mail. She did not even pause to be sure the Adoration Prayer Schedule was in order. She simply
marched out of the main entrance to the great brick garage on the south side of the grounds, where she
lifted a ring of keys from a gray metal box on the wall and started the convent car. Evangeline knew
from experience that the only truly secluded place for a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration at
St. Rose Convent was to be found inside the brown four-door sedan.
She was certain that no one would object to her taking the convent car. The task of driving to the
post office was a chore she usually looked forward to performing. Every afternoon she packed the St.
Rose correspondence into a cotton bag and turned onto Route 9W, a two-lane highway snaking along
the Hudson River. Only a handful of the sisters had a driver’s license, and so Evangeline volunteered
to do most errands above and beyond her mail duties: retrieving prescription medicines, restocking
office supplies, and picking up gifts for sisters’ birthday celebrations.
Some afternoons Evangeline drove across the river, taking the metalwork Kingston-Rhinecliff
Bridge into Dutchess County. Slowing as she crossed the bridge, she would roll down the window
and gaze at the estates scattered like overgrown mushrooms along both sides of the water—the
monastic grounds of various religious communities, including the towers of St. Rose Convent and,
somewhere around a bend, the Vanderbilt Mansion, protected by acres of land. From that height she
could see for miles. She felt the car veer slightly in the wind, sending a shiver of panic through her.
How very high above the water she had driven, so high that, looking down, she understood for a
second how it might feel to fly. Evangeline had always loved the feeling of freedom she felt going
over water, a fondness she had developed on her many walks across the Brooklyn Bridge with her
father. When she reached the end of the bridge, she would make a U-turn and drive back to the other
side again, letting her eye drift to the purple-blue spine of the Catskills rising in the western sky.
Snow had begun to fall, rising and scattering in the wind. Once more, as the bridge carried her higher
and higher above the earth, the pilings bearing her up, she felt a pleasant sense of disembodiment, a
sensation of vertigo similar to what she felt some mornings in the Adoration Chapel—a pure
reverence for the immensity of creation.
Evangeline relied upon her afternoon drives to clear her mind. Before that day her thoughts had
invariably turned to the future, which seemed to stretch before her like an endless, dimmed corridor
through which she might walk forever without finding a destination. Now, as she turned onto 9W she
thought of little else but Celestine’s bizarre tale and Verlaine’s unsolicited entry into her life. She
wished her father were alive so she might ask him what he, in all his experience and all his wisdom,
would have her do in such a situation.
Rolling the window down, she let the car fill with icy air. Despite the fact that it was the dead of
winter and she had left the convent without a jacket, her skin burned. Sweat soaked her clothing,
making her feel clammy. She caught sight of herself in the rearview mirror and saw that her neck had
broken out into splotches of red hives, amoeba-shaped blotches staining her pale flesh crimson. The
last time this had occurred had been the year her mother died, when she had developed a list of
inexplicable allergies, all of which had disappeared after her arrival at St. Rose. The years of
contemplative life may have created a bubble of ease and comfort around her, but they had done little
to prepare her to face her past.
Turning off the main highway, Evangeline drove onto the narrow, winding road that led into
Milton. Soon the dense trees diminished, the forest cutting sharply away to reveal an expanse of
vaulted sky awash with snow. On Main Street the sidewalks were empty, as if the snow and cold had
driven everyone indoors. Evangeline pulled into a gas station, filled the car with unleaded, and
headed inside to use the pay phone. Her fingers trembling, she deposited a quarter, dialed the number
Verlaine had given her, and waited, her heart beating loud in her chest. The phone rang five, seven,
nine times before the answering machine picked up. She listened to Verlaine’s voice on the message,
but replaced the receiver without speaking, losing her quarter. Verlaine wasn’t there.
Starting the car, she glanced at the clock embedded next to the speedometer. It was nearly seven.
She had missed afternoon chores and dinner. Sister Philomena would surely be waiting for her to
return, expecting an explanation for her absence. Chagrined, she wondered what was wrong with her,
driving to town to call a man she didn’t know to discuss a subject that he would surely find absurd, if