Page 34 of Stranger Gifts

“I see. And you’re the Mother Superior?” he asked.

“Oh, no. Not me. I’m Sister Frances. I’ve just been here forever,” she smiled, nodding. “It was my true calling. I can’t show you the inner sanctum of the convent, but would you like a tour of our gardens and the church? It’s very old.”

“I’d love that,” nodded Matthew.

“You seem familiar to me,” she said. “Do I know you?”

“No, no, not me,” he smiled. “I live much further south. I’m just passing through here.”

“I see,” she nodded, uncertain of her strange feelings. “Well, as you can see we’ve got flower gardens, but also vegetable gardens that we use to feed our staff and our community should they need it. We’ve been very fortunate here.”

“You know, I have six daughters of my own. None wanted to follow a path into the church, which was fine with me, but I wonder what makes a young woman choose this path,” he said.

“Well, for many it’s a true calling from God. They only want to serve him. For others, it’s a family thing. Perhaps generations have sent their first or second born to become priests or nuns. Still others choose because of poverty or, or other reasons.”

“Like violence,” he said staring at the woman. She stared back at him, swallowing hard.

“I s-suppose that could be true. I don’t know.”

Matthew nodded at her and took a seat on the bench beneath the crepe myrtle tree. She sat at the other end of the bench, folding her hands in her lap uncomfortably.

“You know, I’m a man that owes everything in my life to God. I believe that, truly. Yes, I’ve had great luck, a beautiful, intelligent wife, fifteen wonderful children, but it was all through Him that it was possible.”

“That’s very enlightened,” she smiled.

“I’ve been blessed with an ability to know when people are telling me the truth or not.” The woman fidgeted, turning to stare at the old man. What was his game? “You’re not telling me the truth.”

“I beg your pardon,” she said quietly. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“Yes, ma’am, I guess I am. You know very well why women choose to be here. Why you would come to a place like this? For instance, you might have been a young girl with her whole world ahead of her. School, marriage, anything your heart desired.

“Then one night coming home from the movie theater with friends, you stop to have a milkshake at the old drive-in that used to be at the end of the road.”

She startled, turning with a gasp and Matthew touched her arm, willing her to stay.

“There were men on motorcycles. Big men that looked scary, dangerous, but you didn’t want to leave. You didn’t flirt but you didn’t discourage the men from speaking with you. Your friends got scared and left you. They left you with more than a dozen men.

“The drive-in got scared and closed their doors, leaving you alone with all those men. It was horrible for you. I know that it was. Those men abused you, abused your body and left you in shame, naked on the side of the road.

“When the sheriff found you, he took you home to your parents’ horror. They were going to send you away for a while. Somewhere that no one would know you. Until after the baby was born.”

She stared at him, swallowing as tears filled her eyes.

“Turns out, you were sent to another convent. You were forced to have that baby, give him away, and then join the convent. This wasn’t your calling. It wasn’t what you wanted and for years now you’ve counseled young pregnant women to give up their babies, no matter what their situation, and then forced them to become nuns. When Sister Agatha was attacked, it was different. She was too old to become pregnant but you couldn’t allow her to stay here.”

“H-how do you know all of this? Who are you?” she asked staring at his angelic face.

“Oh, I know a great many things,” he said smiling. “Like that you are the mother to Weaver Crup. Harry Clayton raped you and impregnated you. You actually ran away once upon a time and asked him to marry you. He laughed at you. I know that must have hurt. He’d taken the child from his adoptive parents and was raising him in his motorcycle club.

“But when you found out it was your own son and his father that raped and beat Sister Agatha, you wanted to hide that.”

“I never meant to harm her,” she said shaking her head at her folded hands. “I just wanted her to drop the charges. He’s my son.”

“Hewasyour son,” said Matthew. “He died in prison, just a few days ago.” She gasped, shaking her head again.

“No, please no,” she said quietly.

“You were willing to put that young woman through hell, the same hell you suffered, just to keep your son and his father, both of whom wanted nothing do with you, nor cared for you, to allow them to walk free. You knew they were guilty. You had footage of their guilt because you were there in the grocery store as well.

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