else, but Sister is too busy to notice. She’s laying stems of chamomile into her basket in neat rows of tiny, fl uff y yellow heads.
“Oh, Sister!” Mary Kate cries suddenly, “I’ve never in my life butchered an animal! I mean I wouldn’t even hurt a fl y, I just hate to see them suff er, don’t you know? But Father 81
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Mullen has put me in charge of this poor beast and . . . oh, dear! What am I going to do?”
Sister Sarah stands up slowly, clutching her basket of potatoes and fl owers.
“Preparing meat is no diff erent than gardening. Th is is
how we sustain ourselves,” she says. “It’s all part of God’s plan, Sister. If you work in that spirit, it becomes simple.” Sister Mary Kate puts her hand to her heart, looks sky-ward, and sighs with relief.
“Oh, thank goodness!” she says, reaching out to help Sister Sarah with her basket. “I knew you would know what to do. Will you come show us then?”
Sister Sarah smiles a very small smile. “Show you? What in the world would I show you? I haven’t the faintest idea how to butcher a moose.”
Sister Mary Kate’s face crumples, and at the exact same moment I hear a strange scraping sound. For