By Brynn Buchholz
Maria didn’t know how it happened, she just knew that one day the skin of her belly began to grow taut. She had been heaving during morning prayer, fainting before lunch. Her sisters were worried she was sick, but she insisted she was fine and even the nurse found nothing abnormal without taking Maria’s baggy habit off. She sent Maria off to rest up and Maria cried silently in her cell for hours.
She began to stuff her habit in the sixth month, so it looked like she was evenly gaining weight throughout her breasts and arms, and not just her stomach. Whispers and stares began to follow her, but she was ready to take accusations of sneaking a few extra portions more than she was to face what had actually been done. She buried her chin in the fat of her neck and walked about with slightly puffed-up cheeks, and her sisters were too kind to say much to her face.
The time came during evening prayer. She embarrassedly excused herself from the pew, the Mother Superior protesting at first but then quieting once she saw the wet spot on the back of her habit and the puddle on the pew. Maria apologized profusely and requested leave to the bathroom, which the Mother Superior granted.
Maria prayed harder than she ever had in that bathroom. She straddled the toilet for hours, biting her hair to not make a sound, almost breaking her teeth on themselves. She lapped up water from the sink to keep from fainting, and the floor was slick from her sweat. Several habits were cast upon the floor, the outermost one she was wearing and the ones that had been crumpled underneath. When she could finally feel him crowning, she took one of the habits and lined the toilet bowl with it, letting the water soak through to create a pool. He came out feet first, eyes wide open, and as if he knewhis mother faced, he didn’t cry.
Maria dropped to her knees and threw herself over the rim of the bowl, gazing into her son’s remarkably open eyes. He was already curiously looking around, resting calmly in the murky water. She took an edge of the habit that was hanging over the side, dipped it in the water and gently rubbed his crusted, red face. He had a thick mass of brown curly hair already on his head. Maria caressed one of his ringlets and twirled her own.
She pulled him out by grabbing the ends of the habit and swaddling him, afraid to touch him, like she’d leave fingerprints on him. She reached for the habit she’d been wearing as her outermost layer, felt the hard back of the torso where she’d sewn in a knife from the day she was on kitchen duty, and ripped it open. She had planned everything out from here. Everything was meticulous, methodical, and it had to go exactly right. But she hadn’t planned for the pit she felt in her stomach when the knife severed her from her son. She hadn’t planned for his steel blue eyes and gaping, peachy mouth. She had planned to wipe up every last drop of blood, to flush it all down the toilet, to leave him at the door, to forget it ever happened.
She carefully opened the window after putting on a habit and gracefully slithered out to the bushes and trees. She sat with her son in the pitch dark. She pulled branches off the trees and began to weave. She breastfed him. She felt more contractions, and buried the slimy sack and cord that came from them. When the dawn came, she placed him in the basket she had woven and kissed him on the forehead that she had cleaned as well as she could. She left him at the front door, and that was when he finally began to cry.
—
Before Maria’s waist began to grow, before the morning sickness and the urgent cravings, she had a simple life. She woke up, prayed, went off to her morning duties, prayed again, ate lunch in the dinner hall, prayed before heading off to afternoon duties, attended evening mass after dinner, retired to her cell, prayed, then went to bed. It was a strict life, everything was planned for her, everything needed to be done in a certain way. This was what she had left the world for.
She wasn’t even quite sure if she fully understood or believed in God. She just knew she preferred the idea that someone had laid out her life for her, that some man in the sky had made all her decisions and she only had to follow what he said. She didn’t mind the book full of rules because she didn’t have to be the one to write it.
The convent ran a soup kitchen, took donations from the rich churchgoers to redistribute to the poor, but most importantly to Maria, operated an orphanage. The orphanage was one of the few to accept both boys and girls, and was the absolute pride of the convent. The children that were taken in—that had otherwise been abandoned, neglected, or abused—flourished with the structure and routine enforced by the sisters. The days Maria was assigned to the orphanage were her favorite days, and she quickly gained a reputation of being one of the best caregivers in the convent.
After her first few years in the convent, she met Naomi. The long, dark habit they put her in when she arrived tried, but failed, to conceal her beauty. Her hazel eyes contained fiery orange flecks, her lips were perfectly rounded and peach, always upturned in a curious expression. The two caught each other’s eyes right away, having full conversations through glances between prayer, Maria’s cheeks blossoming into pink while Naomi’s perfect teeth peeked through her lips. It only took Naomi a few days of wordless exchanges to show up at Maria’s cell after bedtime.
Maria let Naomi come to her cell every night. She knew it was breaking the rules, but as good as God was at telling her what to do, Naomi was even better. She whispered in Maria’s ear exactly which spot to touch and exactly how to touch it, and Maria did exactly as she was told. When Naomi was finished, she always put her habit back on and left Maria in her cell, her lower belly throbbing.
One night, she showed up with the leg of an old chair she’d been told to discard earlier that day. It was smooth, sanded, and cut down to the size of her hand from her wrist to the tips of her long fingers. She laid Maria down on the bed and propped it up between her legs. Maria had never seen such pleasure in Naomi’s face, but her eyes were closed the whole time, as Maria laid there like a ragdoll. She finished and left quicker than ever, and Maria realized then, alone in her cell, that she had never felt any pleasure except for the burning between her legs when Naomi told her she’d done well.
“I want to feel it too,” Maria said the next time Naomi came to her cell and started to get undressed. Naomi quirked an eyebrow at her. “I know I am just a replacement of the real thing to you, and that’s fine by me, but God, every once in a while, I’d like to feel it too.”
Naomi dropped the habit she’d been in the middle of pulling off and moved closer to Maria.
“I think that’s the most words you’ve ever said to me.”
That night, the feeling in Maria’s lower belly that had been throbbing ever since she first saw Naomi burst like fireworks, like glass shattering into a million glinting pieces all over her cell. They curled up in Maria’s bed together and talked about life and death and love, their naked bodies melting into each other’s.
“You’re not a replacement, Maria. You are the real thing.”
—
was the one who found Maria’s son on the front steps of the orphanage. He was swiftly taken in, washed up, fed, swaddled, and set in one of the open cribs in the nursery. It was not uncommon for newborns to show up at the door of the orphanage, but it was always a hassle when they did. The Mother Superior would have to go to the county and get papers for the poor thing, make sure there were no missing children that fit the description to ensure the convent wouldn’t be tied up in a legal battle over the baby. Candace was like Maria in that way, careful and calculated. She was unlike Maria in that she had always loved to be in charge.
One of the caregivers on duty leaned over the crib and admired the boy’s wide and curious eyes. The Mother Superior joined her, bending over to pick up the baby and cradle him in her arms. He looked around at the painted walls, the warm lamps in the corners of the room, the rolling fields and forests through the window.
“Do you have a name for him yet, Mother Superior?”
“I’m thinking Ezra,” Candace replied, twirling a lock of his brown curls around her finger. “But I’m going to ask Maria what she thinks as well.”
—
In the weeks after Maria gave birth, she began to slowly shed the extra habits beneath her outermost layer as she returned to her normal weight. She took long cold showers to relieve her painfully engorged breasts. She did not even see her son again for a month, until she was assigned to the nursery one day. Her heart was sliced in two when she saw how much he’d already grown.
The Mother Superior came in through the large oak double doors, closing them gently behind her to not disturb the sleeping babies. Maria’s son was wide awake, his eyes fixated on the crinkles in Maria’s forehead. The caregivers were not put off but surprised by the Mother Superior’s visit. Maria took deep breaths to slow the quick pace of her heart.
“Maria, I see you’ve finally met our newest newborn.” Candace came up behind Maria and placed a soft hand on her shoulder.
“He’s beautiful,” Maria said, nodding. She didn’t look up at the Mother but kept focusing on her son’s face, taking in every little detail she could. A small freckle beneath his nose. A soft crease below his mouth. “What is his name?”
Candace rubbed his cheek with her thumb. “Ezra, I think. As long as that sounds good to you?”
Maria broke her concentration on her son’s face and looked up at the Mother Superior. Candace held both faces in her hands, studying the boy’s unique expression and Maria’s wide, terrified eyes. She watched Maria’s lower lip begin to tremble in exactly the same way she’d seen the boy’s do. She hushed Maria and leaned in close to her ear.
“I don’t know how this baby showed up on our doorstep, all I know is that we are to take care of him. If his mother never comes forward, then that is that. There is nothing I can do.”
Maria squeezed her eyes shut but tears poured out of them anyway. The Mother squeezed her hand, and Maria composed herself.
“Ezra sounds like a perfect name to me.”
—
Three months after Naomi had first come to Maria’s cell, Maria began to feel sick in the mornings.
She couldn’t take a test, or go to an obstetrician, but she had a small feeling in her gut—a seed had planted, a tick had latched on. She didn’t know how it was possible, which was why she ignored it for so long—until Naomi started to notice she wasn’t bleeding anymore.
“I’ve always had irregular periods,” Maria said when she asked. It wasn’t true, Maria’s monthly had always been as timely as she was; but it was enough to keep Naomi coming for a few more weeks. The stretch marks, she couldn’t ignore.
Naomi came to Maria’s cell one night with shaky hands and a dark expression. She didn’t reply when Maria asked what was wrong; her jaw only clenched slightly and then went slack. Blood dripped to the floor from the sleeve of her habit. Her eyes rolled back, and Maria lunged to catch her, but failed, as her body crumpled to the ground.
It was the second time Maria had been outside the convent since she’d committed herself, sitting in the back of an ambulance with Naomi and the Mother Superior. The paramedics were bandaging up Naomi’s arms, pumping fluid through her veins. The Mother Superior was clinging to her rosary, whispering prayers with her eyes shut tight.
The first time had been one year into her residency at the convent. In the middle of the night, she had run through the rolling fields and patches of forest to the nearest town. She hid at the edges of the forest, peeking through the foliage at shop windows and brick houses. She had nothing, but she could find a way to make it back, back to the house she grew up in where her mother and father now lived alone, back to her perfectly decent job that she had just up and left with no explanation. She wasn’t trapped, she was free, and she could do anything she wanted. She could knock on doors until she found someone kind enough to offer a map, or a bed to sleep in, or a few dollars for the train, she was a nun for God’s sake. Who wouldn’t help a nun? Who would leave her out there in nothing but her veil and silver cross?
But Maria had dragged herself back to the convent and never looked back. She couldn’t stand the idea of leaving, couldn’t even decide which door to knock on first, and so was reminded of the reasons she belonged tucked away in an old building in the middle of nowhere taking care of lost and forgotten children.
In the hospital, Maria cried while the Mother Superior prayed. The doctors let them see her once she was conscious again, though she was barely so. When Maria entered the room, Naomi’s drowsy eyes immediately found her. Her mouth was open like she was trying to say something, but her tongue was just lolling around, nothing but hoarse air escaping her lips. Maria slowly approached the side of Naomi’s bed and took her hand, gently moving it to caress her protruding belly. A small tear fell down Naomi’s cheek and landed on the shoulder of her pale blue hospital gown as she relaxed. Maria kissed her on the forehead and whispered gentle things in her ear.
The Mother Superior came to escort her out shortly after.
“Well, I could stick around to officially let her go, but I feel it is unsaid that she’ll be needing to stay here for a while. I can do the paperwork soon.”
Maria nodded.
“Let’s hope she gets the help she needs.”
Maria and the Mother Superior returned to the convent as the daylight was breaking. Maria looked across the fields she had once desperately run through and wondered if she’d ever see Naomi again. The Mother Superior held open the looming double doors, which closed swiftly and quietly behind Maria, sealing her in.
—
Ezra grew up quickly and perfectly. He was well-mannered, emotionally sensitive, and loved by all the caregivers. Maria felt in her heart a mangled mess of pride and jealousy. He was the perfect boy, and he was hers, but he didn’t know her from the next sister that also fed him and clothed him and taught him math.
10 years after Maria had given birth to her son, she attended evening mass with a heavy heart. It was the night they were having a service for the older boys in the orphanage who were being transferred to the monastery in the morning. She picked Ezra out in the lineup right away—his thickening brown curls, his awkward little frame. He was holding his chin up in a way that she knew meant that he was so proud, but fidgeting his hands in a way that she knew he was terribly nervous.
The Mother Superior, , stood at the podium and introduced each of the boys, highlighting their achievements in a slow, drawling voice. Ezra was listening intently, as he had since he’d been born. His wide, curious eyes hadn’t changed since the day he plopped into a toilet, covered in blood and mucus. Maria chuckled to herself slightly, wiping a tear away with her hand.
She pictured Ezra’s future, the one that she had for him; a future just like hers, full of routine and prayer. But there was another future in her head that had been there for 10 years, a future where she ran across those rolling fields again, this time with her son in her arms, a future she now realized Candace offered her all those years ago. If his mother never comes forward, then that is that. There is nothing I can do.
“If anyone has any reason any of these boys should not continue in their faithful devotion, speak now or forever hold your peace!”
Maria stood up. The boys looked confused, the sisters horrified. She made her way to the podium and Ginna, bewildered, backed out of her way. Maria looked out into the crowd of nuns with gaping mouths, then to her son, the peach of his lips and the glint in his eye, then to the podium. She opened her mouth and stood there like a fish, opening her mouth and closing it back up, opening it, then closing it.
