| Subject: Priority Mail 9 |
Author:
Nikita507
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Date Posted: Thursday, October 21, 11:34:27pm
In reply to:
Nikita507
's message, "Priority Mail 6+" on Wednesday, October 20, 11:23:55pm
The newsletter for the church was taking much longer than it should have been. It was the prehistoric computer that Rhoda was forced to work on that was making the task so tedious when it should not have been so difficult. She had offered to take on the responsibility as she thought that it would be easy to maintain. Instead, information got to her late and often she was printing out the newsletter for the week just before the evening mass on Saturday.
There was a knock at the door and Rhoda groaned. She looked up as Sister Camilla stepped in. “Reverend Mother, I know that you wish not to be disturbed when you are working on the church bulletin, but I have to talk to you about Mary.”
Rhoda would have normally dismissed anyone while she was doing this. But the magical phrase that had gotten Camilla the nod to enter and close the door was the fact that she wanted to talk about Mary. “Has she gone missing again?”
“No,” Sister Camilla shook her head back and forth. “I saw her with one of the pre-school children today.”
Rhoda pushed away from the keyboard and looked at Camilla. Mary had stayed far away from children. In fact, Rhoda was almost sure that she disliked being near children. Mary had taken to walking on the other side of the parks in the area because she didn’t want to be near the children. “Did something happen?”
“You know Beatrice… how she struggles with her shoe laces and how she has fallen a lot no matter how often we try to keep track of those shoe laces,” Camilla started to explain as she sat down. “Beatrice had fallen down in front of Mary…. They were all out in the garden area.”
Rhoda nodded her head indicating for Camilla to continue. Some people were good at storytelling but Rhoda also realized that she had zero patience when someone drew out stories about Mary. Often it was someone’s attempt at trying to make Mary look completely damaged, but Rhoda had a feeling.
“I had just stepped out and Mary went to her.”
“To Beatrice?” Rhoda questioned as she blinked her eyes. She had heard what the Sister had said, but it just didn’t seem right. From the moment that Mary had been here, she had avoided most interactions with almost all people – especially children. Mary going to someone to help did not match anything that Mary had done in the past.
“Yes,” Camilla nodded her head up and down. “I stood by because I wasn’t sure what Mary was going to do. We don’t know her well enough.”
Rhoda exhaled slowly at the statement and did not jump on Sister Camilla’s short thought about who Mary was. Just because she had avoided children didn’t mean that she was going to hurt the child. “What happened when Mary went to the child?”
“She squatted down and tied the first shoe,” Camilla answered and Rhoda tilted her head. “And?”
“The other shoe was untied too… but Mary had her tennis shoes on… She untied one and tapped Beatrice’s other shoe… Mary made the two bows with her hands and waited for Beatrice to mimic her… Without a word, Mary made the movement and Beatrice followed them… and Beatrice tied the other shoe herself. Mary then untied her other shoe and tapped it for Beatrice to tie… and Beatrice did that too,” Camilla explained how she had observed Mary silently teach the young girl how to tie a shoe lace.
Rhoda felt a smile inside of her heart growing. She knew that this was a sign. There was something inside of Mary that had showed itself when she had gone to Beatrice. It had taken way too long to get to that moment, but it had occurred. Trying not to get too excited, Rhoda studied Camilla but saw that Camilla was not happy. “Sister, what happened next?”
“Oh, Beatrice hugged Mary… and Mary was almost frozen… but she did smile for the girl,” Camilla explained as she leaned forward. “I talked to Mary afterwards… she looked sad and I said that maybe it would be best if one of us would have showed Beatrice how to tie her shoe.”
The excitement that Rhoda had just moments before evaporated as she heard how Sister Camilla had probably destroyed the first indication of life inside of Mary. “Sister Camilla… it was good for Mary to help Beatrice.”
“Beatrice is confused about why Mary doesn’t speak. It is confusing for the children,” Camilla declared and Rhoda exhaled. She was going to have to wait for another time to explain this further with Camilla. Sister Camilla had a good heart, but she did have some older beliefs that just rubbed raw with Rhoda’s ways. “What did Mary do after you spoke to her?”
“She went to her room,” Camilla replied and Rhoda nodded her head. “I’m going to go check on Mary, Sister Camilla. You should get your bible and research passages on inclusion, disability, and diversity. You did a great disservice to Mary by correcting her for something that we should be encouraging.”
“We don’t know who she is!” Camilla loudly declared as she shook her head. “She could be someone bad.”
“And we may never know who she is if she gets corrected for doing something good when it happens,” Rhoda shook her head as she stepped out into the hallway. She did try to show a slow pace, but Rhoda was afraid. She was afraid that Mary would disappear for a few days, which was normally what would happen when things like this would happen to Mary.
“Mary, can I come in?” Rhoda knocked at the door. She never had gotten a response before and she slowly cracked the door opened and felt relief that Mary was there. She was sprawled out on the bed, but her face was down into the pillow. “I heard about what Sister Camilla said today… and she was wrong, Mary.”
Rhoda moved to look at Mary and squatted immediately as she saw the tear ravaged face. Mary had never showed emotion like this. The tears were new and Rhoda cupped her face. “Dear child… it is ok… it was a mistake and you did nothing wrong.”
Mary didn’t look at Rhoda as her tears continued to roll down her face. Rhoda touched her shoulders and Mary curled her body up more. “Tell me, Mary. Let me help you.”
But there weren’t any further words. Just tears. Rhoda stayed there until Mary finally fell asleep, hours later, with tears still rolling down her face. It wasn’t about being told that she had done something wrong. It was something larger – Rhoda was sure of it.
As Rhoda returned to her office, the bulletin was well overdue, the evening mass already completed on this Saturday. She sat down and bypassed the document and opened up her email, hoping to hear anything back from Lieutenant McCarty and saddened when there was not one response yet.
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