SIMPLY PUT: SIMPLY TOLD

By M.K. Kildor

A horrible resolution awaits a nun, a pond frog, and an orphan. What could they possibly have in common? Rose Tiernan is a postulant unsure of her vocation. The added responsibility of her orphan charge nine year-old Katie is too much. Rose heads straight for the sacristy wine. She's called to her dying Uncle Jack's side. There in the old beach house by the sea she becomes attached to a little pond frog. Forces that couldn't be foreseen move everyone on in unimaginable ways.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S.M. Coyle
• Release date: Dec 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386037163

Book preview

And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.

Acts 12:23, King James Version (KJV)

CHAPTER 1

St. Mary’s Orphanage, Hell’s Point, Maine

AND SO A SIMPLE TALE begins.

Infiltration is another story.

The only way to understand it is to describe the details.

The devil is in the details, they say.

Who are they?

And who believes in the devil anymore or a devil?

Simply put, twice told.

Some stories are so simply put yet travel beyond any stretch of the imagination. How could that have happened, more importantly is it happening to you?

It begins in subtle ways; a health challenge, a job change or relocation. Just a few of the ways it can begin. These situations have one thing that is needed; a shoulder to lean on or a friend to confide in. Before you know it someone you feel you’ve known your entire life shows up. Someone you can trust enters the picture.

And in the exact moment that Rose Tiernan needed him..

When she was fourteen Rose Teirnan gave her life to God. Two days after her November birthday on a cold fall day when the sun shines shortly in the morning then dives into streaks of gray signaling night.

She was riding Bus No.2 and crossing the bridge over Lily Bay Township en route to St. Mary’s High School. Simply put, she stared up to heaven. It was her custom on the hour and a half trip. It was better than listening to the gossip around her. She liked to look at the clouds and read the formations. She hadn’t expected that day, when she glanced up, to see the clouds parting into an arched door. It lasted only an instant. The clouds crimped into angel wings, and fermented into each other like a door.

It was a sign from God. She knew it.

She drew her gaze down and slowly around to see if any of the other girls had noticed. They chewed and snapped Bazooka bubble gum and rolled their skirts above their knees, just until they got off the bus when they’d roll them back down.

The freedom of expression was worth it to them. Even the bumpy ride on the yellow bus that smelled of banana peels and gas fumes was better than time spent in class. Except Rose had found her freedom that day in God.

She couldn’t ignore her vision. She’d become a nun. But she wouldn’t tell anyone of her plans. Even when she got married one day she wouldn’t tell her husband that she would one day become a nun.

As life goes she did indeed become a nun.

Not only because of her vision at fourteen years of age, but because somewhere inside herself, she knew she was called into a life of service.

The thing is she didn’t understand the difference between service and servitude.

She entered the convent at eighteen, the day after high school graduation. One month before she and her brother Erwin were crossing the street after seeing Joan of Arc at The Strand at Lily Bay Township center.

The flash of lights blurred in her mind and sparked her darkened dreams, no driver at the wheel. The police didn’t believe her and never caught the driver. But what had happened to Erwin, her younger brother and best friend from birth had been too awful for her to process. She continued on as a postulant, a reading tutor and being of service to her community.

She didn’t know that a nun has needs, too.

Or why after she’d been behind ivy-covered walls she started to sip the red sacristy wine, first a little. Then so much that she fell into a steel vat of pumpkin pie batter where she worked as a cook’s assistant in the convent kitchen.

It was hard for Sister Celestine the convent cook not to notice. Rose Tiernan was very fortunate and touched by God, the nuns said, that the industrial size blender had automatic shut-off.

Shortly after she was sent to Holy Rosary Counseling center. After six months she was assigned to St. Mary’s Orphanage. It consisted of the second and third stories of St. Mary’s K-12 connected by a breezeway that smelled of fresh linen, leading to the convent. Upon meeting the mainstay resident orphan Katie, Rose wanted to sip sacristy wine more than anything, even above becoming a holy Saint of God like St. Therese The Little Flower, or St. Teresa of Avila.

CHAPTER 2

I won’t, I won’t!

Sister Rose stood behind the glass partition at the cafeteria counter. Filled with mounds of steaming carrots, mashed potatoes and steak patties smothered in translucent gravy. She stared over at the screaming red haired pigtailed child. Sister posed as the picture of peace, chin up and hands folded in the middle of her apron. Except the inside of the frame was about to shatter, if only the child would stop screaming.

Four weeks, I’ve listened to that, a voice at Rose’s elbow, made her start. She jumped nearly out of her skin.

They sent me up from Hell’s Harbor with her, said the nun in a placating 

tone. A chill ran down Rose’s spine. Since Erwin’s death Rose’s innate senses had become

insistent. Her mother had the same inner knowing. She shook it aside. I’m in a convent, not a

fortune-teller’s tent.

I’m Sister Aloysius, the nun said. Rose threw the short heavy-set nun

a quick glance. She had shiny cheeks pricked with large pores and a flay of

neutral colored brows. But it was Sister Aloysius’s vacant stare that set Rose’s teeth on

edge. It was like searching into two empty pockets.

Why did I get into the sacristy wine last night? Rose shuddered. I thought I’d taken care of that at Holy Rosary Counseling...her eyes shadowed, thinking of that sterile atmosphere of scratched green walls and tan aluminum chairs. Arranged in circles around tables with dented rubber rims and lost souls like Jim the Vietnam vet in his sixties who couldn’t shake his habit. He told her, I feel better when I talk to you, you have a soothing voice...  He pushed his spidery fingers into his sunken chest. Tall and skinny with eyes like caves, he wore a black wide-brimmed hat with braided leather strings. She was glad she’d helped someone, but she hadn’t told anyone she was a nun. She’d become a nun to help, not to be in a position to be helped. Mom and Erwin would be so ashamed if they saw me last night, gulping swigs while polishing the wine goblets with my Pledge dust cloth...

That child is getting to you, eh? Sister Aloysius nudged her elbow into Rose’s ribs.

Ouch. Rose rubbed her side. N..no, Rose faltered. I’m new here, from the postulant residence. Last thing she wanted to mention was her stint at Holy Rosary. I’m trying to figure out where everything is," she smiled weakly. Her stomach rolled at the steam coming off the pile of limp carrots.

Sister Aloysius’s double chin jutted out beneath her protruding teeth. "All you have to know is where she is, Sister Aloysius pointed at the red-haired child crying in her plastic seat, pushed in to a steel table in front of a huge bowl of lumpy oatmeal. Believe me, that child is all mixed up. Sister straightened the round white nun’s bib on her chest. She better learn the difference between her p’s and q’s, that one. Lucky the nuns are here. The lay teachers don’t put up with that"

Rose broke in, nausea rising in her stomach, she’s a boarding student?

Aloysius grimaced. Her wide pale lips didn’t cover her front teeth, ash gray like soot. Orphan. She sighed. Reverend Mother told me to tell you... Aloysius pointed a curved dirty fingernail at the child, "that Katie is your charge. She’s in fourth grade. I’m returning to Hell’s Harbor before I get stuck with her again." She melted into a lumpy

black veiled shape and disappeared through the side corridor door.

The little girl’s screams shrilled the air. An irate lay teacher with her hands on her hips stood over the child, admonishing her. The teacher, greasy gray bangs falling into her forehead, waved a finger in the kid’s face.

Rose took a deep breath and straightened her habit. Her head ached. The white-starched cotton was tight like a ring across her forehead. She crossed the cafeteria line, filled with the buzz of uniformed students. She stood at the child’s side. I’m in charge of her, Rose said to the tall gray-haired lady.

The lady stared down at five foot five two inch Rose. Good, I can see you’re new here. I’m Mrs. Keen. Social studies. She frowned and rolled a gaze over Rose’s habit, falling sideways over her forehead. Rose stared back. Her head hurt too bad to care how she appeared, especially to this person who would yell at an upset child. Nice to meet you. She kept her hands rolled into fists inside her bell-shaped sleeves. I’ll take over.

Rose knelt beside the child. The lady’s heels clicked in a fading echo towards the cafeteria food line of mashed potatoes and day old gravy.

Rose handed the sniffing child a white napkin printed with Easter lilies. That was another thing, it wasn’t a good time of year. Lent. Nothing good ever happened during Lent. She glanced briefly out the casement windows at the gray overcast sky. Her head was stuffed with thoughts of that day in front of Lily Bay Theater. She could still feel the heat of the brick curb from the hot spring sun. If only Erwin had waited until that blue sedan had passed, if only...Sister’s chin drooped.

Thanks, a little voice said.

Sister looked up into a pair of bright green eyes, you’re welcome.

The child’s lips curled upward into a sad little smile, her cheeks buckled and her face flushed a deep red.

Poor child, Rose thought..

The child opened her mouth wide. Rose clutched her chest. She’s going to puke! I HATE OATMEAL! the child screamed.

Silence. Still and deadly, as if an omen had fallen from the sky. And for Rose, that’s what it was. Her head pounded, her hands shook, and if she didn’t have a sip of sacristy wine she felt her head would explode. Either that or she’d go crazy. How am I going to deal with this...

Ssh, ssh, she patted the child’s shoulders. So thin and frail they could’ve belonged to a bony bird. Sister Rose couldn’t imagine being an orphan. She volunteered as a reading teacher in South Side where the children had lice in their hair. But they weren’t orphans, not like this. Ssh, she whispered into the child’s ear, her screams subsiding. The room grew into a comfortable buzz of conversation and clanking cafeteria trays.

You don’t have to eat oatmeal if it makes you sick.

A hiccup erupted from the child’s chest. Sister Celeste told me the same thing. Katie tuned and looked deeply into Rose’s troubled gaze. The child continued, I don’t know where she is, Father Kevin said I had to come here. She looked down at her white Peter Pan cotton blouse dotted with clumps of oatmeal. I have to sleep by myself in a big room. A kid sleeps across the aisle. I try to talk to her, Katie sniffed. She never says anything to me."

Rose nodded, trying to reassure the pools of speckled green staring into her eyes. Sister blinked at the knowing gaze, wise beyond a child’s years. This was a child who had experienced pain and unfortunately was still experiencing it. Rose knew pain that sliced through her chest and burned days and weeks on end.

A loud bell shrilled the ebbing buzz. The child grabbed carrots from a dish that someone had left on the table. She stuffed them into her jumper pockets. Rose asked, what are you doing?

They’re for Rosie, my bunny.

Sister sat back on