in the outside world; Iggy and the sisters had taught him a trade. He could farm, make repairs, and build anything from wood with his hands. Life beyond the convent would be difficult, but Ciro had the skills to build a life.
Don Raphael Gregorio pushed the sacristy door open. He placed the tins from the poor box on the table. Don Gregorio was thirty years old, a newly minted priest. He wore a long black cassock, affixed with a hundred small ebony buttons from collar to hem. Ciro wondered if the priest appreciated how many times Sister Ercolina went over the button loops with the pressing iron to have them lie flat.
“Do you have the plantings ready for the garden?” Don Gregorio wanted to know. The priest’s bright white Roman collar offset his thick black hair. His aristocratic face, strong chin, small, straight nose, and heavy-lidded brown eyes gave him the sleepy look of a Romeo instead of the earnest gaze of a wise man of God.
“Yes, Father.” Ciro bowed his head in deference to the priest, as the nuns had taught him.
“I want the walkway planted with daffodils.”
“I got your note, Padre.” Ciro smiled. “I will take care of everything.” Ciro lifted the dowel off the table. “May I go, Don Gregorio?”
“You may,” the priest answered.
Ciro pushed the door open.
“I’d like to see you at mass sometime,” Don Gregorio said.
“Padre, you know how it is. If I don’t milk the cow, there’s no cream. And if I don’t gather the eggs, the sisters can’t make the bread. And if they can’t make the bread, we don’t eat.”
Don Gregorio smiled. “You could do your chores and still find time to attend mass.”
“I guess that’s true, Father.”
“So I’ll see you at mass?”
“I spend a lot of time in church sweeping up, washing windows. I figure if God is looking for me, He knows where to find me.”
“My job is to teach you to seek Him, not the other way around.”
“I understand. You have your job, and I have mine.”
Ciro bowed his head respectfully. He hoisted the empty wooden dowel to his shoulder like a rifle, took the bundle of linens to be washed and pressed, and went. Don Gregorio heard Ciro whistle as he went down the path that would soon be planted with yellow flowers, just as he had ordered.
Ciro pushed open the door to the room he and Eduardo shared in the garden workhouse. At first the boys had lived in the main convent, in a cell on the main floor. The room was small and noisy; the constant shuffle of the nuns in transit from the convent to the chapel kept the boys awake, while the gusts of winter from the entrance door opening and closing made the room drafty. They were happy when the nuns decided to give them a permanent space away from the main convent.
The sisters had moved the boys out to the garden workhouse in a large room with good light, knowing that growing boys needed privacy and a quiet place to study. Sister Teresa and Sister Anna Isabelle had done their best to make the room cozy. They cleared the cluttered storage room of flowerpots, cutting bins, and old-fashioned garden tools that hung on the walls like sculptures. The nuns installed two neat cots with a wool blanket for each boy and pillows as flat as the communion wafers. There was a desk and an oil lamp, a ceramic pitcher and bowl on a stand near the desk. As it goes with the ranks of the working religious, their basic needs were met, and nothing more.
Eduardo was studying when Ciro came in and fell onto his cot.
“I prepped every fireplace.”
“Thanks.” Eduardo didn’t look up from his book.
“I caught a glimpse of Sister Anna Isabelle in her robe.” Ciro rolled over on his back and unsnapped the key ring from his belt loop.
“I hope you looked away.”
“Had to. I can’t be unfaithful.”
“To God?”
“Hell, no. I’m in love with Sister Teresa,” Ciro teased.
“You’re in love with her chestnut ravioli.”
“That too. Any woman who can make eating chestnuts bearable through a long winter is the woman for me.”
“It’s the herbs. A lot of sage and cinnamon.”
“How do you know?”
“I watch when she cooks.”
“If you’d ever get your head out a book, you might be able to get a girl.”
“Only two things interest you. Girls and your next meal.” Eduardo smiled.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“You have a good mind, Ciro.”
“I use it!”
“You could use it more.”
“I’d rather get