My Almost Epic Summer by Adele Griffin

emotions, period. She is, after all, a nun.
    I try to picture Sister’s life as an Epic, set to a soundtrack of organ music. I imagine dozens of creaky sisters on creakier rocking chairs on the creakiest wraparound porch in Cape May. Then I stop. It’s too dismal. Sister S’s life is not a movie I’d go see, or a book I’d pick up. But Sister Soledad shouldn’t be sentenced to the rocking chair—not yet, anyhow. She’s too lively. Her eyes are like silver marbles that could confuse a person into wondering if she’s a crazed religious zealot or a soothsayer, but she’s neither. She’s just curious. Every year, Sister pieces and sews a quilt using scraps of material donated from each of her English students. She’s traveled to Yosemite with Bird Quest. She roots for the Knicks over the Nets. She Irish step-danced for the March of Dimes at Bishop Middle’s Spirit Day. Sister’s lots of things, and she’s also shy. Not that she ever admitted such a thing, but you could always hear it when she had to make announcements at morning assembly, how she’d breathe too hard in the microphone, then scurry from the podium while kids still had their hands raised.
    So when Sister Maria Martinez came bouncing around the creaky corner of that wraparound porch with plans for a night out in Atlantic City, I’m sure Sister Soledad’s pale eyes flared like sparklers. She loves new things and fun things and anything that makes her laugh.
    It’s been a while since I felt truly sorry for someone other than myself. But I do now. Only I don’t know what to write back to Sister Soledad. An inspiring quote feels too distant, like shouting down a mountain when what Sister S needs is a whisper in her ear. So I close up her letter, unanswered.
    There’s no mail from Whitney. I’m sure she is mad with me, but I can’t scrape up the energy to put together a whole letter, complete with I’ve-been-so-superhumanly-lame-not-writing-you-back-please-forgive-me apology.
    Instead, I find these really dumb Internet jokes and forward them to her, with a little note that says Funny! and I feel like a cop-out for doing it, since we both hate that kind of corny stuff.
    Finally, I scribble Write Whitney on a Post-It, stick it to my screen and hope that does the trick.

My Mother Makes Up Her Mind About Me
     
     
     
    “DO YOU THINK we’ll ever see him again?”
    Mom paces the windows. Back and forth. She could use a widow’s walk. Too bad Roy’s home improvements never extended to that.
    “No,” I answer honestly.
    “No, not next week? Or no, not ever?”
    “No, not . . . for a while.” Behind my copy of Tender Is the Night , I am crossing my fingers, because I know the truth. No, not ever. Never.
    “I wasn’t watching him close enough.” Pace, pace. “I wasn’t paying attention and I didn’t see what he needed.” Pace, pace. It’s making my nerves jangle.
    “Roy left,” I explain steadily, “because that’s his nature. He got bored with suburbia. End of story.”
    Sometimes too much of the truth is more than Mom needs. I know I’ve overstepped it, even before I see the shine in the corners of her eyes when she looks over at me. “That sure is a nasty thing to say.”
    “Well, sorry, but it’s not like Roy has this tremendously complicated personality that takes more than fifteen seconds to analyze.” Oh, Lordy. Why’d I have to add that? Mom’s tears seem to bring out the worst in me.
    “You know, Irene, you can be real priggish at times.” Mom’s voice cracks. “Real priggish.”
    I lift my book over my face. I might be priggish, but at least I’m not mystified about whether or not dopey Roy is coming back. The guy is probably in some honky-tonk truck stop, watching live televised female mud wrestling, as his one-year-plus-two-months’ relationship with Mom turns into memory mildew. Besides, Mom will find someone new. She always does. She’s the kind of person who has to live in a pair, same as Whitney.
    In