Free Mother Nature: The Journals of Eleanor O'Kell by Michael Conniff

depressed in my life.
     
    September 13, 1967
    I am spending the whole session holding hands, cajoling. Even after they arrive the recruits act as if no one wants to be here, and no one wants to stay, as if God really is dead.
     
    September 29, 1967
    Jane is rattling on to me and to Nancy about all the things we can do differently with the recruits next year. I don’t even want to think about it. In my first year as Mother Superior everything is falling apart.
     
September 30, 1967
    Nancy says she has prayed on it and there’s no way she wants to leave the Order. She says she can’t leave everything she loves behind. I feel like half-a-load has been lifted off of my shoulders.
     
    October 11, 1967
    “Sister I mean Mother Superior I seen something I shouldn’t’ve,” Todd the janitor is saying. “I don’t want to go to hell, Mother Superior, but I have to on account of, on account of—” What did you see, Todd? I say. “I really can’t tell you, Mother. I tell you I go to hell.” I tell him he is going to hell if he won’t tell me what happened. “It was bad, real bad, bad, bad, a real bad thing.” Todd is shaking. “I go, I go into Sister Jane’s room, to empty the garbage like, like  I do, and they, they was there, and it was bad, Mother, it was bad, bad, bad. Sister Jane was, she was holding her brown dress up, and Sister Nancy, she went down like that, down like that between her legs, and her mouth, her mouth, she had it here, she had it—” I get the picture, I tell him.
     
    October 12, 1967
    No wonder she can talk so easily of sin and damnation. No wonder she can’t leave the Order. I hope they both go straight to hell, her and her little concubine.
     
    October 16, 1967
    Can’t sleep, can’t think, can’t even cry. My heart is broken into little pieces.
     
    October 19, 1967
    I want to catch them, to hold them up to the light, to watch them like flies on a windowpane when they don’t know they are being watched. I want to hear what she says to Jane when they are making love, to know the sounds they make when they lose themselves in each other. I want to see them naked. I want to mash their naked bodies against the glass, a slow death by mutilation. I want to watch. I want to watch.
     
    October 20, 1967
    I call Todd into my office. “Am I going to hell, Mother Superior?” You will if you don’t help me, I say. “Anything, Mother Superior, anything I can do, anything I can do to help you, Mother Superior.” First get up off your knees, I say. I need you to come to me the minute you see something. The minute you see anything . “Oh you bet I will,” Todd says, “you bet I will Mother Superior. You can count on me, Mother Superior. You bet, you bet, you bet.”
     
    November 1, 1967
    I say Nancy seems different to me, distracted. Jane smiles without looking up. “She just seems so happy,” Jane says.
     
    November 10, 1967
    “It’s a good job, Mother Superior,” Todd is saying. “I like my job. I want to keep my job.” Then why aren’t you helping me, Todd? “It’s hard to find them, Mother Superior, like I said, like they was hiding.” They are hiding, I say.
     
November 15, 1967
    I had Jane’s kind of beauty once, years ago, back when Bucky Harwell was in tow. I know what it’s like to touch her from that time when she was a recruit and I had to comfort her. It’s a beautiful body to the touch, both soft and hard the way only a young body can be. Now Nancy knows every line, every curve of Jane’s body. I can see what Nancy sees in Jane. I can feel it, and I can’t compete. That’s what makes me sick to my stomach.
     
November 20, 1967
“In the chapel is where, in the chapel,” Todd is saying. “Every night, every night. They are so loud, Sister. You’ve never heard such a thing.” Oh yes I have, I say.
     
November 22, 1967
    I rub my sleeve against the stained  glass until I can see them. I slide open the window so I can hear everything. I watch Nancy’s