Mother. Just start remembering and we’ll do the rest. We have the scrapbooks, the yearbooks, and the press clippings; we’ve even lined up a publisher! But we can’t do it without your memories.”
That was last spring, and she had thought and prayed about it through the long Boston winter—and, if truth be told, had already composed substantial chunks of it in her head. Or, rather, allowed them to compose themselves. Now, this afternoon, in Olivia and Gudge’s beautiful Mountain City home, she is about to begin.
“FIRST OF ALL, Mother, I want you to try this chair and see if it’s comfortable for you at the table.”
The nun traces her fingers lightly across the mahogany curves of the top of the chair. “It’s one of your Chippendales.”
“But this one has arms and a nice plain splat. I didn’t want any ornament digging into your back.”
“You are always so mindful of others, Olivia.”
She settles into the chair. Her hands reach out and explore the shadowy and shiny items on the library table. “And you remembered I’m left-handed!”
“Well, of course, Mother. You made it fashionable for the other southpaws among us. And you always liked to doodle on a pad while you were thinking something out. Now I just want to show you how to operate this recorder. This model is also capable of voice-activated recording, but we needn’t bother about that now. I told Gudge you like to be in charge and would prefer to have the old-fashioned option of starting and stopping on your own terms. But please remember, this is your vacation. Just do a little bit every day.”
“And what do you call ‘a little bit,’ Olivia?”
“Well, a tape has sixty minutes on each side. When the tape cuts off, you might want to call it a day. But if you feel you really have to go on, just tinkle your bell and Sally or I will come and turn it over for you. Oh, and this little grille thing that runs along the front? That’s the microphone. They told us that the sound quality of this model is so superior you won’t even need to raise your voice. Just speak in your normal tone, like there’s maybe one person across the table from you.”
“That person had better be God,” remarks the nun with her characteristic wryness, making Olivia laugh.
WHEN SHE IS alone, she centers herself in the sturdy Chippendale chair, resting her elbows lightly on its slender curving arms. She takes a deep breath, hears herself exhale. Her nostrils pick up lemon-scented furniture oil, the aftertraces of Olivia’s Chanel No. 5, and the pineapple upside-down cake Sally is baking for her in the kitchen. Through the open windows, the lawn is a slab of chartreuse stamped with shadows, the flower border a blur of pastels with splotches of red and yellow.
Amazingly, she is experiencing the same uneasy flutter from her student days when the monitors at Mount St. Gabriel’s were about to hand out the exam questions and she felt all her careful preparations draining through the holes of her mind.
She leans forward and clasps her hands on the table, then lays them flat, palms down, pleased with their shape and smoothness—they have held up well. Then she rotates the silver band on her left wedding finger. She has long since celebrated her Golden Jubilee—a gala affair at the basilica in Mountain City, covered by the newspapers, the bishop giving the homily “on service” and her old girls coming from as far away as Paris and Venezuela. Her seventy-fifth year as a nun, her Diamond Jubilee, is only eight years away. Will she make it? The age of ninety-three is only beginning to be ancient, these days. As long as she can keep her wits.
She prepares to say a prayer before starting, then decides that the spoken prayer should inaugurate the tape and presses the Record button. There’s a discreet click, followed by a barely audible sibilance—a far cry from the rattletrap machine she practiced on all last winter in Boston.
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer.”
She stops, rewinds, and plays herself back. After all those years in the western North Carolina mountains, she has kept the lowland Charleston drawl of her childhood. People have told her it’s charming, “aristocratic,” but there’s something undeniably frivolous about it, too, especially when reciting a prayer. Did Teresa of Ávila sound frivolous when praying aloud