"A Ship Run Aground" is Robert Miller's second consecutive contribution to the annual short story anthology The Event ... A streak Bob maintains to this day. In this chapter, we reach the thrilling conclusion to the tale.
A SHIP RUN AGROUND
Robert S. Miller
Chapter 4
IV. Concluding Rites
On a Saturday close to a month later, I drove from Los Angeles to the San Pedro Mission in my government-owned car. But before I could even get out of the vehicle, I saw Sister Dorothy approaching. She was walking a dog. Dorothy was wearing her habit without the coif. She walked right up to my vehicle like I had already told her I was arriving. I got out of the car and she let go of the leash and gave me an embrace. “I knew you’d eventually come to visit.”
I looked down at the black dog who sat obediently by Dorothy. The dog looked somehow familiar. “Don’t you recognize him? It’s Sonny Boy. Winthrop’s dog.”
“How did you get to know Winthrop?” I said surprised.
“I went to see him as a favor to Captain Johnson. He was worried about his pets, so I promised him I’d find out how they were. Winthrop’s now out on a three-day fishing trip, so I volunteered to look after the critters. Winthrop must trust me because he would never leave Sonny Boy and Gale with just anyone.”
My team had questioned Captain Johnson during the past month on just about everything. I believe he told us everything he knew. He gave us a large amount of detail regarding the names and locations of the drug runners and drug lords as well as other information. Yet, outside of the drug runners arrested in San Francisco, we were unable to locate any of the other passengers on the boat. I believe Captain Johnson did not know where any of those passengers were. I believe that the only person who had that information was Dorothy. We set Captain Johnson up and took him to an undisclosed location where he could live in anonymity. And the Khan Hao, the boat that so magically appeared in the harbor, was now going through disassembly for scrap.
Dorothy picked up the dog’s leash. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll show you my apartment. You’ve seen about everything else on this mission other than that.”
“Are men allowed into the room?”
“We’ll keep the door ajar.”
As we walked towards the building where she lived, Dorothy commented upon the weather. The weather was mild and the temperatures were right around sixty degrees – fairly typical for this time of year.
I asked her about Juan and his family and she said they were doing well. “I don’t suppose you would be willing to tell me where they are at.”
Dorothy shook her head. “You were the one who instructed me not to tell anyone that information.”
“And you’ve done a very good job of keeping it quiet. When I first met you, I thought you were going to be a blabbermouth.”
Dorothy turned towards me. “Well, we both misjudged each other when we first met. But we turned out to be a pretty good team.”
It took about five minutes to walk over to the building where she lived. We walked up to the upper floor where she stopped and opened the door. The door was unlocked. “Let me put Sonny Boy in his kennel before you come in. There’s not a lot of room to move around.” Dorothy went inside with the dog. I heard her open the kennel door and then apparently give the dog some treats. The dog was well behaved. Then Dorothy invited me in.
She was right about the apartment being small. It was smaller than most college dormitory rooms, but her apartment probably contained all of the worldly possessions she had. The room faced the mountains east of the mission. There was a cross which was mounted to the wall, and I figured there were other crosses just like this one in other rooms throughout the building. In the corner of the room was a small table. On top of the table were a number of framed photos. There were also a few books lying on the floor underneath the table. On the other side of the room was a small desk with a chair. I sat down on the chair while Dorothy sat down on the side of the cot she slept on. “Do you like living here?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I have here everything I suppose I need. I have all of these photos of my family and friends.” She gestured towards the table. “I read the Bible or Shakespeare or other poets. I enjoy reading, and the library here at the mission is one of the best in the world. Sometimes I even read a steamy romance. But I’m also torn. I love this cloistered world. And I also love the world out there.”
“You mean the world where Tommy lives?”
She smiled sadly. “Poor Tommy! He’s struggling now that he’s got to find another job.”
“He was fortunate the judge went light on him. He could have been charged with assaulting a federal officer.”
Dorothy nodded her head thoughtfully and her dark red hair shone. “When Tommy got out of jail, I told him I was thinking about leaving the order. And without hesitation, he asked me to marry him. Can you imagine that? I can see how that would work out. The marriage would probably last a year.”
I was surprised at what she said. At first I was thinking she was contemplating leaving the order so that she could be with Tommy.
“I wouldn’t be willing to give up one set of vows to take up another set this soon,” she explained. “I haven’t been successful with the set of vows I’ve already taken. I’d probably be less successful with a new set. Besides, I have a feeling Tommy is even more likely to stray than I would. I’m not the only girl he’s ever taken for a ride on his motorcycle.”
“But Tommy told me he was the first man you’d ever been with.”
“That would be like Tommy all right. When he gets sentimental, his thought process goes away. He was not the first nor the last.”
I noticed that she still did not have a ring on her finger. Perhaps she could not commit herself to any person or institution. Or maybe with her past, she felt unworthy of being in the order. Yet with all that was going on in the church, she was what the organization required. “You just saved five people’s lives. On the scale of holiness, doesn’t that count for more than a few broken vows?”
“Perhaps. But it’s not the vows that are the problem. The problem is me. I took those vows knowing there was a good chance that I would break them. I’m not sure I can continue doing that.” She was looking down while she said this. “And I’m also almost forty which makes me have to think about other things. Do I want to go the rest of my life and never have a child of my own? As a woman, I have to make that decision quick enough.”
I didn’t feel qualified to make that choice for her.
“Can I tell you something personal?” she asked. “You’re the only I would share this with.”
I nodded my head.
“I took the vows when I was a young, promiscuous and drug-addicted girl. I was barely a teenager when I was with my first boy. And with my friends back in school, we used to smoke pot three or four times a day. I’d pop practically any pill they gave me. I thought taking the vows could bring an end to that lifestyle. That somehow joining a convent would just wipe that all away.” She shook her head. “So in the beginning, I stuck with the vows all of three months or so. And then I met Tommy. Mother Superior Agnes is the only one at the mission who ever knew about Tommy, and she was approaching eighty at the time. And soon something else happened. I ended up carrying Tommy’s child. Tommy never found out because I lost the child before it ever became obvious that I was pregnant. It was Mother Agnes who nursed me back to health and helped me when I really needed help. She kept everything I did from the priests. God bless her, she took my secrets with her to the grave.”
I was thinking about Tommy as she told me this. “How come you never told him?”
“I thought maybe I’d break Tommy’s heart if he did find out.”
Just then a neighboring nun interrupted us to ask Dorothy a favor. But when the nun saw me in the room she said: “Pardon me, I didn’t know you had company. I’ll let you and the gentleman friend alone.”
Dorothy stood up from her cot. “Just one moment,” Dorothy said to me. Dorothy then went out into the hallway and I could hear her and the other nun discussing some sort of nun business. In the meantime, I looked at the pictures she had on the table. There was a picture of Tommy from about twenty years ago with hair down to his shoulders. There was a picture of a nun who I assumed was Mother Agnes. And there was a picture of a gaunt and scared looking girl who might have been in high school or her early college years. I took the picture off of the table to examine it more closely. It was Dorothy all right, but nobody looking at this picture could ever know she would become the person she was today. This was a picture of a suffering and lost girl.
Dorothy came back into the room.
“So how did you come to be at this mission?”
“Nobody was ever sure where to place me. They try to keep me away from the local parishes because they’re afraid I’ll drink up all of the communion wine.”
I didn’t like it when she talked about herself like that. “You know you joke a lot about drinking and using drugs,” I said, putting the picture back. “But it seems like it might really have been a problem for you. How long have you really been straight? I mean, off of booze and drugs.”
“Ten years. I joke because in the minds of some people, there is no such thing as redemption. That I took the drugs even once makes me unworthy. Besides, it keeps me humble to remind myself that I was once a pot-smoking nun.”
I didn’t mention my own tendency to be judgmental. “And how long have you gone without men?”
“Less than ten years,” she said. She looked towards the doorway. “And don’t worry about the nun next door. She’s only mildly suspicious about you being here.”
I picked up the picture of Mother Agnes. “So do you feel you owe Mother Agnes something by staying with the order?”
Dorothy shook her head. “No! I owe Mother Agnes a great deal of gratitude, there is no doubt about that. But I’m not sure if it would be better to show her that gratitude by remaining a nun, or to show that gratitude by really living in what we call this outside world and not hiding in a convent.” I wanted to tell her she was being unjust towards herself, but she continued before I had a chance. “Being a nun is not quite the same as what you do in your line of work. You’re a practical person and you understand how to get things done. I live in a cloister and dream up schemes to make the world better. We have a world run by men that is flawed and it needs both practical people and dreamers. Not preaching to people or condemning people or keeping people out – government and church alike – but caring for people whoever they may be.”
I set the picture of Agnes back on the table, but pointed at it. “That’s a wonderful picture of her.”
“She was a wonderful person.”
I sat back down on the chair. Dorothy remained standing for a moment. “Mike?” she said. The way she said that got my attention. It was the first time she called me by my first name. “Mike, why did you help me? It wasn’t my idea to get you involved. It was Tommy’s. For whatever reason, I trusted him to make the right decision. And he did … very much in typical Tommy fashion. But I’m still curious why you helped.”
“I don’t know. Maybe for the same reason Tommy wanted to help you.”
Dorothy sat back down on the cot. “I like that reason. And it’s very sweet of you to say so. Though it’s not quite consistent with your character.”
She looked at me and smirked.
“So Tommy tells me you’re an atheist. I guess I judged you on that without walking a mile in your moccasins. And believe me, I don’t want to reform you or convert you. I’m just curious … about this unusual and handsome man in my apartment.” She hesitated before continuing. “In school, I was told by the nuns that atheists went to hell. It did not sound like it was a pleasant place. But as I have all of my life, I always got my lessons backwards. Rather than make me condemn them, what the nuns described to me made me feel sorry for the atheists. I was a child at the time and not old enough to contradict the sisters. But think about how much we learned as a child that was wrong. And now grown up, I still think the nuns were wrong about so many things – about atheists, gays, Muslims, immigrants and everyone else being sent to hell.” I think she threw the reference to immigrants in there to make a point.
“You don’t believe in hell?”
“Not in their hell.”
I looked around her room in all of its simplicity. But she was anything but a simple person. “Is my opinion worth hearing when it comes to these matters?” I asked.
“I would welcome your opinion. I need something better to scandalize the other nuns with besides just having a man in my apartment. So please go ahead,” she commented while gesturing with her right hand for me to speak.
“Okay. I’ll try not to go on too long. While I do understand your point, I don’t know one way or the other whether the nuns were wrong. But I believe in hell. I saw a great deal during my tours of duty that made me doubt a lot of things, but it didn’t make me doubt the existence of hell. When I headed up a helicopter crew, we carried wounded away from battle. I had nothing to complain about. Things went pretty well for me as far as life goes and I was luckier than many of my fellow soldiers. I didn’t have to die in battle.”
“I’m sorry about the things you’ve seen,” she replied.
“I am, too,” I answered. “A long time ago, probably before I was an adult,” I continued, “I heard something about the subject of hell. Wasn’t it John Paul the Second who said something about hell being a place where God is absent?”
Dorothy looked impressed. “You’ve got a good memory. But I have a corollary to that from an atheist named Freud. Freud talked about this unconscious. Wild things happen there – and maybe the unconscious is a place inside of us where God sometimes resides. Maybe even in an atheist. And though we don’t know He is there, God is there for us – maybe nudges us in the right directions.” The sadness that was on her face when talking about her earlier years now changed to a look of serenity. “I can’t see you in hell. Please don’t forget that – with your package of documents and your advice to me and that practical atheist brain of yours – you helped save five lives every bit as much as I did. Maybe that was God moving you in the right direction.”
I thought about what she said. It seemed totally wise and too impossible for someone like me to believe.
As usual, Dorothy was able to read my thoughts. “Listen, my skeptic, I think I can prove my point. See Sonny Boy in his kennel just anxious to go for another walk? Or Gale purring away while taking a restful nap? I see the two of them and I have to believe God is with them as much as anyone else. They’re just not conscious of God’s presence in the same way as people. Or if they are conscious about it, they’re smart enough not to let on about it like us human beings.”
All of this talk about God and hell was going over my head, so I decided to change the topic. “Do you have any idea what Tommy is thinking about doing? I’m not sure when he will ever talk to me again.”
“Yes,” Dorothy said with sudden distaste. “He’s thinking of becoming a professional wrestler. I hate the idea! I couldn’t stand to see a crowd booing him.”
“Well, he’s certainly big and strong enough. And he will make some good money.” There was no reason for me to be surprised. Tommy had to do something. Since he assaulted a federal agent, even I could not get him his job back with the government again. “Have you ever been to a wrestling match before? I know it’s a far cry from what goes on here at the mission, but it gives some people entertainment.”
Dorothy leaned forward on the cot like what she was to say she didn’t want anyone else hearing. “I have a secret, but you can’t tell anyone.” I nodded my head in agreement. “Mother Agnes and I watched many wrestling bouts together on television, and we even went to a few matches. We’d wear our habits to the wrestling matches, and we’d get in arguments with the referees about how the bad guys cheated. The crowds loved it! Two nuns arguing with a referee! Sometimes it seemed like Mother Agnes almost believed the wrestling was real, so I’d humor her about it. I still watch matches almost every Saturday night. I think about Mother Agnes every time I do so. And I really miss her.”
I looked at her for a moment. I was thinking about what other surprises she might still reveal to me. “Sister Dorothy Mallory, where does all of this kindness and good humor come from? You have the softest heart of anyone I’ve ever known. I hope that never changes.”
“Thank you. Coming from you, that means a great deal,” she replied quietly. “Especially since I’ve developed a crush on you.”
I tried to respond casually. “Well, if you do leave the order, next time I visit we’re not leaving that door ajar.”
Dorothy blushed. “I’m tempted to close it right now, but poor Sonny Boy and Gale probably couldn’t stand the noise.”
I stood up from the chair because I couldn’t follow up on that remark. “I hope you come to the right decision, whatever that decision may be,” I said to her. “If I wasn’t an atheist, I’d pray that you find guidance.”
“Well, then in an incredibly real sense that prayer has already been sent.” She stood up and put her arms around me. “And I mean it about having a crush on you.” She then gave me a quick kiss on the lips.
I knew I had to leave out of respect for her. We couldn’t keep on talking about her breaking the vows without her at some point actually breaking her vows.
Dorothy made a comment about escorting me to my car, but I told her that I would see myself out. I said I wanted to keep the memory of that kiss fresh in my mind. That made her laugh. But I told her I would be back again.
I walked out of the building in the same way I came in. Once outside, I decided to take one last look at the church before leaving. Yet on the way back towards the church, something strange happened. I was walking by the seminary building where I first met Dorothy and I heard some children laughing. At first I didn’t think anything of it, but then I realized the children were talking in Spanish.
That can’t be possible, I thought to myself.
I made my way around the building in the direction from where I heard the laughter. I peaked around the corner and noticed there was a patio adjacent to the rear-side of the building. And sure enough, on the grass next to the patio were Sofia and Eduardo playing catch with a small rubber ball. On the patio was Maria standing and watching the children. She was wearing a red dress and was now and then shouting encouragement to the children. And sitting on a chair was Juan covered by a blanket. He was likely still recuperating from his injuries. My guess was that at the time of the search he was not in a condition to travel anywhere. Maybe he still could not travel. Yet he now seemed well enough to enjoy watching the children play. It was Maria who appeared concerned about his health.
“Juan,” Maria said. “Si tú estas cansado, yo te puedo ayudar a volver adentro.”
“Yo he estado adentro por más de un mes,” Juan replied stubbornly. “En estos momentos lo mejor para mi es ver los niños jugar.”
“Okay, okay. Pero no me pidas que te saque afuera como lo he hecho por el pasado mes si tienes una recaida.”
They spoke to each other with the casual good humor of a couple married for a long time. It was the first time I had a chance to see the two parents during the light of day. But I could not figure out how they could still be at the mission.
I tried to remember every detail concerning the search of the mission. The search was probably as thorough as any search could be, yet I realized there was one place on the mission that probably only received a cursory viewing. That was Dorothy’s apartment.
That I even thought it a remote possibility made me question my own judgment. The family could not have hid there because the apartment was about the size of a small kitchen. I concluded that there were probably some other secret passages or storage units I did not know about that the family used to hide. Still, I could not get the idea of them hiding in Dorothy’s apartment out of my imagination. I pictured the agents intimidated by a small but intrepid nun at the doorway.
I watched the children playing outside for a couple of more minutes. The family of four was still at the mission and spending their time together – like every other family in America should be doing on a Saturday afternoon. How would it be possible for anyone with a heart to send this family back to a place where they might be in danger? Especially if the person who had to make the decision was Dorothy?
While walking back to my car I took one last look at the entryway to the church, trying to memorize every detail. Yet as impressive as the structure was, it was not nearly as impressive as what I just seen. I got into my car and drove away from the mission.
While walking back to my car I took one last look at the entryway to the church while trying to memorize every detail. Yet as impressive as the structure was, it was not nearly as impressive as what I just seen. I then got into my car and drove away from the mission. On the way back to Los Angeles, I drove along the impressive and craggy coast of the Pacific Ocean. Down the windy roads, it was often difficult to view all there was to see while at the same time not drive off of a cliff. But when I did have the time to view the rock, it took on a reddish hue due to the late afternoon sun. I probably could have made better time by driving 101, the main California expressway. I chose instead to drive as closely to the oceanfront as possible.
**
"A Ship Run Aground" can be read in its entirety in The Event: Iron Bay, available from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Event-Iron-Bay-Steve-Metcalf/dp/1719024286
Blog cover photo by albertoamaretto from Pixabay
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