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She’d forgotten how crowded that huge building could be, but she hadn’t forgotten the warped boards on the fifteenth stair. Neither had Sister Bartholomew—she and Giulia took wide steps to the left to avoid the Crack!
    They grinned at each other.
    â€œWhere’ve you been stationed, Sister Regina Coelis?”
    â€œNowhere, actually.” Driscoll charm, don’t fail me. “I left a year ago, but I petitioned to return.”
    â€œOh.” Her conductor stopped. “Oh, I’m glad. I didn’t think that was possible.”
    â€œTimes have changed. There are so few of us now that they’re making exceptions.”
    They reached the third floor. “It makes sense, especially with the merger. I heard there used to be five hundred of us in this Community alone. But we’re still below that number even with the other three Communities added.”
    This floor was crowded as well. Sisters of every age went in and out of rooms or sat in chairs grouped around the lamps on the walls. Laughter came from the small library in the west corner. Yet it was subdued, all of it. No word of the many conversations could be distinguished. The laughter’s volume was suitable for a sickroom.
    â€œCommunity Day is always a balancing act between continuing education lectures and a huge high school reunion,” Giulia said.
    â€œLast year’s was kind of subdued, remember?” Sister Bartholomew said. “We heard it was because the Community could only afford to fly a handful of Sisters back here.”
    They stood against the wall to make room for three Sisters carrying musical instruments.
    Giulia said, “This year it’s like Community Day and Christmas and Easter all rolled into one.”
    â€œYeah.” Sister Bartholomew opened the door to room 323. “Office is at five-thirty, supper at six. If you need anything, one of us Novices or Postulants should be running around somewhere.”
    â€œThanks.”
    A tall, gaunt, middle-aged nun appeared at the door frame.“Sister Bartholomew, may we borrow you for a moment?”
    Giulia smiled at both of them and closed herself in. The suitcase thunk ed to the floor
    â€œI’m stuck in a time warp,” she whispered. “If I didn’t have a cell phone in my pocket I’d swear I’ve been here all along.”
    A twin bed with a white chenille bedspread took up most of the wall to her left. A narrow wardrobe loomed at its foot. A desk and a straight-back wooden chair squeezed themselves against the wall opposite the wardrobe. The off-white paint job hadn’t changed, either. For that matter, the 1950s vintage linoleum still held its place as the blandest pattern in the Northeast. An excellent cleaning job didn’t hide its age and shabby edges.
    She walked to the end of the room and opened the narrow window. The vegetable gardens were cleaned and hoed over for the winter, but mums and asters covered the flower beds.
    There’s the twins, Sisters Epiphania and … something more normal … Gwen … no, Edwen. Arthritis finally got to them.
    A nun in black trousers and a white blouse met the gardener nuns on the flagged walkway and brushed the dirt from their kneepads. Giulia didn’t need to read lips to know that they were thanking Sister … she couldn’t remember that one’s name, but remembered that she was always the first one to ease the way for the retirees.
    She closed the window on the still-cold air as the third nun slipped the padded knee rests off the twins’ daring denim workpants.
    â€œDaring” twenty years ago, of course. How the twins loved to whisper the story of Fabian’s meltdown the first time those secular clothes appeared. It was one of the few times we laughed that Canonical year.
    The room looked smaller and dingier when she turned around. She plopped the suitcase on the bed. Her few pieces of clothing easily fit in the top drawer