Fiction and Drama

Gillian Linden

Relax, it’s just some weather

Early Monday and the children still asleep, the garage filled with bags of paper plates and pizza crusts that my husband had piled into a corner before leaving for the city. I’d received text messages and emails thanking me for the party — Such a pleasure . . . Lovely night. They were being polite, of course, but I liked to think there was some truth to it. If so, it would be due to the qualities of a summer evening, the sky turning lavender, the lawn becoming cool. Or it was Dorothy, our celebrity nun, who had arrived early and left late. Or it was the children, forming a group that moved from the swing set to the edge of the woods to the young willow, commandeering an ice bucket, shedding clothing, and cultivating a sense of abandon.

I stepped outside, bringing the dog with me. The air had a chill in it and felt clean, and there was a thin condensation between the bricks and over the grass. Three or four deer were under the apple tree. The tallest one turned and we looked at each other, but my dog was moving in the direction of the garage and didn’t notice, didn’t chase them into the woods.

Dorothy’s convent was just a few miles away. The nuns sold blueberries and bread at the farmers market and bought newspapers from the corner store. They wore regular clothing and were liberal of mind and socially conscious. In speaking to them I sometimes forgot they might be sensitive to certain ideas, certain language, but they were always gracious about this. Dorothy was new to the convent and wore a traditional habit; you didn’t forget she was a religious person. Last winter she’d started selling knitwear over the internet and gained a following on social media. The Times had included her in an article about nunfluencers.

I’d attended a talk she’d given at the library on the subject of her life; knitting kits were promised at the end. A year ago I would have skipped it, but my son had developed an interest in the fiber arts, and I went to lengths to encourage him, taking him to wool stores and acquiring a stack of instructional pamphlets.

Dorothy had a reserved charm about her. She’d come with a collection of items — skeins of yarn, a scarf, slippers — and she handled it all lightly, turning the pieces over to display the undersides of the stitches, pointing out the seams. Her hands were small and soft with tapering fingers, and she gestured delicately as she spoke, casting a spell. Casting a spell is just what charming people do.

Vicuña, she said, holding a coil of yellow-brown thread that made me think of the miller’s daughter spinning straw into gold. Precious and rare. Expensive, too.

Is it in our kits? Someone asked.

Oh no,said Dorothy. She looked amused, and I wondered if she might laugh. No.

My son was bent over his chair, picking at dried glue. He sat up and tugged my arm. Get me that.

I shook my head and he ran off, following his sister to the children’s room.

Dorothy’s cloak and collar, which I couldn’t help but think of as a costume, gave her a timeless aspect, and added to an ease in her bearing. She described her childhood in the Midwest, a move from the Catholic Church to the Episcopal, and the finances of the convent. In passing, she mentioned that she was 60 years old. There was a change in the room and the woman in front of me, who edited the town paper, gasped. Deep plane facelift,she whispered. My husband shook his head. Inner peace.