A Woman's Heart

Chapter Two

Forty Shades of Green

From the air, Ireland was a panorama of field and hedgerow, patchwork valleys set amidst abrupt mountains. Quinn Gallagher thought he’d never seen so many shades of green in his life—sage, olive, beryl, jade, emerald, malachite, moss, sea green, bottle green—the list seemed endless.

“Christ, it looks just like a postcard,” he murmured as he looked out the window of the Aer Lingus jet.

“It looks like a gigantic bore,” his seatmate in the first-class cabin countered. “We haven’t even touched down yet and I’m ready to go home.”

Home. The word had never had any real meaning for Quinn. Home was a place you wanted to go back to, a place where people would take you in. Welcome you. The roach-infested apartments and ramshackle trailers where he’d spent his hardscrabble early years certainly didn’t fit that description.

Neither did the succession of brutal foster homes until, weary of working on farms from sunup to sundown and being beaten for his efforts, he’d run away at sixteen, lied about his age and joined the navy. And while the navy had, admittedly, represented the most stability he’d experienced in his life, the ships on which he’d sailed around the world certainly hadn’t been home.

The sun reflecting off the water below was blinding. Quinn shaded his eyes with his hand as he took in the sight of the farmhouses looking like tiny white boats floating on a deep green sea.

“Boring’s relative. I think it looks like God’s country.” As soon as he heard himself say the words, Quinn wondered where the hell they’d come from. He also immediately regretted having said them.

Laura Gideon’s trademark sexy laugh revealed she was every bit as surprised by his statement as he was. “Strange words from a card-carrying atheist, darling.”

Quinn forced a reluctant laugh as something indefinable stirred inside him, something that resisted his writer’s need to analyze and label.

“Okay, so I overstated. But you have to admit, it does look beautiful.”

“Of course it does,” the actress agreed. “You said it yourself. The quaint little scene looks like every postcard of Ireland you’ve ever seen. Heaven help us, I have a horrible feeling that the entire country might turn out to be a living cliché.”

Shuddering dramatically, she linked her fingers with his, a familiarity that came from being a former lover.

“Perhaps it’s something else.” She turned toward him, her eyes gleaming with the wicked humor Quinn had always enjoyed. “Perhaps it’s your ‘auld sod’ roots calling to you.”

“I strongly doubt that.” He might be one of the hottest horror writers in the business, but even Quinn couldn’t think up a more terrifying idea.

“Roots tie you down, Quinn, baby,” he remembered his mother saying. “They wrap around your ankles so bad you can’t never get free.”

It was the only thing Angie Gallagher had ever told him that Quinn had taken to heart. Twenty-four hours after making that boozy proclamation, Angie was dead. Quinn had gone to her funeral in the company of the Elko County sheriff and his tearfully sympathetic wife, watched the rough-hewn pine coffin being lowered into the unmarked grave and wondered if his rambler of a mother had known she was fated to spend the rest of her life in Jackpot, Nevada, population five-hundred and seventy, not counting the cows.

The memory, which he usually avoided revisiting, was not a pleasant one. Quinn fell silent as he watched the verdant landscape rush closer. Laura, busy repairing her makeup before facing the press at Shannon Airport, didn’t seem to require further conversation.

The wheels touched down with a thud. As the jet taxied toward the terminal, Quinn felt his entire body clench—neck, shoulders, chest, legs.

Enter, stranger, at your own risk, an all-too-familiar voice hissed in some dark lonely corner of his mind. Anxiety coiled through Quinn like a mass of poisonous snakes, twining around phobic pressure points, reminding him of that awful endless summer of his ninth year when he’d slammed the secret doors on his psyche—and his heart—and nailed them shut to keep out the monsters.

He forced a vague unfocused public smile, heard himself exchanging farewells with the first-class flight crew, even watched himself sign an autograph for the captain’s seventeen-year-old son who was, the silver-haired pilot assured him heartily, his “number-one fan.”

It would be all right, Quinn told himself firmly. He would be all right.

But as he walked toward the light at the end of a jetway that had suddenly turned claustrophobic, the raspy little voice belonging to Quinn’s personal bogeyman whispered another warning: Here there be dragons.

“I still can’t believe that real-estate agent’s screwup,” Laura complained while they waited for their bags in the terminal. “How on earth could she have forgotten to book you a room in town?”

“She explained that. My name somehow got left off the list of crew members.”

“You’re not just any crew member. You’re the screenwriter, for Christ’s sake.”

“With the emphasis on writer. The only reason I agreed to write this screenplay in the first place is because I’m tired of the way Hollywood screws up my books.”

“If you feel that way, perhaps you ought to stop selling them to Hollywood.”

“I may be a control freak, sweetheart, but I’m not crazy enough to turn down the big bucks.”

His accountant had assured him he’d passed the millionaire mark three books ago. But Quinn couldn’t quite make himself stop running from his old demons that continued to pursue him. There were still times when he’d awaken in the middle of a hushed dark night, drenched in sweat, deafening screams ringing in his ears.

“Besides,” he said, “things probably worked out for the best. I’m playing with an idea for a new story, and it’ll be easier to think about it if I go home to the Joyce farm at the end of the day, instead of partying every night with all of you.”

“I can remember when you liked partying with me,” Laura pouted prettily.

Her blatant flirting succeeded in banishing the lingering chill. “Those were fun times.”

“And could be again.” She laughed when he didn’t immediately answer. “Good Lord, darling, you remind me of a wolf sensing a trap. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to rope you into any long-term affair. I just thought, since we’re both going to be stuck in this Irish backwater for four long weeks, we may as well try to make the best of it.”

Quinn liked Laura. A lot. She was smart, witty, easy to look at and a tigress in bed. But he’d always subscribed to the theory that when something was over, you moved on. And didn’t look back.

“I don’t think that’d be a very good idea, sweetheart.” His eyes, rife with a practiced masculine look of appreciation, swept over her. “Not that I’m not tempted.”

She laughed again, a rich throaty sound designed to strum sexual chords. “That is undoubtedly the nicest rejection I’ve ever had. I’ve known a lot of men, Quinn, but none of them have perfected the art of hit-and-run relationships better than you,” she said without rancor.

“This from a woman who’s been engaged four times.” And broken it off every time.

“So I’m a slow learner.” She grinned up at him, seemingly unapologetic about behavior that had provided the tabloid press with more than a few headlines. “That’s why we’re so good together. Neither of us has any wide-eyed expectations about the other, and we don’t harbor any dreams of a rosy until-death-do-us-part romantic future. You and I are two of a kind, Quinn.”

There was no arguing with the accusation. Besides, it was a helluva lot better than the one he’d heard too many times to count—that his heart was little more than a dark pit of ice water covered with a crust of snow. Quinn merely muttered something that could have been agreement as the baggage carousel rumbled to a start.

After retrieving his bags and clearing customs, he found his way blocked by a phalanx of reporters. Laura, damn her, had ducked into a rest room, leaving him to face the horde alone.

“Mr. Gallagher, do you believe the Castlelough lake creature exists?” a red-haired man wearing a rumpled wool sport coat and holding up a small tape recorder called out.

“I’ve always believed in the existence of monsters. I know you call her the Lady, but technically she’s still a monster.”

A murmur of interest from the reporters.

“Do you expect to see the Lady while you’re in Castlelough?” a bald man wearing thick-framed black glasses asked.

“That would be a plus since it would undoubtedly save a fortune in special-effects costs if we could get her to perform for us,” he answered, drawing the expected laugh.

“Do you plan to research your Gallagher-family roots while you’re in the country?”

“No.” His tone was curt. His eyes turned to frost. “If there are no more questions—”

“I have one.” This from a winsome young woman. Her hair was jet, her thickly lashed eyes the color of the Irish sea, and her skin as pale as new snow. The invitation in her bold-as-brass eyes was unmistakable.

“Ask away.”

“Is the female protagonist in your story based on a real woman? Perhaps someone you met on a previous trip to Ireland?”

“Actually this is my first visit to your country. And Shannon McGuire was an entirely fictional character.”

The heroine of his most recent novel was unlike any real woman Quinn had ever met. Unrelentingly optimistic, softhearted, ridiculously virtuous and brave as hell. And even knowing her to be a product of his imagination, Quinn had been fascinated by her.

Usually, by the time he finished writing one book, his mind was already well on to the next, and so he was more than glad to get rid of the characters he’d begun to grow bored with. But the widowed single mother had been strangely different. He’d found her difficult to let go.

“And speaking of Shannon,” he said, turning toward Laura, who’d finally decided to make an appearance, accompanied by Jeremy Converse, the film’s producer/director who’d taken the same transatlantic flight from New York, “of course you all recognize the lovely Laura Gideon. She’ll be playing Shannon McGuire in the film.”

Quinn practically pushed her forward. “It’s show time, sweetheart,” he murmured. As the reporters all began shouting out questions to the sexy blond actress, he made his escape.

Since he wouldn’t be staying in town with the crew, Quinn had arranged to rent his own car. He found his way to the Hertz booth where he rented a four-door sedan from a tartan-clad beauty who was a dead ringer for Maureen O’Hara. Quinn decided he must be suffering from jet lag when he found her directions difficult to follow, but she willingly took the time to draw the route to Castlelough on his map. How difficult could it be? he asked himself as he headed out of the airport.

How difficult, indeed. At first Quinn was entranced by the scenery—the stone fences, the meadows splashed with purple, white and yellow wildflowers, and the mountains—the rare times the sun broke through the rain—streaked with molten gold. Here and there stood whitewashed cottages with thatched roofs. Little grottoes featuring statues of the Virgin Mary—many adorned with seashells—seemed to have been built at nearly every crossroad, and every so often he’d pass a small statue of the Madonna standing in the center of a white-painted tire, perky plastic flowers surrounding her bare feet.

The road seemed to go in endless circles. And the myriad signs, many written only in Irish, hindered more than helped.

Ninety minutes later, when he realized that the cemetery with the high stone Celtic crosses he was driving by was the same one he’d passed about an hour after leaving the airport, Quinn was forced to admit he was hopelessly lost.

“I’ll make you a deal, Lord,” he muttered, conveniently forgetting he’d given up believing in God a long time ago. “If you just give me a sign, I promise to stop at the first church I see and stuff the poor box with hundred-dollar bills.”

He cast a look up at a sky the color of tarnished silver, not surprised when the clouds didn’t part to reveal Charlton Heston holding a stone tablet helpfully etched with a proper map to Castlelough. So much for miracles.

Then again… When he suddenly saw an elderly woman wearing a green-and-black-plaid scarf and blue Wellingtons weeding the grave nearest the gates, Quinn told himself she must have been there all along.

He pulled over to the side of the road and parked, then climbed out of the car and walked over to her. The rain had become a soft mist.

“Good afternoon.”

She stopped raking and looked up at him. “Good afternoon to you. You’d be lost of course.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You passed by earlier. Now here you are again. Isn’t that certainly a sign you’ve lost your way?”

“I’m trying to get to Castlelough.”

“Well, you’ll not be getting there driving circles around the Holy Name Cemetery, will you now?”

The merry laughter in her dark eyes allowed Quinn to keep a curb on his temper. Although he wasn’t accustomed to being laughed at, especially by a woman, he couldn’t deny that it was probably one of those situations he’d look back on and laugh at himself. A very long time from now.

“I thought I had the directions clear—” he held out the wrinkled map with the fluorescent green marker outlining what the rental clerk had assured him were the proper roads “—but they turned out to be more confusing than expected.”

“Americans always get lost,” she said. “But then again, haven’t I known native Irishmen to have the same problem from time to time? Especially out here in the west.” She shot a look at the car—the only Mercedes in the Hertz inventory when he’d arrived—and then another, longer look up at him. “You’d be one of those movie folk,” she guessed.

Quinn decided there was no point in denying it. “Yes.” He prepared himself for the usual barrage of questions about the so-called fast life in Hollywood.

“I thought so.” That settled, and seeming less than impressed by his exalted status, she took the map from his hand, making a clucking sound with her tongue as she studied it.

“Ah, here’s your problem. You should have taken the second left at the roundabout right before you got to Mullaghmore.”

Quinn had suspected all along that one of the many roundabouts—the Irish answer to eliminating four-way stops—had been his downfall. “Could you tell me how to get back there?”

“That’s not difficult at all. The first thing you need to do is turn around and go back in the direction you just came from. Then keep driving until you see a sign pointing off to the right that says Ballybrennan.”

“Ballybrennan?” The name sounded like several he’d already passed by.

“Aye, Ballybrennan,” she repeated with a nod of her scarf-covered head. “Now, mind you don’t take that road—”

“I don’t?”

“Oh, no. You’ll be wanting to take the one that comes a wee bit after it. To Mary’s Well. You’ll not miss it. There’s a lovely statue of the Virgin standing right beside the sign. Follow that road straight through and you’ll be finding yourself in Castlelough in no time.”

Considering how many virgins he’d spotted, Quinn wasn’t certain the landmark was going to be a very big help, but didn’t quibble. “Thanks. You’ve been a great help.”

“’Twas no trouble at all,” she assured him with a nearly toothless grin. He was almost to the car again when she called out, “Of course, the sign might not say Mary’s Well, mind you.”

Biting back a flash of irritation, he slowly turned back toward her. Having always been a direct-speaking kind of guy, Quinn was beginning to realize that the land of his ancestors may prove more of a culture shock that he’d suspected.

“What might it say?” he asked mildly.

“It might be in Irish—Dabhac a Mhaire.”

He was having enough trouble untangling the woman’s thick west-country brogue. There was no way he was going to attempt to translate this incomprehensible language.

Quinn had known that Castlelough was located in a Gaeltact area of the county, where, despite the penal laws enforced by the British government, the Irish language had never been allowed to die out. At the time, he’d thought it might add quaint color to his story. He’d never, until now, worried he might be unable to communicate with the natives.

Thanking her again, he climbed back in the car and headed off in the direction he’d come. Quinn considered it another near miracle when he found the turnoff. Although the rest of the directions weren’t quite as simple as the woman had promised—the road split into different directions a couple of times and he had to choose—he felt of flush of victory when he finally viewed the sign welcoming him to Castlelough.

Chapter Three

Weather the Storm

By the time Nora finished her weekly errands, forced at every step to listen to more talk about the movie people, the gathering gloom had darkened the sky over Castlelough, making her wish she’d insisted her father leave her the car. A stiff breeze from the Atlantic whipped her hair into a wild tangle that kept blowing across her eyes.

She could, of course, cycle over to The Irish Rose and retrieve the car, but that would leave him to walk or cycle home in the rain. Although her father often drove her to distraction, she’d never forgive herself if he came down with pneumonia.

“It’s only five kilometers,” she reminded herself optimistically. “If you hurry, you might get home before the rain starts.”

She was grateful Quinn Gallagher wasn’t expected to arrive until early this evening, which would give her time to fix a proper supper. She didn’t want anyone saying Nora Fitzpatrick wasn’t a good hostess.

Nora stuffed her purchases into waterproof canvas bags, then fit them into the wire baskets that hung on either side of the bicycle’s rear wheel. She’d barely begun to pedal down the road when the sky opened up. Ten minutes later she’d just about decided to take the children and emigrate to a sheep ranch in sunny west Australia—where her eldest brother Finn served as a parish priest—when the blare of a car horn almost made her crash into the stone edging the roadway.

Swearing beneath her breath, she moved closer to the shoulder, trying not to get bogged down in the thick mud.

Instead of passing, the car pulled up beside her. Rather than the compact usually seen on Irish roads, this was a huge whale of an American vehicle from the gilded era of excess chrome and overgrown tail fins. That alone would have made it unique in a country with such narrow winding roads and expensive petrol.

But what truly made it one-of-a-kind were the pink-cheeked cherubs and gilt-winged angels cavorting amidst the orange rust spots on the thirty-five-year-old lemon yellow body. And then there was the mural—depicting the Virgin Mary, arms outstretched and halo gleaming, riding a puffy white cloud to heaven—painted in bright primary colors on the hood.

Nora knew that inside the car a rosary blessed by Pope John XXIII himself hung from the rearview mirror; also, although the Vatican had repossessed his sainthood, a plastic statue of Saint Christopher continued to ride shotgun on the padded dashboard.

The enormous gas-guzzling Cadillac came to a stop with a protesting squeal of wet brakes; there was an electric hum as the passenger window slowly rolled down and a head as brightly red-gold as Nora’s popped out.

“’Tis only a fit day for fish, ducks and lake creatures,” Fionna Joyce declared. “Put your bicycle in the back, darling. And get yourself in out of the rain before you catch your death.”

After stowing her bicycle and groceries in the vast cavern of a trunk, Nora opened the angel-adorned door and settled into the tucked and pleated heavenly sky blue leather seat of her grandmother’s ancient miracle-mobile.

The heat blasting from the vents in the padded dash immediately began warming the chill from her bones. The Cadillac might be a ridiculous car for Ireland, or anywhere else for that matter, and it might be large enough for a family of four to live in, but Nora couldn’t fault its heater.

Fionna Joyce was a small wiry woman with a complexion ruddied by the suns of more than eighty summers and weathered by the winds that blew from coast to coast. Despite her age, her dark eyes were bright as a sparrow’s and her hair was a vivid red-gold.

“You should have dragged Brady from the pub and gotten him to drive you home,” Fionna said.

“It’s not that far,” Nora argued. “And I didn’t want to disturb him.”

Fionna sighed as she fingered the tiny crucifix with Jesus’s feet crossed modestly at the ankles that hung from a gold chain in the vee of her pink wool cardigan. The lapels of the heavy sweater were adorned with religious cameos.

“I dearly love my youngest son, but he’s an incurable dreamer. Just like his father before him.”

“And you’re not?” Nora’s smile took the sting of accusation from her words.

“Of course not!” Fionna seemed honestly shocked by the idea. “Women don’t have time to be dreamers, Nora. Shouldn’t you, of all people, know that?”

“Wouldn’t you consider your Bernadette crusade just a wee bit fanciful?”

“There’s nothing fanciful about getting dear Bernadette canonized, darling. And, heaven knows, don’t those redskirts in the Vatican owe us a saint after taking Saint Philomena away from us?” She paused. “And speaking of Bernadette, I have a line on a new tale.”

Fionna had been attempting to get Sister Bernadette Mary—a Sister of Mercy nun who’d worked tirelessly to bring about peace during the Anglo-Irish War for independence and had been killed by the Black and Tans for her efforts—declared a saint for the past decade. Since an important part of the juridical process was to document the candidate’s life, holy works and, most importantly, provide proof of at least two miracles, Fionna had been relentless in her search for evidence of a miraculous event done in the young woman’s name.

Nora had begun to worry that such religious obsession might be a sign of senility. Then again, considering her own close conversational relationship with her long-dead mother, she decided perhaps all the Joyces were more than a little fanciful.

“How did your trip to Eniscorthy go?” she asked.

Fionna sighed. “I suppose it depends on whether or not the Holy Father would consider the curing of a mare’s colic a miracle.”

Nora repressed the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Fionna found nothing humorous about sainthood. “I’d suspect the owner was happy. But I doubt such an event would pull much weight with the bishop.”

“The only way that man would be impressed would be a modern-day repeat of the wine-at-the-wedding miracle. If Bernadette could make whiskey flow out of the bishop’s water tap, he’d recommend her before you could say Bushmills malt.”

Bishop McCarthy had steadfastly refused to pass along any of Fionna’s documents to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Cause of Saints. Nora knew her grandmother believed that such an unrelenting lack of cooperation was proof of the bishop’s sexism.

“It’s bad enough, in his mind, that the evidence is being compiled by a mere female, instead of a priest, as is usually done,” Fionna muttered. “It’s obvious he has no intention of adding another female saint to the religious roster.”

Like her Irish Volunteer forefathers who’d refused to give up a good fight, Fionna refused to surrender what she’d come to view as a holy war.

She slanted Nora a look. “If I die before the Vatican comes through, you’ll have to carry on.”

“You’re going to live forever,” Nora said quickly. Firmly.

“No one lives forever, dear,” Fionna said mildly. “Not in our mortal form, at any rate.” Then, as if understanding Nora’s reluctance to discuss the subject, she returned the topic to its earlier track. “I’m off to Derry to hear another story next week. Is there anything you’d like me to get for you?”

Although the prices were often lower in Northern Ireland, Nora wasn’t at all eager to hear that her grandmother would be traveling there. But she also knew the futility of arguing.

“My Sunday blazer is getting too holey even for church, thanks to the moths dining on it,” Nora said. “Perhaps, if you have time, and find one on sale…”

“On sale or not, it’s yours.”

“Remind me to give you the money before you go.”

“That’s not necessary. And it’s not a gift,” the older woman insisted before Nora could argue the point. “Consider it payment. For continuing my work after I’m gone,” she tacked on slyly.

Knowing when she was bested, Nora didn’t even try to protest. As she watched the mist-shrouded landscape flash by the window, she wondered if the American writer would expect dessert every night after his supper.

Nora heard the wails before she even got to the kitchen door. Since her older brother, Michael, was away in Kerry, selling his wool, her younger brother, John, had been stopping by Michael’s farm after school to tend to the milking. Which had left the younger two children in Mary’s hands this afternoon.

Despite the fact that her sister suffered the usual mood swings that came with being sixteen, Mary was, for the most part, a good dependable girl.

“Another boy crisis,” Fionna guessed.

“You’re probably right.” Nora hoped that whatever it was that was making her sister keen like a banshee was not as serious as it sounded. She felt guilty when the first thought that came to mind was an unplanned pregnancy, but then again, Nora knew all about teenage desires.

And wasn’t Mary’s best friend, Deidre McMann, about to become a mother? The father was a college boy Deidre had met at a fair in Limerick.

“Jack broke Mary’s heart,” Rory ran up to announce, his wolfhound at his heels, as always. Blue eyes, the deep-sea shade of his father’s, held seeds of worry. His dark hair, again so like Conor’s, had fallen over his forehead.

Feeling a familiar rush of love for her son, Nora brushed the hair back. “I’ll tend to Mary. Meanwhile, why don’t you go finish your chores? I brought Maeve a nice juicy bone,” she said, handing him a package tied with a string. “She can chew on it while you feed your rabbits.”

“Thanks, Mam!” He was off like a shot, seemingly relieved to leave matters of the heart to the female members of the family. Uncharacteristically, Maeve, emboldened by the smells emanating from the waxed white paper, began barking excitedly and nipping at his heels.

Enjoying the carefree sight of boy and dog, Nora said a quick prayer that she wouldn’t have to take her son from the life here that fit him so well. Then, unable to avoid this latest problem any longer, she went with Fionna into the house. She put the grocery bags on the wooden counter and turned to her sister. “So. What did Jack do now?”

Since her mother had taught her there were very few problems that couldn’t be solved by a cup of tea, Nora put a kettle of water on the stove to boil.

“He broke my heart!” Mary wailed, echoing Rory’s explanation.

“And how exactly did he do that?”

“He asked Sharon Fitzgerald to the May Dance.”

“Is that all?” Fionna asked.

“You don’t understand! Everyone’s already coupled up. I won’t have a date!”

“You could always go to the dance alone,” Fionna suggested.

“Grandmother!” Mary shot a desperate look at Nora. “Would you please explain that these days only the wretched homely girls destined for spinsterhood go to dances alone?”

“I doubt you’re destined for spinsterhood,” Nora replied mildly as she noted the black trails of mascara running down her sister’s cheeks.

While she understood a teenager’s natural impulse for rebellion, she did wish that Mary hadn’t taken to emulating what had become known in Dublin as the Gothic look. The black tortured-artist’s clothing, white Kabuki-dancer powder and maroon-painted lips Mary favored on weekends away from school detracted from her natural beauty.

At least the nuns had forbidden the fluorescent green or orange spiked hair sported by the city teenagers. And, needless to say, body piercing was out of the question. Nora decided to be grateful for small favors.

“I realize it hurts,” she tried again. “But it’s not the end of the world, darling. There are still three weeks until the dance, and perhaps Jack will change his mind—”

“He’s not going to change his mind,” Mary sniffed. “Because the only reason he dropped me for Sharon is ’cause she puts out. She’s probably slept with half the boys in school.”

There it was again. That ever-threatening sex issue. Lately, Nora had finally come to understand all too well why her mother had worried so during the days she’d been stealing off to hidden meadows with Devlin Monohan.

“A man won’t buy the cow when he can get the milk for free,” Fionna said sagely. “You’re right to hold on to your virginity, Mary, dear. When you’re with your husband on your wedding night, you’ll look back on this day and be glad you held firm.”

“I’m never going to get married!”

“Of course you will.” Nora handed her a tissue.

“No, I’m not.” Mary blew her nose with a loud unfeminine honk. “I’ve decided to become a nun.”

“You’ve certainly got the wardrobe for it,” Fionna muttered, casting a derisive look at the flowing black skirt and ebony tunic sweater.

“You can’t be a nun,” seven-year-old Celia, who was coloring in a book of Irish Grand National winners, piped up. “You have to have a vocation. Then you go off to be a missionary in the Congo.”

The kettle whistled, allowing Nora to turn away to hide her smile. The Nun’s Story was a perennial favorite on television, broadcast every season during Lent.