Free Back in the Habit by Alice Loweecey Page A

Giulia on the landing between the last two flights.
    Giulia put a finger to her lips. “This may not be the best time to go up there.”
    Sister Bartholomew tilted her head as sounds of sobbing mingled with Sister Gretchen’s firm voice reached them.
    â€œSweet cartwheeling Jesus, is Vivian drowning our chapel again?”
    Giulia choked. “Sister Bartholomew—”
    She held up a hand. “Please call me Bart.”
    â€œOkay. Sister Bart, you may want to shelve that expression.”
    Her eyebrows met. “What expression … Oh, no. I’m going to kill my brother. He always says that.”
    Giulia grinned. “At least you said it to me and not Sister Gretchen.”
    â€œSister Gretchen’s great. She knows I’m still learning polite speech patterns.”
    â€œDid you learn the other ones at a job?”
    â€œYeah, my family owns a car repair shop. I grew up covered in grease and ignoring Playboy centerfolds on the pit walls.”
    â€œPit?”
    â€œThe bay where cars get repaired. Sorry. The jargon is second nature. So are derogatory terms for male and female anatomy in three languages.” She opened her hands. “Transforming this grease monkey into Sister Mary Bartholomew is a work in progress.”
    â€œSister Bartholomew? Is that you?” Sister Gretchen appeared at the top landing. “I could use your help, please.”
    â€œOf course. Excuse me, Sister Regina Coelis.”
    Giulia continued downstairs, gnashing her teeth. Another opportunity lost as Saint Francis Day crept closer.
    Through the landing window, she saw Sister Arnulf and her handler walking through the gardens bundled in plain black wool coats.
    She reached her room after nodding and smiling to several Sisters in the hall.
    â€œNever thought I’d encounter an endangered species: the rare Swedish Catholic nun. Only a handful left in captivity, folks. Tour starts in the Motherhouse and runs through the weekend. Take only pictures, leave only footprints.” She yanked open the desk drawer. “If only Sister Arnulf was from Calabria, the language barrier between us wouldn’t exist. God, a little help, please?”
    Her Day-Timer lay open in the drawer, the still-sketchy outline she’d written based on her meditations during Mass accusing her like a criminal record.
    â€œHow is it my own conscience is worse than every relative of mine who says I’m going to Hell because I jumped the wall?” She yanked her black raincoat out of the wardrobe.
    Three minutes later she was walking the long sidewalk outside the walls. She wanted a five-mile run but settled for three complete circuits of the wall, hampered by what Sisters attached to the Motherhouse would and wouldn’t actually do.
    â€œWas it autonomy I missed, those last miserable years? I was a model Sister, obeying the rules, fulfilling the needs, doing everything that was expected. Except for refusing to play up the nonexistent glamour of the religious life to naïve teenage girls.”
    Pre-lunch sidewalk and street traffic picked up, and she reminded herself not to mutter out loud.
    That had been the cosmic clue-stick hitting her upside the head. If the life was so perfect, she should’ve been selling it like ice cream on a hot summer day. The girls should’ve heard a tinkly version of “Soul of My Savior” every time she walked into a classroom.
    A mother with three small children nodded to her. She smiled back. After they’d passed her, the littlest girl said, “Mommy, why do nuns dress funny?” The mother shushed her. Giulia stifled a giggle. She used to think the same thing, till she wore the habit herself. Then it became a badge of honor. A symbol of Who she’d dedicated her life to. A reminder that she was the walking advertisement for the religious life.
    She snagged her toe on a square of broken sidewalk and flailed, but caught herself. “Decorum,