The adventure continues! Thanks to purple-roses-words-and-love for betaing.
Patrick felt like a man and meeting the people he hoped would be his future in-laws, going to them to beg them for the hand of their daughter.
More like a man going to the mother of his girlfriend and having to tell her he has had improper relations with her daughter out of wedlock, he thought, lighting yet another cigarette. The butts of this cigarette's predecessors littered the ground around his feet like petals.
He smoked till his hands stopped shaking, then let the remainder of his cigarette fall to the road. He ground it out with his foot the moment Sister Julienne left the building and came towards him.
Oh God, he thought.
"Sister," he said, and opened the door of his car for her. She gave him a cold look before getting in. Patrick curled and uncurled his hand as he walked around the car, trying to shake the pins-and-needles feeling that threatened to nestle in his digits.
He got in, praying that the wind had blown away the scent of smoke, hoping that he didn't smell like a chimney.
He opened his mouth to say something, but swallowed his words down and started the car instead. He trained his eyes on the road, waiting for Sister Julienne to speak.
After a few minutes, when the tension had made the air almost too thick to breathe, his resolution broke. "I imagine you must be shocked," Patrick said.
"If it had been any other man…" Sister Julienne started. She sighed, and didn't finish her sentence.
You would've murdered him? Patrick wondered, but didn't dare ask. He looked at her from the corner of his eyes. She looked pale, drawn.
"I've always thought you were a good man, Doctor Turner, but pray tell me: what are your intentions with Sister Bernadette?"
It really is as if I'm talking with my mother-in-law, he thought, even though Granny Parker had been a lot more welcoming.
He swallowed. "I love her. I want to marry her, if she's willing."
Sister Julienne turned her face to him. "And if she isn't?"
Had she said something about this to her senior sister? Had she told her that she had come to doubt him, that she didn't love him enough?
"Then I'd let her go. I'd leave her alone," he whispered, even though he felt his heart break a little at the thought alone.
"Like you left her alone at the sanatorium?"
He felt something akin to anger coil in his belly. "Sister, I came to see Sister Bernadette because I was worried about her. I didn't come to press her, to force her to make a decision. I gave her months already; I'd give her years, if that's what it took for her to be certain."
"How long has this been going on?" Sister Julienne exclaimed.
He didn't feel he had to answer that.
"Doctor Turner, if you've taken advantage…"
"Sister Bernadette is not a child. She's a grown woman," he snapped.
"She's a nun, thus a woman in name only!" Sister Julienne retorted.
He thought of Sister Bernadette's lithe form in his arms, of the litany of sighs and moans she hadn't been able to contain as they made love.
"I know that!" He forced himself to be calm. He inhaled deeply, once, twice, three times. A raindrop landed on the windshield and burst apart in a smattering of smaller drops. The wind threw another handful against the glass, like pebbles. He turned on the wipers, and let their rhythmic motions soothe him.
"Sister, I know this is not what you imagined for Sister Bernadette, but please believe me that I want and have only ever wanted her happiness, whether that's with me or not."
"That, at least, we have in common," Sister Julienne murmured. She rubbed her eyes, then looked out of the window, at the trees that whipped past them, at their bare twigs and the branches that still held handfuls of leaves.
"I won't go to see Sister Bernadette again unless she asks me. Would that ease your conscience?" Patrick asked, voice not unkind.
Sister Julienne bit her lip, then nodded. "I know you are an honourable man, Doctor Turner. Please don't doubt that. It's just… Sister Bernadette means a lot to me. I don't want her to stray from the path God has chosen for her."
"But what if God has set a course for her which branches away from yours?" Patrick asked.
Sister Julienne was quiet for a long while. Patrick had almost forgotten what he'd said, when she answered: "We've prayed for you and Timothy since Marianne died. We prayed that you'd find joy again. Maybe this is His way to answer those prayers. Maybe this is His road for her."
His throat grew so thick he could scarcely talk. "Thank you for saying that, Sister," he whispered.
She gave him a watery smile. "All I ask is that you allow Sister Bernadette to take the first step, no matter what that step might be."
Patrick nodded. "Always." He wondered if she already had, though, the night she'd come to his office to find comfort and solace with him.
Sister Bernadette came to him again two weeks later.
Patrick was in his office, trying to get through the huge pile of paperwork that had accumulated on his desk, when there was a soft knock on the door.
"Enter," he called out without looking up from the file he was reading.
"Doctor Turner?" The voice was soft and lilting.
Patrick snapped his head up. For a heartbeat, he didn't recognize the woman in front of him. She looked so different without her wimple, without the habit. She'd put her hair up in a kind of twist, and wore a skirt suit that looked like it had gone out of style a decade ago.
"Sister Bernadette," he breathed.
She smiled a little, then closed the door behind her. "I don't answer to that name anymore," she said.
He stood and closed the space between them in a heartbeat. He reached for her hand, but hesitated.
She smiled again, and took his hand in hers. She no longer wore her ring. He stroked the little bit of skin on her finger that was paler than the rest, and silky soft, like a petal. The feeling grounded him; this was not a ghostly apparition, but a woman of flesh and blood.
"Your ring is gone," he said, voice thick.
"I was discharged this morning. I took the bus back to Poplar and went to see Sister Julienne. I've renounced my vows." Her voice was still very breathy.
He looked into her eyes. They were liquid and deep and lovely, like the sea. He wondered if he could drown in them. He was willing to try.
"You should've called me. I would've come to pick you up," Patrick said.
"I did, but you weren't here, and I couldn't wait…"
She snaked her arms around him and placed her head on his chest, over the space where his heart beat. Her eyelids fluttered like butterfly wings. "I'm sorry," she whispered, "I'm sorry I didn't wait for you. I'm sorry I didn't answer your letters."
He touched her hair. It was soft and smelled like soap, like her. He pressed his nose against her crown, dropping a kiss against it. "It's all right, love," he said. "It's all right to doubt."
She looked up and shook her head. "I didn't doubt you. I never doubted you. I was just… confused by the intensity of my own feelings. I knew what I wanted, and eventually I knew what God wanted, but I was afraid to admit it." She stroked his chest with splayed hands before cupping his face. "I'm still afraid, but I'm also braver than I was."
"I was afraid I said too much, did too much," Patrick said.
"You didn't. You said what was necessary. You did what was necessary, and I… I love you."
"Oh, darling," he sighed, mouth curling into a smile, "how I love you."
"I couldn't be more certain."
"I'm completely certain. I don't even know your name…"
"Shelagh."
"Patrick."
She smiled. "There."
He realised he'd never kissed her mouth before. They couldn't do that when she'd come to his office that night, not with the TB rattling in her lungs and coating her tongue. She was no longer ill, though… He could kiss her now like he'd wanted to when they'd made love. The thought sent a thrill along his spine. His fingertips tingled.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, feeling her forehead with his palm, almost out of habit.
Shelagh smiled, eyelids slipping shut. "Exquisite," she murmured.
"But you're not ill?"
Her smile deepened. "Just a bit nauseous from the Triple Treatment, and a bit tired, Doctor," she teased.
"Ah. I know something that might make that better," he whispered.
She opened her eyes. "Do you?"
He nodded, then kissed her. She sighed against his mouth before opening up to him. She tasted sweet. He noted that she'd closed her eyes again, and made a soft hum of approval in the back of his throat. They stopped when they were both out of breath. Shelagh's cheeks were flushed, and her eyes sparkled like water caressed by sunlight.
"Better?" Patrick asked, unable to keep a grin from his face.
"Yes, but I think I might need… another dose of medicine," she said, and stood on tiptoes, sealing whatever it was she'd promised him without words that night in his office with another kiss.