By Meg Pokrass

Sister Lilian tells you that she has a tear in her sock and that her big toe is not only cold, it is marble. “Poor circulation,” you say and wish to wrap an arm around her shoulders…She sighs, as if unhooking your invisible arm. “It’s frigid,” she says, shivering.

~

The two of you have been listening to the sound of cars honking like geese as you are tempted to park in a disabled zone. In many ways this is us, you say, and she almost smiles.You’ve driven into town for toilet paper, the monastery is out of supplies, and you’re the one with the driver’s license.

~

“He never said life was a bed of roses,” you remind yourself. You’ve been pacing again. Sometimes it feels as if Lilian has fallen from the moon. Some days her habit looks like a ruined flower. Some days she treats you like a wounded puppy. Some days you feel like her barely twinkling star.

~

When you love someone silently, nothing can hurt them. It’s not that different from praying. Something you’ve learned in this monastery if nothing else. Some rituals are meant to be handled alone: flossing teeth, walking in the mountains with headphones and an audio Bible. Wondering if you could warm the coldest bare skin.

~

And then one night, there she is standing next to your unstable cot, wearing a pair of Jupiter slippers. 

“What time is it?” you say. 

“What a strange thing to ask,” she replies, sliding in next to you. 

Her tears are freezing. “Bad eye circulation,” she says, the tips of her fingers so cold you’re scared, the cot rocking like an ill-advised ark.

When you kiss each other, it feels as if the Lord has actually risen. And when she rises from the unforgiving starch of your sheets, you know it was never your fault—the way this Angel of Love stands beside you in the chapel, flapping her impossible wings.