On my knees, a hand pulls my hair to tug my head back, making space for a lone fingernail to drag gently down the soft skin of my neck. I shiver and a whimper escapes, but I don’t dare to move. I don’t want to move. I want those nails to dig into my neck, stealing my breath as they drag me to my feet. I want my head to spin as I’m slammed against the wall. I want to scream as teeth sink into me. I want to feel my blood run hot down my chest as I give everything away. As I gain everything back.
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Are you understanding me now?
Good.
I can start at the beginning.
Maria was my best friend. We were good girls, plain and simple. Catholic Schoolers who believed in it. Altar servers, youth group staples, Weekly Mass attendees – minimum. We were confirmed at the same Mass when we were sixteen and it was afterwards – Now Maria St. Therese and Violet St. Joan – she told me her plans.
“I’m going into a convent.”
“A convent? Like, the Franciscans at school?” A few nuns still taught at our school. A great to-do was made of it whenever one retired, but they were never replaced by another nun.
“No. Carmelites.” My stomach twisted.
“A Cloister?”
“You make it sound like I’m dying,” She laughed. “I’m not, you know, I think I might finally be ready to live. Come on, Violet, you know I’m not meant for…the world.”
“Well, no one is—”
“—you know what I mean.” I couldn’t argue because I did. Maria had never fit in. Nothing about her seemed to align no matter where we went. Even between the two of us, even knowing we’d never felt closer to anyone else, I would look at her sometimes, see the way the light shone anxiously in her dark, round eyes, or catch the way her fingers trailed along the sides of walls or twisted a leaf absently picked from a tree. I would see her stare off and know she was waiting. Deep down, she was waiting for something to come and get her.
And she thought that the thing waiting for her was becoming a shut in. For Jesus.
If I had understood her then, would she have stayed? Would she have realized there was somewhere else she could belong besides that place?
I don’t know.
But I didn’t understand. So, she left.
I suppose I did too. Off to college.
I’m so cold now. It burns.
I’m hungry.
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“You’re back!” I all but jump on Andrew, letting him catch me up in a tight hug, my face pressed to his shoulder. He laughs and I laugh and pull him into the apartment. “You brought flowers?”
“I did,” he says and hands me the beautiful blue and white bouquet. “And from the smell of it, you’ve been baking?”
“Maybe a little selfishly too – lets me avoid studying. But I did make the ginger cookies you love so, there is that.”
“Selfish – as if you ever could be.”
“Flatterer.” I hug him again, catching a kiss too.
I met Andrew freshman year. Don’t worry, we don’t go to a “ring by spring” kind of college. We didn’t even decide to start dating until we came back for sophomore year. The fact we saw each other so much over that first summer despite the five-hour drive really drove home for us both that we wanted this. And now here we are, three months from graduation.
“So, how was the retreat?” I ask, letting go to get the flowers in water.
“It was good. You know, just, really good.” I look back to see him smiling at me. I can tell he feels amazing.
“Really connected with God out there, huh?”
“Honestly? Yeah. I did. Had some good conversations too. Mostly with one of the priests but you know, I guess I just have a lot to think about?”
“Well want to pick it apart over dinner?” I offer, coming close again. He wraps his arms around me, and I relax against him. He’s hardly got an inch on me but that makes it perfect for resting my head on his shoulder.
“I missed you,” I say. He hugs me a little tighter.
“I’m back now….and yes. I’d love to do dinner – I’m starved. Come on, let’s go out! My treat!”
“Oh! Okay, sure! Hold on, two minutes left on the cookies and then I need to get my hair up – ah! Andrew! You spring things on me!” I laugh and he laughs and for a moment I feel like maybe I really could live this way forever.
I could’ve lived that way forever.
I want him forever.
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We’re sitting on the couch when we get back after dinner. Frankly, I’m surprised he stayed.
“So, I’ve put in an application for a summer position – contingent on my graduation. Up north,” I say.
“Just for the summer, right?”
“Of course!” I wrap his arms a little tighter around me. “Just…I mean, I need something, don’t I?”
“I thought you were looking around here.”
“I am, but there’s not a lot for conservation or ecology. Not that’s hiring. Like, there’s the urban wildlife center, but they don’t have anything posted.”
“Maybe teaching?” He suggested.
“I don’t know, maybe.” I shrug in his arms, staring at the plant in the window, letting my eyes twist down it’s twisting vines. They remind me of rope.
Maria would get these little fixations that came and went. Knots had been one. She convinced me to practice them with her. She tied my wrists together with a knot that was supposed to be easy to pull out. It wasn’t. I sat there, doing my best to keep still as she carefully sawed through the rope with her father’s pocketknife, the sawing motion making the rope tug on my skin, the coldness of the blade seeming to radiate into my wrists as it slowly sawed past. You’d expect her brow to be furrowed in concentration, or a flurry of panic or apologies. But she was so perfectly calm as she held my arms still and did her work freeing me.
“Violet? You still with me, hon?” I startle back to the present.
“Sorry, lost in thought,” I admit.
“No worries. I get you’re going through a lot. But hey, you’ll figure it out.” He gives me a little squeeze and I lean my head back to smile at him. I snuggle a little closer.
I need to find a job for after graduation. I need to find a job around here. Andrew already has a job lined up in IT. not to mention his family is nearby.
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The plan is so straightforward. I work for a while. We get engaged. My job pays for the wedding, his job pays for us living. Proof of concept. Proof that I can stay home once we have a home together.
“Hey, are you alright? Seriously?”
“Yes! Just…just kind of worried. You know?”
“I know. And you really will figure it out. I know you. You will find something.” He puts a finger under my chin and brushes my hair from his face. I twist about to lean up and kiss him, letting him pull me to his chest and hold me close.
He’s so warm under me.
His heart is beating so hard- I can feel it as my fingers curl in his shirt. I dare a gentle nip at his lip, and he sighs.
Something deep in me wants to tug on that lip, to pull more than a sigh out of him. To twist his shirt in my hands until it rips.
I pull away and sit up, and he lets me.
“Saving space for Jesus there, Vi?” He laughs and I laugh and smack him with the throw pillow.
I ignore the feeling in my chest that I could have more if I just reached out and touched his hair. I’m gentle but what if I wrapped my fingers tightly around it and tugged?
What if he let me pull him down?
Jeez, first thinking of Maria of all people, then thinking like this? I must be ovulating.
Whatever, confession tomorrow morning, fresh start before classes.
We both look to the door when there’s a knock. I don’t have a roommate, I didn’t order anything, and a Sunday night feels like a weird time for Jehovah’s witnesses.
Andrew raises an eyebrow. I shrug and I get up and open the door.
And there she is.
“Maria.” I can barely whisper it. I should be surprised, or shocked, or confused, but I’m looking into those familiar dark eyes, and I feel….
I feel.
“Then fucking go! Ditch everything! Because That’s what God wants, right? For brilliant, amazing young women to basically stop existing! How the hell can you think this is God’s plan?”
“Hello, Violet.”
“He forgives you.”
“You’re here.”
“Just go. Leave me alone Maria. Go to your stupid fucking convent and pretend the world doesn’t exist. Pretend I don’t exist.”
“I’m here. Hello.”
“God bless you. Goodbye.”
“Do you want to come in?”
“Yes.”
“Then…come in?” I move out of the way. Am I asleep? As soon as she looks away the feelings all rush in, and I feel tears in my eyes.
“How on…Why are you here?”
“That is very complicated…may we talk?” she turns back to look at me, a gentle spin in the long black skirt she’s wearing swishes around her ankles.
Her hair is too choppy and short. She looks thin. She looks pale – is she sick?
Her big dark eyes are on me again and I feel like it might kill me to look away.
“Vi? Babe who is it?” Andrew comes in and she looks at him. He furrows his brow.
I startle back to myself and step next to him, grabbing his arm. Am I clinging? Am I shaking? Oh Lord, does she hate me? Do I care if she does?
I shouldn’t have tried to convince her to stay all those years ago. Or maybe I should have tried harder.
“Uh Andrew, this is my friend Maria. Maria, this is my boyfriend Andrew.”
“I see. Hello, Andrew.”
“Uh, hey? Good to meet you?”
“Likewise.” She sets down her suitcase – when did she get that? – and steps over and shakes his hand. She’s wearing gloves. Nice leather gloves and look like that fit close to her hands. They’re classy. Hardly something a nun would own though.
“Look, I’m, Hey! So, this is…okay. So, Andrew, Maria has been…. gone and I wasn’t expecting her – But I’m glad you’re here! Really! It’ll be good to uh…yeah. Catch up?”
“…Hey babe, do you want me to stay?” Andrew murmurs to me. “Because if you two need a minute…”
“You can stay, Andrew. It’s fine.” Maria answers. Still can’t read a room then. “Violet…I know there’s a lot to say but for right now, I need your help.”
“My help?”
“…I left. The convent.”
“Oh! You’re the nun!” I’d mentioned her to Andrew, about having a close friend become a nun. About how it hurt me. It was a hard conversation. It was difficult to admit that to him, that something I should have supported I just…didn’t.
I didn’t mention to him that I’m still not sure if I forgive her for abandoning me.
At least she never will again.
“I might not be anymore…Violet, I need help. I was struggling there and…I think you might be right.”
“About what?”
“Everything…I need some time away to sort things out and…well when it became clear I needed to go there was only one person I could imagine going to.” She smiles a closed lip smile. It looks strained on her face. She used to smile with all her teeth, her eyes scrunching up to almost nothing and her nose wrinkling. I told her once her smile could light candles. She said mine could steal the breath away from a whole room.
Andrew says it’s pretty.
“I can contribute. Pay rent and help around the home. I just need somewhere safe to be for a while. Am I making sense?”
“Maria, if you want to be here, of course you can I just…are you alright?”
“Yes…the situation is…complicated…I’m not ready to talk.”
“Did you do get kicked out?” Andrew asks.
“Andrew!” I pull away from him.
“Well, I mean! It’s different, isn’t it? Living with someone who made a vocational mistake versus someone who did something…. wrong….” He trails off when he sees the tears in my eyes.
This is all so much.
God, grant me strength. Please.
Please please please
Oh god please.
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I hardly know how we end up back on the couch, sitting next to each other, not touching. Maria is settling into the spare bedroom.
“So, you feel okay about her being here?” Andrew asks.
“Yes? No? I just…I mean I think I’ll feel better when she’s ready to talk about it,” I say.
“Well if she needs help, it’s good to help. And if you need help, call me. Day or night, right?”
“I’m not in danger. I’m just…kinda reeling? That she even wants to see me? I said a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have.”
“Hey, we all make mistakes.” Andrew stands up. “…Do you want me to stay? Not the first time I’ll have slept on a couch.”
“No, No, definitely not.”
“Slippery slope?”
“What can I say? I caught a real keeper.” He laughs as I tease, and I hope that means he knows my heart isn’t all the way in it.
“I love you,” he tells me.
“I love you too,” I tell him.
And he’s gone. I’m sitting alone on the couch for a while before I have the wherewithal to stand and head to the spare room, grabbing blankets and pillows along the way.
I moved in two years ago. I had a roommate then, a senior I had met at church. She set me up here and told me it was a great deal and boy, was she right. It’s not big, but rent is pretty good and it’s closer to most of campus than some of the actual dorms. But the real selling point? Rent was by person. I wasn’t on the hook for more even if the landlord couldn’t find someone else to rent out to. And for this past year, he hasn’t been able to. The understanding is I won’t touch the spare room but surely for tonight Gary won’t mind. We can figure that part of that out not tonight.
I knock and immediately the door swings open and it feels exactly like when I opened the door for her. Even though I knocked I feel accosted somehow by her answering.
“Uhm, hey? I have blankets – sorry I don’t have spare sheets, but we can pick some up tomorrow I guess?”
“Thank you.” She moves out of the doorway to let me in before taking a blanket from me. Her gloved fingers brush mine. Is it cold in here? The living room was practically toasty (Andrew runs cold so I give the heat a little kick when he comes over) but in here it feels chilly. Well, it does now.
She leans over to spread the blanket on the bed, and I stand there, waiting to be able to hand her the pillow which she takes with a nod, setting it down with a strange grace I realize I don’t recognize.
My friend Maria wasn’t graceful. She seemed to be colliding into things with such regularity. Including me. Bumping shoulders, almost pulling me off of logs into the creek, grabbing my hands to try to steady herself on slippery sidewalks in the winter.
“You’re my tree,” she would laugh.
I wonder if nuns teach you to walk like you see debutants do in old movies.
She sits down on the bed, and I dare to come closer. She looks up and me and pats the end of the bed.
It’s been a long time since we sat together like this.
“Thank you for your generosity.” She says. “I promise I’m going to pay it back – whatever you need me to do to settle things, I’ll do.”
“Maria, it’s fine, I promise. Really. Just…how are you here?”
“Mother Superior thought I should step away.”
“But why?”
“There’s something out here I need to do. Something I’m meant for. I’m sorry, I can’t explain it beyond that.”
“Top secret nun stuff?” I ask. She smiles that strange new smile again.
“If it was, then I could just tell you.”
“You wouldn’t have to—”
“—I would want to. I wouldn’t keep secrets from you, Violet.” She puts her hand next to my leg. “But the fact is that if I want to go back to that place, I need some time away from it first. I’ve been sent with some means to provide for myself. And when it’s time for me to go back, I will.”
“You will?” It’s not as strong as it was then, but those old feelings start to bubble up. The hurt, the jealousy, the fear. She’s come back just to leave me again.
“If that’s what I’m meant to do…Violet, I hurt you back then…I acted better than you. I didn’t care enough about what my vows would do to you.”
“Maria, seriously it’s fine –”
“—No. It isn’t, is it?” I can’t argue with her. Not when she’s right. “So, I’m sorry I hurt you. And I would like if maybe, we can be friends again?”
“I mean…I let you in, didn’t I?”
“You did. And you don’t know how much that means to me.” She picks up her hand and reaches out to touch mine. A gentle squeeze. Leather on my hands. I don’t look because it would mean looking way from her eyes.
“I…I should…get to bed…”
“Yes, you must be tired.”
“I must be? What about you?”
“I’ve never been a good sleeper, you know that.”
“Some things never change, huh?”
“Some things never change.” She pulls her hand back. “Off to it then. I’ll see you in the morning?”
“Oh, ah, yes! Yeah, of course. Goodnight!”
I go directly to bed and It’s only when I’m laying in bed, lights off, phone put away, staring at my ceiling that I feel like I’m awake again.
Maria is here.
My friend Maria is here.
My Maria.
Oh God, help me to help her. Amen.