Free True Believers by Jane Haddam

Healy’s explanation about how people did and did not go to hell, they suddenly seemed to be nowhere near enough.
    She got to the door of the cafeteria and went through it. She went through the cafeteria and out into the hall she’d come in through. There was still no sign of light outside, although she could hear the bells ring out quarter to six. She went through the hall and out the back door and looked around the parking lot. After she had the food in the back of the van and the homeless people who wanted to come with her rounded up and organized, maybe she’d go look for Marty and Bernadette.
    She was halfway across the parking lot to the back door of the school when the door to the convent burst open and Sister Peter Rose came running out, her long veil flapping, her long habit getting tangled in her legs.
    â€œOh, Mary,” she said. “Mary, I’m so sorry. I just remembered. You don’t know where the food is.”
    â€œAren’t you supposed to be in chapel?”
    â€œScholastica will forgive me. It’s one of the great good things that came out of Vatican II. Follow your common sense
instead of the schedule sometimes. Although of course I don’t like a lot of the other things that came out of Vatican II. Oh, never mind me. The food is in the convent pantry, out back, it’s right inside the door. I should have told you.”
    â€œThat’s all right. Do you know what? Marty Kelly’s truck is in the church parking lot this morning. Isn’t that great? He hasn’t been here for ages.”
    â€œHave you seen him? We’ve all been so worried about Bernadette.”
    â€œNo,” Mary said. “I haven’t seen him yet. I thought I’d get this straightened away and then go look for him. I mean, they must have come in for Mass, don’t you think? Why else would they be here so early in the morning? For Mass now, and then for Scott’s funeral later.”
    â€œLet’s just hope it’s both of them,” Peter Rose said, “and not Marty on his own because Bernadette is in the hospital again.”
    Mary hadn’t thought of that. She looked behind her at the pickup truck and said a quick prayer to the Virgin, because she always prayed to the Virgin first, and because Bernadette was the kind of person the Virgin was supposed to be especially protective of. Then it hit her again, in a way, that feeling that this was not enough, that something was missing. It made her feel as if a great gaping hole had been blown through the middle of her body. It made her feel as if she didn’t have enough air.
    Sister Peter Rose turned and looked back at her. “Mary? Are you all right?”
    â€œI’m fine,” Mary said. “I’m just a little tired. I’m coming.”
    She did come, too, as quickly as she could, forcing herself not to look back at Marty’s truck or at the stream of light that came from the front of St. Stephen’s. After she was done with this, she would go find Marty and Bernadette. After she had brought the food and the homeless people out to the soup kitchen and run her shift there, she would come back here and find Chickie George and see if she could get him to talk. She had an afternoon of classes, but she thought she could skip them, this once, in order to do the right thing.
    Something at the back of her mind was telling her that this was still not enough, but Mary McAllister was doing her best to ignore it.

    8
    Sister Harriet Garrity had received the invitation to move into the convent with the Sisters of Divine Grace with as much politeness as she had been able to muster—but it had not been much. The problem was, by now, she had the routine taped. Every time there was a new Superior at St. Anselm’s Parochial School, the invitation would come, usually proffered over coffee in one of the conference rooms in the basement of the church. Before that invitation, there would be