The 39-Year-Old Virgin Read online

She inclined her head. “At times.” Her tone made light of the admission. She’d never been the type to seek the spotlight for its own sake, only as a necessary evil when focusing on raising funds to buy the simplest of supplies for the villages she went to. “One of the biggest dangers I faced was finding someplace to wash that didn’t have a hippo in it. They’re not the docile creatures everyone thinks they are. They can get pretty nasty. Makes you see the world in a different light and makes you truly grateful for the simplest modern convenience.” She grinned. “Like toilet paper.”

  He listened quietly. When she paused, he commented, “I can see why you’d want to leave that.”

  He’d misunderstood her meaning, she thought. “I never minded the harsh conditions. It was a small price to pay for being able to help people, to do some good for those less fortunate. Some of the things I’ve seen could break your heart,” she said with a heartfelt sigh. “I might even opt to go back someday.”

  He frowned. Was she having a change of heart? “Then you think you’ll reenlist?”

  “Reenlist?” she echoed, amused by the term.

  He made a sharp left. She caught herself leaning into him. “As a nun.”

  “Anything’s possible,” she allowed. “But at this point, I don’t really think I’m going to ‘reenlist’ in the order. Besides, my being part of a religious order was neither a plus nor a minus when it came to the work I was doing in Africa. I can just as easily go back there as a civilian.”

  In some ways, she added silently, it might even be easier that way. They wouldn’t be turning to her, expecting answers to the questions that troubled their souls. Because she didn’t feel as if she had the answers any longer. If anything, she shared their questions.

  “Do you want to?” he asked bluntly.

  Claire pressed her lips together, suppressing a sigh as Caleb drove down the street that led to the far-side entrance to her development.

  “I’m not sure what I want right now,” Claire told him honestly. “Other than doing whatever’s necessary to make sure my mother gets well.”

  “What does she have?”

  The word all but burned on her tongue as she said it. “She has acute leukemia. It seems that she’s had it for a while now, but I just found out recently.”

  He wasn’t all that familiar with the ramifications of the disease, but he knew it wasn’t anything good. “I’m sorry.”

  She appreciated his sentiment, but she wasn’t going to let dark thoughts get the better of her. She was here to raise her mother’s spirits and do anything else she could for her, not to let her own spirits drag her down.

  “It’s not necessarily a death sentence,” she told him. She’d done her homework. “There’ve been plenty of people who have had long remissions.”

  He made another right turn, slowing his pace down to twenty miles an hour, then spared her a glance. “You’re still an optimist, even after working in third-world countries?”

  Despite working in third-world countries, she corrected silently.

  Working in Africa was what had started the ball rolling to her ultimately leaving the order. Ever since she’d been a child she’d been taught that God wasn’t to be questioned, that His ways weren’t to be measured by the same rules as those that were applied to the people He’d created.

  But, try as she might, she just couldn’t help herself. Couldn’t completely lock away the horror and the feeling of disappointment she’d experienced, and kept experiencing, whenever she thought of all the children who had died of the plague in that one village. All the children she hadn’t been able to help.

  She’d been sent there, she’d really believed, to act as an instrument of God—and still she couldn’t save them, couldn’t help.

  Because He hadn’t helped.

  These were all thoughts she couldn’t voice, couldn’t even find any relief by talking about to the people who could give her some insight into the matter. She knew she would be told she was being blasphemous. And maybe she was, but she couldn’t just accept that, in some way, God couldn’t be held accountable for all those young lives that had been cut so short.

  Caleb glanced at her again and she realized that he was waiting for her to say something.

  “Not as much of an optimist as I once was,” she finally replied, saying each word carefully.

  “But you still are one,” he pointed out.

  She supposed that was what kept her going, what made her still think that what she did made a difference in the grand scheme of things. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  The single word was razor sharp. Was he challenging her? Or was he somehow asking her to give him an explanation so that he could find his way to optimism himself?

  She did her best to make him understand. “Because without optimism, we can’t go on. Optimism is just hope dressed up in formal clothes. And without hope, the soul has nothing to cling to, the spirit dies.”

  Caleb laughed shortly. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  Claire eyed this familiar stranger who’d reentered her life after all these years. His profile had gone rigid, as if he’d suddenly realized he’d just let something slip that wasn’t supposed to be exposed. Her need to help, to comfort, to make things better, surfaced instantly.

  “Maybe you can tell me,” she coaxed.

  “Sisters can hear confessions now?” Caleb said to her flippantly.

  “Is it something you need to confess, Caleb?” she asked gently.

  This was getting far too personal. He didn’t want her digging around in his life, even if her intentions were altruistic. “Just a play on words, Claire. I don’t have anything to confess.”

  She regarded him for a long moment. “That would make you a minority of one.”

  “No, just someone who doesn’t believe.” He squinted slightly as he tried to make out a street sign. This was the old development. He’d grown up here, but it had been a long time since he’d been back. His parents had moved shortly after Claire had left to join the order and he had had no reason to return.

  “In confession?” she asked, although she had a feeling that his meaning was broader.

  The next moment, her fears were confirmed. “In anything.”

  There was loneliness in his words, whether he knew it or not. It horrified her that Caleb felt so alone, so adrift. But telling him that would only make things worse.

  Still, she didn’t want to just drop the subject, either, so she tried to make light of it and hope that he’d wind up wanting to talk. “Well, that certainly is a sweeping statement.”

  Where was all this coming from? He didn’t usually talk, much less open parts of himself up. Had to be because of what day it was, he thought.

  I miss you, Jane. “Sorry, didn’t mean to get this serious.”

  She hated to see any creature in pain, she always had. “If you ever want to talk, you know where to find me.”

  “I don’t,” Caleb told her sharply. “Want to talk,” he clarified. “There’s nothing to talk about.” Pressing down on the gas pedal, he made short work of the last half block. “We’re here,” he announced.

  Pulling up in the driveway beside the vintage vehicle her father had left her mother, he put his car into Park, but didn’t turn off the ignition. The car continued to hum quietly, like a tamed cheetah, waiting for the time it could stretch its legs again.

  Claire got out of the car. She sensed that he wanted to make a quick getaway. Even so, she asked, “Would you like to come in for some coffee?”

  Despite his desire to escape, he was tempted. For oldtimes’ sake. But he knew it was for the best if he just got going. So he shook his head. “I’m already pretty late.”

  So he’d mentioned earlier, she thought. “Right. I’m sorry, I’m keeping you from your son and your wife.”

  His expression darkened for a moment, as if something painful had gripped him in its claws, but he made no comment other than “G’night.”

  The next second, he was pulling
out of her driveway and speeding away.

  Chapter Four

  “So you’re really going through with it.”

  Looking up from the bureau, Claire saw her mother standing in the doorway of her room. In a hurry to get ready and out the door, and more than a little anxious about her first day at Lakewood Elementary, she hadn’t heard her mother until she was almost inside the room.

  Claire’s eyes met her mother’s in the mirror. “‘It?’”

  Margaret nodded as she walked across the threshold. Gone were the trim business suits she used to favor. She’d slipped on aqua-colored sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt, both of which provided a vivid contrast to the rich red hair she’s always been so proud of.

  She didn’t look like a woman who was ill, Claire thought. Maybe God still had one miracle left with her name on it after all. Mentally, she crossed her fingers.

  “You know.” Margaret frowned as if the very word she was about to utter tasted bitter. “Teaching.”

  Claire was somewhat surprised that, when she woke up this morning after a not-so-restful night, she was in the grip of first-day jitters. She supposed it had something to do with wanting validation for the decision she’d made about the new direction of her life. Whatever the reason, the jitters were worse than she’d expected and her mother’s disapproving expression wasn’t exactly helping.

  She glanced at her mother over her shoulder. “Yes, Mother,” she replied patiently. “I’m really going through with it. In approximately—” she glanced at her watch, “—an hour and ten minutes, I’ll be taking over what would have been Mrs. Butterfield’s fourth-grade class if she wasn’t about to deliver at any minute.”

  Claire turned back toward the mirror to check over her appearance one last time. And perhaps locate her confidence, as well.

  Margaret sighed and shook her head. “Why are you doing this?”

  At the last moment, Claire had decided to wear her hair up. She thought it looked more authoritative that way. Besides, to be honest, she wasn’t all that accustomed to seeing her hair loose like this. Swiftly, she began to strategically place pins in it to ensure that it stayed in place.

  “Because, for one thing, I need a job.” And we’re going to need the money, Mom, she added silently.

  “No, you don’t,” her mother contradicted. “You already have a job.”

  The last pin in, Claire quickly surveyed her handiwork. “You mean taking care of you—” Was her mother trying to tell her that she felt weak? That she needed her around in case she suddenly began to go downhill?

  But before she got a chance to ask, her mother had already waved a dismissive hand at her, silencing any words that were about to emerge. “No, I can take care of myself, Claire,” she declared with dignity. “I’m not an invalid—at least, not yet,” she qualified quietly.

  Finished, Claire turned away from the bureau. This was as good as it was going to get, she thought. Worrying about the way her hair looked and if her clothes were sending the wrong message was an entirely foreign concept to her. So was experimenting with makeup, but she felt she’d done a fairly admirable job of it for someone new to the game. The application was subtle, the results pretty.

  The next second, she admonished herself for being vain. It was hard being stuck between two worlds, not feeling as if she belonged in either.

  “Then I don’t know what you’re—”

  Again her mother cut her short, this time with more than a trace of impatience. “Your job. Your vocation.” The frown mingled with a plea. “I’m talking about your being part of the Dominican order.”

  Not now, Mother. Not today, please.

  She’d known the moment the idea of leaving the order had occurred to her that the transition wasn’t going to be easy. For either of them. Not for her because she’d been part of the order for so long, she was going to have a difficult time redefining herself in different terms, and not for her widowed mother because she knew that Margaret Santaniello was convinced that turning her back on the order was tantamount to committing a mortal sin and thus putting her soul in jeopardy.

  Getting her mother to come around would require treating both the subject and her mother with kid gloves. And, she’d already learned, it was also going to require a great deal of repetition.

  She tried to focus on another time, a time when she and her mother had been in harmony instead of at odds. “Mother, we’ve gone through all this already. I’m not Sister Michael anymore.”

  A note of desperation entered her mother’s voice. “That’s like saying you’re not tall anymore.”

  “I’m not,” Claire pointed out calmly. She didn’t have time for this.

  “You know what I mean,” Margaret insisted. “All right,” she conceded, “bad example. It’s like saying you’re not Italian anymore.” She nodded her head in triumph, as if feeling that she’d chosen her example well this time. “Saying it doesn’t change things. You can’t stop being Italian.”

  “Not the same thing, Mother, not the same thing at all.” She saw tears suddenly gather in her mother’s eyes. Guilt assaulted her at the same moment. She placed her arm around her mother’s shoulders, or tried to. “Mother—”

  But her mother shrugged her arm aside, moving away from her as if she had a contagious disease. “I’m going to die.” Her tone was oddly resigned.

  Her mother wasn’t going to lick this thing if she’d already surrendered to it. She needed hope, Claire thought. A lot of it.

  “No, you’re not,” she countered fiercely.

  “Yes, I am. Because of you. You know this kind of thing doesn’t go unpunished.”

  For one moment, Claire felt as if she’d been physically slapped across the face. Stunned, she focused on the larger subject. “You don’t believe that.”

  “Yes, I do.” There was no arguing with her mother’s tone of voice.

  If she couldn’t talk her mother out of it, she could still elaborate on her own beliefs, Claire reasoned, hoping that, in time, it would make her mother come around. “Well, I don’t. I don’t believe in a petty God who insists on going tit for tat.” She and God might not be on the same wavelength at the moment, but she still believed in His existence, still believed that He wasn’t a vengeful God. Why would her mother even think that? It was her mother who had taught her everything she believed in.

  Her mother turned away from her. When she spoke again, Claire thought her heart was going to break from just hearing the sorrow in her mother’s voice. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one with acute leukemia.”

  All she could do was give her mother the benefit of her own faith. “Mother, I don’t have a clue why some things happen, why some people have everything go right for them even if they don’t seem to deserve it and why other people have so many bad things happen, even if they are good, decent people—”

  “Maybe if you’d paid more attention at the convent, you’d have some of those answers.”

  She continued as if her mother hadn’t interrupted. Her mother wasn’t being fair, but she couldn’t fault her. Staring at the face of your own possible mortality could frighten anyone. “But I do know that God doesn’t sit around keeping score and threatening people with sores and pestilence if they get out of line.”

  A hopelessness descended over Margaret. “Then why am I sick?” she demanded.

  Claire hugged her mother, trying desperately to comfort her. “I wish I knew, Mother. But I do know that you were diagnosed long before I ever left the order.”

  “He knew you were going to leave. He knows everything.”

  Rather than become annoyed or defensive, Claire felt nothing but compassion for what her mother was going through. But at the same time, she wanted her mother to be aware of how convoluted her thinking was.

  “So what you’re saying is that you’re being punished for something I was going to do.”

  “Yes,” Margaret declared with feeling, then relented. “No.” She could feel an enormous headache building as
the tension inside her increased. “Oh, I don’t know.” She pressed her lips together, looking at her only child. She did, in a selfish way, appreciate her being here but at the same time, she felt in her heart it was wrong. Claire belonged in the convent. And she had taken her away from that, no matter what Claire said to the contrary. “Everything was so much clearer a year ago,” Margaret lamented.

  Since she couldn’t seem to help her mother, maybe someone else could. The woman had always been partial to priests. “Mother, I’m going to see if I can get Father Ryan to stop by later today.”

  Margaret’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh, no, I couldn’t face him.”

  Claire slipped into her black pumps. The moment isolated itself. These were her first pair of non-sensible shoes in twenty-two years. She’d worn them the other night to Saturday’s. She’d forgotten how much she enjoyed wearing high heels.

  The next moment, she forced herself to concentrate on what her mother was saying. “Why?”

  They were back on opposite ends of the discussion again. “You know why.”

  Walking out of her bedroom, Claire turned and took her mother’s hands in hers. “Mother, you’re going to have to get used to it. I’ve left the order, I’m not Sister Michael anymore. But I will always, always be your daughter. And I am going to take care of you, to be there for you whenever you need me—and even if you don’t,” she added with a smile. She dropped her hands and headed toward the stairs. “But right now, if I don’t get going, I’m going to be late for my first day and you know what you’ve always said about first impressions—you never get a second chance to make one.”

  Following behind her on the stairs, Margaret sighed and shook her head. “Go,” she ordered without any enthusiasm.

  Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Claire waited for her mother to descend. Again she took her mother’s hands in hers. When her mother didn’t look at her, she tilted her head, moving into her mother’s visual range. “Wish me luck?”

  “Luck,” Margaret murmured.

  Well, it certainly didn’t qualify as an enthusiastic pep-rally cheer, but it would have to do. “Good enough,” Claire responded.