Page 3 of Property of Quake

Strangely, the more I say the words to other kids, the more I start to believe them for me. Not because anyone has come for me. Not because there’s any hope that I’ll be adopted at my age.

No. I start to believe them because I stop waiting for all those things. I stop waiting for someone to save me. I’m too busy helping save everyone else.

Now, on my seventeenth birthday, I step into the chapel where Sister Beatrice is replacing prayer candles. She looks up from her task and smiles at me.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything,” she replies.

I hesitate but only for a moment. “Do you ever regret becoming a nun?”

“No,” she says immediately. “Never.”

“Not even when life is hard?” I press.

“Especially not then.”

“But…” I frown, not having expected this response. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Sister Beatrice lights a candle before explaining. “Whitney, God doesn’t call us because we have all the answers. He calls on us because we have a purpose, and that call is often loudest in the dark.”

I glance around the chapel as I process her words. “And this is your purpose? Taking care of kids who aren’t yours, loving children who no one else loves?”

“I know it is.”

The certainty, the unwavering conviction in her voice, is fascinating. I don’t understand it, but I really wish I did.

Eighteen years old…

“Happy birthday, Whitney.”

I blow out the invisible candles on the invisible cake. Three years have passed since Ryan left, and this is the first birthday that he didn’t call. It shocked me the first time Sister Mary Jane told me he was on the phone, but his calls became a regular thing. That’s why, when they stopped eight months ago, I gave up.

At first, I was angry, hurt. He’d spent so much time and energy making me hate him, but other than the nuns, he’s the only person who was a constant in my life since I was five. When a week went by without a phone call, then two, then a month, my anger turned into worry.

The truth is, I’ve spent years pretending I wasn’t sure if God existed because it was easier to doubt His existence than admit I was angry with Him. Every seemingly unanswered prayer, every missed adoption, every birthday spent in a children’s home… I’d blamed God for it all.

But as months passed without a word from Ryan, I found myself praying anyway. I didn’t pray because I suddenly believed or had faith. I prayed because I was scared. I prayed because it’s what the nuns have always done when they’re scared.

I prayed because it’s all I knew and all I had left.

In those quiet moments, something began to shift inside me. Every important memory took place within these walls. Every scraped knee, every Christmas, every heartbreak and triumph… The nuns had been there. Father James had been there. And maybe, just maybe, God had been there too.

He’d been quiet and patient, but He’d been there, waiting for me to notice.

On the days when I wondered if I was all alone, God brought me the nuns and their unwavering love. In the hours when I questioned if anyone cared about me, he brought me the other children and their friendship. In the years that passed, I started to believe the world had turned its back on me. Instead, God brought me Ryan, who, despite being a negative Nancy, was always real with me, always cared in his own way.

“Whitney?”

I lift my head to see Sister Beatrice and Father James, and my stomach bottoms out. Father James is a staple at Sacred Haven, but he rarely shows his face in the girls’ wing, not unless something is wrong.

“What?” I ask, jumping to my feet. “What happened?”

Sister Beatrice opens her mouth and promptly closes it. She glances at Father James, and he gently rests a hand on her arm in a gesture of comfort before looking me in the eyes.

“It’s Ryan,” he says, his voice quiet.

“What about him?” I demand.