Prayer is a practical strategy, the gaining of temporal advantage in the capital markets of Sin and Remission. She said a morning offering and got to her feet. At the sink she scrubbed her hands repeatedly with coarse brown soap. This question was insistent in her life. Germs have personalities.
Different objects harbor threats of various insidious types.
And the questions turn inward forever. An hour later she was in her veil and habit, sitting in the passenger seat of a black van that was headed south out of the school district and down past the monster concrete expressway into the lost streets, a squander of burnt-out buildings and unclaimed souls. Grace Fahey was at the wheel, a young nun in secular dress. All the nuns at the convent wore plain blouses and skirts except for Sister Edgar, who had permission from the motherhouse to fit herself out in the old things with the arcane names, the wimple, cincture and guimpe. She knew there were stories about her past, how she used to twirl the big-beaded rosary and crack students across the mouth with the iron crucifix.