Then Came Heaven by Lavyrle Spencer Page A

at the holy-water font she’d been filling. “Excuse me,” he uttered and reached over to dip his fingers in the font and make the sign of the cross, keeping a respectful distance from her.
    She was immediately aware that she’d left her undersleeves in her room and her wrists were bare and that there were specific rules against this, especially with a secular of the opposite sex. Not only were her wrists bare, she was encumbered with a heavy pitcher of crockery so she could not hide her hands in her sleeves. But it would be sacrilegious to set the holy water on the floor.
    Mr. Olczak was aware of none of her angst.
    “Truth is,” he said, “they’ve seen after everything so good that they left me with idle hands. With the kids out at my folks’, the house is too empty, so I just thought...” He glanced at the bell ropes hanging straight and motionless, at the cold radiator, the clean floor of the vestibule and the rubber mat beneath their feet. At her again, then dropped his gaze. Holding his hat in both hands, fiddling with its brim, he said quietly, “You know, Sister, in one way you’re lucky that you never got married. You’ll never have to go through this.”
    “I am married,” she reminded him gently. “To Jesus.”
    “And He’ll never leave you, will he,” Eddie said.
    “Nor will He leave you. He is always with you.”
    He nodded thoughtfully, then said, “Sister, I’m worried.”
    It struck her that Holy Rule admonished her not to encourage familiarity through idle conversations with the secular, but once again the rule seemed harsh in light of his circumstances. He was a heartsore man in need, one who had been a Catholic all his life and had worked around nuns a long time. He understood the protocol required between them and could not have been more deferential to any of them had he been a monk, always nodding, or doffing his hat, and keeping the most respectable distance whenever in their presence. Holy Rule demanded that she put a quick end to this exchange, but she felt that to do so would be the most heartless thing she could do.
    Christ would want me to hear him out today,  she thought, and decided to stay.
    “About what?”
    “The girls seeing Krystyna in the coffin.” He withdrew and stood clear across the vestibule, near a door that led to the choir loft, backing up against the door frame. “They’re so little, and they’re going to remember it the rest of their lives. I don’t want them to see her that way.”
    “Perhaps you should talk to Father about it.”
    “You’re their teacher. You know them better than Father does. I thought maybe you’d know what I should do.”
    “Perhaps they could stay with their grandparents at the rear of the funeral home during the closing of the casket.”
    “And what about during the Requiem Mass?” The casket would be open then, too, right here in the vestibule before the service.
    “Is Anne still denying that her mother is dead?”
    “No. But she’s grown so quiet. Doesn’t talk, as if she’s mad at somebody but she doesn’t know who.”
    Sister grew quiet herself. She let the pitcher of holy water rest against her stomach. “That’s how I feel sometimes.”
    “You, Sister?” His eyebrows lifted in surprise.
    “It’s not befitting for a nun, I know, but there’ve been moments when I’ve found myself overcome by... by...”
    “Rage?” he supplied.
    “Almost. And disillusionment.”
    Eddie was flabbergasted that she’d confide such a thing to him, equally as flabbergasted that she harbored such feelings, for in the years he’d known her he’d never seen her any way but serene.
    “It’d be a sin to feel rage against God, though,” he said.
    “Yes, of course.”
    He thought for a moment, then asked, “So who do we feel it against?”
    He stood with his back against a door frame while she stood beside the holy-water font, trying to figure it out.
    “I don’t know, Mr. Olczak,” she admitted. “I don’t