I wonder where she is?"
Now Rosa knew.
She got out of the car and started to walk slowly toward the Mother House.
Sister M. Thomas sat quietly in her small room, reading her Bible.
A soft knock came at the door.
She got to her feet, the Bible still in her hand, and opened it.
The light from the window in the hall outside her room turned her white novice's veil a soft silver.
"Yes, sister?"
"There's a visitor to see you, sister.
A Mrs. David Woolf.
She's in the visitors' room downstairs."
Sister Thomas hesitated a moment, then spoke. Her voice was calm and quiet.
"Thank you, sister.
Please tell Mrs. Woolf that I shall be down in a few minutes."
The nun bowed her head and started down the corridor as Sister Thomas closed the door.
For a moment, she leaned her back against it, weak and breathless.
She had not expected Rosa to come.
She drew herself up and crossed the small room to kneel before the crucifix on the bare wall near her bed.
She clasped her hands in prayer.
It was as if it were only yesterday that she had come here, that she was still the frightened girl who had spent all her life trying to hide from herself her love for God.
She remembered the kind voice of the Mother Superior as she had knelt before her, weeping, her head in the soft material across the Mother Superior's lap.
She felt once again the gentle touch of the stroking fingers on her head.
"Do not weep, my child. And do not fear.
The path that leads to Our Lord may be most grievous and difficult but Jesus Christ, Our Saviour, refuses none who truly seeks Him."
"But, Reverend Mother, I have sinned."
"Who among us is without sin?" the Reverend Mother said softly. "If you take your sins to Him who takes all sins to Himself to share, and convince Him with your penitence, He will grant you His holy forgiveness and you will be welcome in His house."
She looked up at the Reverend Mother through her tears.
"Then, I may stay?"
The Mother Superior smiled down at her. "Of course you may stay, my child."
Rosa rose from the chair as Sister Thomas came into the visitors' room.
"Jennie?" she said tentatively. "Sister Thomas, I mean."
"Rosa, how good it is to see you."
Rosa looked at her.
The wide-set gray eyes and lovely face belonged to Jennie, but the calm serenity that glowed beneath the novice's white veil came from Sister Thomas.
Suddenly, she knew that the face she was looking at was the same face she had once seen on the screen, enlarged a thousand times and filled with the same love as when the Magdalen had stretched forth her hand to touch the hem of her Saviour's gown.
"Jennie!" she said, smiling. "Suddenly, I'm so happy that I just want to hug you."
Sister Thomas held out her arms.
Later, they strolled the quiet paths around the grounds in the afternoon sunlight and when they came to the top of a hill, they paused there, looking down into the green valley below them.
"His beauty is everywhere," Sister Thomas said softly, turning to her friend, "I have found my place in His house."
Rosa looked at her.
"How long do you remain in the novitiate?"
"Two years. Until next May."
"And what do you do then?" Rosa questioned.
"If I prove worthy of His grace, I take the black veil and go forth in the path of the Founding Mother, to bring His mercy to all who may need it." She looked into Rosa's eyes and once again Rosa saw the deep-lying pool of serenity within them. "And I am more fortunate than most," Sister Thomas added humbly. "He has already trained me in His work.
My years in the hospital will help me wherever I may be sent, for it is in this area I can best serve."
JONAS – 1945.
Book Nine.
1.
Outside, the white-hot mid-July sun beat down on the Nevada air strip, but here in the General's office, the overworked air-conditioner whirred and kept the temperature down to an even eighty degrees.
I looked at Morrissey, then across the table to the General and his staff.