Thorns of Truth by Eileen Goudge

Author:Eileen Goudge [Goudge, Eileen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-2304-8
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2011-10-27T13:00:00+00:00

September

“Goodbye,” said the fox. “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Chapter 10

RACHEL GAZED IN astonishment at the diminutive nun seated before her at a massive oak desk that, by contrast with her almost childlike form, seemed absurdly outsized. Not the fire-breathing monster she’d been expecting—more like a character out of a comic strip. Little Lulu meets Mr. Magoo. She fought an urge to peek underneath the desk to see if Sister Alice’s feet were touching the floor.

Instead she kept her eyes riveted on Holy Angels’ elderly principal. A starched white band framed a round face like bread dough rising in a bowl, in which her small pink mouth, pursed in disapproval, formed a deep dimple. Harmless enough … except for her eyes. A pale, wintry blue, they regarded Rachel with an unblinking calm that was downright creepy. Was it possible Sister Alice didn’t know?

She must, Rachel thought. Or she wouldn’t have agreed to see me. With the fall term starting, Sister Alice had to be busy. Under ordinary circumstances, nothing short of the near-death of one of her students would have prompted the old bat into allowing Rachel—her sworn enemy—into the inner sanctum.

“Have a seat, Dr. Rosenthal,” she offered mildly, gesturing toward a pair of sturdy oak chairs facing her desk. “I have a few minutes before the final bell; then I have to be in chapel to lead the afternoon prayer.”

“I won’t keep you.”

Rachel herself had a mountain of work back at the clinic, which she’d put on hold in order to come here, in the hope that—what? Sister Alice would come around to her point of view? That would happen when the Pope declared himself in favor of birth control, she thought. But in light of the desperate call Rachel had received last night—the mother of one of her young patients, a Holy Angels student—was it too much to ask that Sister Alice show at least some sense of responsibility for what had happened? That she agree to stop circulating her petition, at least, even if she didn’t sanction sex education?

Rachel lowered herself stiffly into the nearest chair, glancing around the gloomy office. It was unadorned except for the carved wooden crucifix on the wall, and a second-rate oil depicting what appeared to be the Resurrection. The walnut bookcase was neatly lined with age-darkened buckram spines—a certain cure for even the most hopeless insomniac, no doubt. And on the desk stood only a clear pitcher of water, which grudgingly reflected back what little sunlight trickled from a pair of high, reinforced windows.

Clearly, when God had said, Let there be light, He hadn’t had this cheerless room in mind, she thought. No. Here, Sister Alice ran the show.

Rachel, seeing not even a chink of warmth she might have been able to ply with pleasantries, dove in with her usual headfirst bluntness. “I’m not here to discuss our differences,” she began.

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