I Shall Not Want (4 page)

She turned around.

Aberforth was looking at her through half-closed eyes. “Do you believe that?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head, sending his bloodhoundlike jowls swaying. “Good God, girl, your pride is truly monumental.”

“My
pride
?”

“Your pride. Did you or did you not make a full confession and repentance to the bishop?” He folded his black-coated arms.

“You know I did.”

“Did he, in the name of our Lord, absolve your sins?”

She knew where this was going, and she didn’t like it. “He did.”

“Then who are you to presume that
your
errors,
your
mistakes of judgment,
your
faults are so grievous that they stymie God Himself? Do you think your ability to sin rises above God’s ability to forgive?”

She blinked hard. She shook her head. “I can’t—”

“You cling to your faults like a woman clinging to a lover.” He leaned forward. “A lover who has betrayed her.”

She shook her head again.

“Are you angry with your police chief?”

She set her jaw. “Of course not. He’s the one who’s suffering.”

“I seem to recall that he entertained the possibility that you may have been responsible for a murder.”

“For an hour! God, why do I
tell
you this stuff?”

“Who else can you tell?”

Russ
. But that time was gone. Now there was no one else.

“He chose his marriage over you,” Aberforth went on.

“
I
chose his marriage over me, too.”

“But as soon as he was in crisis, he was back at your door, asking for your help.
Then
, in his moment of deepest need, he turned his back on you.”

“His wife had just died!”

“And since then he has steadfastly ignored your existence. Yet you harbor no anger toward him. None whatsoever.”

She turned back to her desk. Gripped the back of her chair again to stop the shaking. Breathed in. Breathed out. Waited until she knew her voice wouldn’t crack. “You’re right. I need to let go of… my sense of complicity in her death. I’ll focus on that.”

“Oh, my dear Ms. Fergusson.”

She turned around at that.

“You are a very good priest in many ways. And someday, if your self-awareness approaches half your awareness of others, you might be an extraordinary priest.” He folded his hands. “I do not think that day will be today, however.”

Clare was profoundly grateful the ecumenical luncheon was arranged mixer-style. After the strained ride from Millers Kill—not eased by the fact Father Aberforth insisted on driving his Isuzu Scout a conservative ten miles below the speed limit all the way to Saratoga—she didn’t want to deal with any more togetherness with her spiritual advisor for a while. The deacon was seated at the other end of the Holiday Inn’s Burgoyne Room, while Clare was ensconced at a table with a nun, a Lutheran pastor, a UCC minister, and an American Baptist preacher—all of whom were a good twenty-five to thirty years older than she was. The only other person attending who was close to her age was Father St. Laurent, a devastatingly good-looking Roman Catholic priest who made the RC’s vows of celibacy seem like a crime against the human gene pool. He had glanced at Clare with a sympathetic smile from the middle of his own collection of fossils.
Experienced clerics
, she corrected herself.

The blessing was given by a rabbi from Clifton Park, and the three men, who all seemed to know one another, fell into a discussion of their grandchildren before Clare had even buttered her roll. The nun rolled her eyes at Clare.

“This is just like the get-togethers in my town.” Clare kept her voice low. “Dr. McFeely and the Reverend Inman always wind up getting out their brag books.”

The sister laid her hand over Clare’s. “I can guarantee you I don’t have any grandkids. That I know of.”

Clare almost expelled her bite of salad.

“Sorry,” the nun said. “My favorite soap opera just managed to introduce a secret-baby story line where the father knew but the mother didn’t.”

Clare had to ask. “How? Amnesia?”

“Split personality.” The nun speared a cherry tomato. “So I figure, you never can tell.”

Clare’s laugh drew attention from several tables away. She covered her mouth with her napkin and coughed. “I’m Clare Fergusson. Rector of St. Alban’s, in Millers Kill.”

“Lucia Pirone of the Sisters of Marian Charity.” She nodded as the waitress reached for her salad plate. “I’m guessing from your accent you’re not from this neck of the woods. North Carolina?”

“Close,” Clare said. “Southern Virginia. Then around and about a bit with the U.S. Army before seminary.”

“Really? One of my brothers was career army. He’s retired now, of course. What was your MOS?”

“I flew helicopters.” She caught herself. “I fly helicopters. I’ve just recently reupped with the National Guard.”

“Really?” Sister Lucia leaned toward Clare, heedless of the silverware in her way. “With a war on? And you say you’re a rector?” The nun’s sharp eyes seemed out of place on her wrinkled face. Clare suspected the sweet-old-thing look was a clever disguise. “Whatever did your bishop say about that?”

“It was… he supported my reenlistment. He felt it would help me clarify… where my vocation lies.”

“This is supposed to help you see if you have a true calling?” The sister’s glance went to Clare’s white collar. “Bit late in the day for that, isn’t it?”

“It’s not my calling that’s in doubt. Just… what it is I’m called to
do
.” She dropped her voice. “I think the bishop’s hoping Uncle Sam will take me out of his hair.”

Sister Lucia’s eyes lit up. “Ah. You have
bishop
troubles.”

“I’m sure the bishop would say he has Clare Fergusson troubles.”

“I’ll drink to that.” The nun lifted her water glass and looked at it. She sighed. “That’s the only problem with these ecumenical things. No wine.” She glanced meaningfully at the Baptist preacher before swigging her water. “At any rate, my sympathies to you. I have bishop problems as well, and he’s not even
my
bishop.”

Clare leaned back to let the waitress deposit a chicken breast on a bed of wild rice in front of her. “Not your bishop?”

“Are you familiar with the Sisters of Marian Charity?”

“Sorry. I’m not as knowledgeable about Roman Catholic orders as I probably should be.”

Sister Lucia thanked the waitress for her salmon. “The order was founded in 1896 by a pair of rich sisters who wanted to better the lives of impoverished immigrants in Boston.”

“You mean like Jane Addams and Ellen Starr in Chicago?”

“Exactly. Over the last century, the order’s mission became focused on the plight of migrant laborers. The motherhouse relocated west during the dust-bowl, and the bulk of our work has been in California and Arizona. I’m here as a missioner, the first one in the northeast dairy country.”

Clare paused before forking a bite of chicken into her mouth. “Why? I mean, Washington and Warren counties are whiter than mayonnaise. Shouldn’t you be in—I don’t know—Albany or somewhere?”

“What would you think if I told you there were upwards of three hundred year-round Hispanic farm workers in Washington County alone?”

Clare blinked. “Three hundred?”

“Or more. Some with guest-worker papers, most illegal. The number may double in the summer.”

“I’d say… that surprises me. I didn’t think this part of New York had the kind of large-scale agriculture that requires importing labor.” She stabbed several green beans, wondering, for the first time, whose hands had picked them.

“It’s dairy farming country,” Lucia said. “Hard, thankless work. Dairymen have to be able to fix machinery, repair barns, bring in crops, deliver calves, and, most demandingly, milk. Corn or soybeans or wheat can wait twenty-four hours for attention, but cows have to be milked, morning and evening, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.”

“You sound like someone speaking from experience.”

“I grew up on a dairy farm in Vermont. Last year, I went back to Rutland for a family funeral and discovered my brother’s neighbor had six Guatemalans working for him. That’s when I realized we were needed back East again.”

“So you got your superiors to send you.” She cut a slice off her chicken breast. “But they must have had to get the diocese’s support.”

“I have my superiors’ blessing. I have the Diocese of Albany’s
permission
. They weren’t too wild about giving it, either.” Lucia gave Clare a dry smile. “Caring for illegal aliens is Christian, but it’s not very convenient. Especially when you have a large conservative element in your diocese that believes everybody without papers ought to be rounded up and sent back to Mexico.”

“So what is it you do?” Clare wiped her mouth. “I mean, it sounds as if you’re shooting for more than getting these people to a Spanish-language Mass.”

“We start with basic services, like transportation away from the farms and translators to help them deal with government bureaucracies. Then we act as advocates. Guest workers don’t have the right to disability or unemployment insurance, to overtime, or even to a day of rest. The men who are here without papers won’t seek health care, won’t report safety violations, won’t complain if they get stiffed on their pay, because they’re scared of the authorities. They keep their pay in cash because they don’t have the ID to open bank accounts, and if one of them is the victim of a crime, he won’t go to the police. Some of them live in appalling conditions, in ancient trailers that wouldn’t have passed safety inspections in 1958, eight or nine men sharing a space.”

“Wow.” Clare pushed her plate away so she could prop her elbow on the table, a bad habit she had never gotten rid of. “That sounds amazingly challenging. And worthwhile.”

Sister Lucia nodded. “I’m glad you see that. Now I just have to find some congregations to partner with me.”

“Doesn’t your order support your mission financially?”

“I get a modest amount. And by modest, I mean it’s swathed in a burka, unseen by human eye.”

Clare laughed.

“No, the problem is, we’re stretched thin up here in the North Country. Small parishes, every priest responsible for two or three of them, donations down… Without the bishop behind me, my tiny little mission’s needs get squashed on the bottom of the pile every time.”

“Let me help you.”

The nun sat back in her seat. “I beg your pardon?”

“I have some friends at the Episcopal Development Fund. This sounds like just their sort of thing: small, grassroots, helping individuals in a tangible way.”

Sister Lucia’s face was a mixture of interest and doubt. “There is a spiritual component to the work, you know. It’s definitely Catholic. Spanish-language Masses and all.”

Clare grinned. “Not to worry. In the Episcopal Church, we are all over the ecumenical like white on rice. In fact, we
are
kinda the white on rice.”

The waitress replaced their empty plates with fat slices of cheesecake. “Coffee?” She held up a pot.

“Absolutely,” Clare said. Sister Lucia demurred, then watched with amusement as Clare emptied packet after packet of sugar into her cup. “I may be able to round up a few bodies for you as well.” Clare reached for her spoon. “We’ve had an uptick in our membership over the past year, younger people—” they could hardly be older, since the average age when she arrived at St. Alban’s had been fifty-seven—“who haven’t found a spot in our current volunteer programs. I think your mission might be just the thing.” Her spoon
ting-ting-ting
ed in the cup as she stirred clockwise, then counterclockwise. “When I started my ministry, I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to get anyone to reach out to the marginalized among us. But I’ve come to believe it’s not that people are unwilling, it’s that they just don’t see them. Look at me. I’ve lived here over two years without knowing about any of these workers.” She looked at the nun confidingly. “I didn’t really want to come to this luncheon. Now I’m so glad I did.”

Sister Lucia smiled. “Do you always leap into things so… ah… decisively?”

“You bet,” Clare said. “I’m not sure if it’s a virtue or a flaw, but after thirty-six years, I’ve come to accept it’s who I am.” She took a sip of her coffee and sighed as the heat and sugar and caffeine hit her. “And thank you.”

“For what?”

“For calling it
decisiveness
instead of ‘jumping in without thinking things through.’ ”

“Oh, I see it as fearlessness.” The nun glanced at Clare’s left hand, bare of rings. “You’re not married.”

Clare shook her head.

“Partnered?”

“No! I mean, no.… I’m not.”

Sister Lucia patted her hand. “Not meaning to be nosy. It’s just that I’ve found one of the great benefits of the celibate life is fearlessness. Especially for women. You can see what needs to be done and do it, without fear of how it’s going to affect your family or your reputation.” Where she had been patting, she squeezed, hard. “Don’t let anybody convince you it’s a flaw. We need more fearless women following Christ, not less.”

On the way back to Millers Kill, she and Deacon Aberforth had to stop at a

Citgo station to gas up. When she went inside to pay—leaving the deacon muttering about the wasteful extravagance of the tricked-out Hummer taking up almost two spaces at the next pump over—there were five young Hispanic men getting sodas in the back. Five. Bumping into each other, joking around in Spanish, underdressed for the weather in sneakers and the ripstop jackets she saw kids in her congregation wearing. She shook her head.

The people we don’t see.

Feeling well justified in her decision to aid Sister Lucia, she returned to the deacon’s Scout. “Father Aberforth.” She willed her eyes away from the speedometer as he more or less accelerated up Route 9. “Would you describe me as impetuous or fearless?”

He glanced at her. “I would describe you, Ms. Fergusson, as the vehicle through which God shows me He still has a great deal of work for me to do.”