Saint Training by Elizabeth Fixmer Read Free Book Online Page A

giving sermons from the sky and couldn’t help laughing along with Becky and Tina.
    “Can we please change the subject?” Tina asked.
    And they did. They talked about Mary Clare’s Paul McCartney poster and who had which Beatles records. Mary Clare had a few singles but didn’t have her own record player. She had to listen to them in the living room, so they decided not to bother. But when Becky said she had the new Sonny and Cher single “The Beat Goes On,” they tried to remember the words and sing it. Between the three of them, they got almost the whole song.
    For the next hour Mary Clare actually forgot about the money she needed and trying to be a saint. They were only interrupted twice: once by her mother, who wanted to remind Mary Clare that there was no eating in the bedrooms, and once by Margaret, who needed a change of clothes because hers had gotten dirty in the wet sandbox.
    When Tina and Becky were about to leave, Tina asked tobuy the Virgin Mary statue after all, but only if she could get it for a dime. “My brother is going to Vietnam,” she said. “And I’m gonna pray every day that he doesn’t get hurt.”
    “Really?” Mary Clare said. “Didn’t he graduate last year?”
    Tina nodded. “He was working at the chicken plant and got drafted.”
    “Wow! I don’t know anybody else in Vietnam,” Mary Clare said. “I’ll write down the indulgence too. But the indulgence can only be for the person praying, not for another person—unless they’re dead.”
    Tina’s eyes filled, and Mary Clare felt like an idiot. She hugged her friend. “I’ll pray for him,” she said. “Every day.”
    “As religious as you are, that should work!” Becky said.
    Tina laughed, and Mary Clare laughed in relief.
    “I’ll pray too,” Becky added. “How about you sell me St. Theresa—for a dime.”
    “Sold!” Mary Clare said.
    Tina pointed to Mary Clare’s angel collection on the high shelf above her Paul McCartney poster. “I’ll give you forty cents for the kissing angels.”
    Mary Clare shook her head.
    “Fifty cents, then. That’s my final offer. C’mon. You’ve got about thirty others up there.”
    Mary Clare was torn. She needed the money but…not the kissing angels. She shook her head. “You can have any other angels, but those are the ones my dad gave me when I was five.”
    “I remember,” Becky said. “You broke your arm really bad, and he gave them to you for learning to write with your right hand because the doctors didn’t think you’d ever use the left hand again.”
    Mary Clare nodded. “It was a miracle. Even the doctor cried when I could use it again.”
    “I still want them,” Tina said. “Sixty cents.”
    Mary Clare wanted to cry, but she steeled herself. Sacrifice was painful. She would offer it up to God, like St. Theresa always did.
    “Deal,” she said, before she could chicken out.
    Mary Clare O’Brian
    188 Jackson Street
    Littleburg, Wisconsin 53538
    Sister Monica, Mother Superior
    Saint Mary Magdalene Convent
    1123 Good Shepherd Road Minneapolis, Minnesota 55199
    April 9, 1967
    Dear Reverend Mother,
    It’s Mary Clare O’Brian again. Thanks for writing back. You sure gave me lots of stuff to think about. Is it okay if I keep writing? I have loads of questions and the more I think, the more questions I have.
    I think that humility and humiliation are not the same. My family sometimes humiliates me, but humility is when you are modest about something. Right? I have been practicing humility all evening. I think I just about have it down. From now on when I walk into church, I’ll bow my head just a little and hold my missal against my stomach with my hands folded over it just the way the nuns do. I think the effect will be best if I wear a mantilla instead of a chapel veil. The mantilla is much longer. Mine is white and lacy. I tried walking with my head bowed at home tonight, but when I ran into the guitar my brother Luke had propped against the wall he yelled