The 39-Year-Old Virgin

She rattled off the names of several small countries, some of which had already changed their name again. “Africa, for the most part,” she added, since that was the easiest way to keep track.

He could have easily made the yellow light up ahead before it turned red, but instead, he eased his foot off the gas pedal, switching to the brake. The vehicle slowly came to a stop.

The moment that it did, Caleb turned to look at her in sheer awe, her words playing themselves over in his head. Try as he might, he couldn’t picture her braving the elements, going from village to village, dispensing hope and medicine. It was difficult enough picturing her in the traditional garb of a Dominican Sister, swaddled from head to foot in black with white contrasts and roasting beneath the hot, merciless sun.

He couldn’t have explained why, but he was suddenly glad that was all behind her.

Very little really surprised him. Somewhere along the line, between his work and Jane’s death, he’d lost the ability to be amazed. But this came close.

“You went to Africa?” he finally asked. “On your own?”

Being in Africa for all those long periods of time had a great deal to do with who she’d been and who she had become. “Yes, why?”

He shrugged. The light turned green and they continued on their way. “I just thought you were in some cloistered place, far away from everyone.” Like Rapunzel in the tower, he remembered thinking. He’d been baptized Catholic at birth, but neither he nor his parents before him had ever really taken an active part in any organized religion. And Jane had been a free spirit, embracing everything, singling out nothing. His image of what nuns actually did was very limited. “Fingering your beads and praying.”

Someone else might have taken offense at the near flippant way he regarded those who had dedicated themselves to the religious life, but she knew he didn’t mean to sound belittling. Something else was going on, something he tried to keep buried. Maybe it had to do with his line of work. She’d known more than one burned-out police officer.

“Praying was a large part of it,” she acknowledged, “but God helps those who help themselves. In my case, I was the one doing the helping.”

“In Africa,” he repeated, the slightest trace of wonder creeping into his voice.

“That’s right.”

Caleb thought about some of the articles he’d read in the newspaper and heard on the news over the years. Stories about wars between African factions and atrocities that were committed. “Were you ever in any danger?”

She inclined her head. “At times.” Her tone made light of the admission. She’d never been the type to seek the spotlight for its own sake, only as a necessary evil when focusing on raising funds to buy the simplest of supplies for the villages she went to. “One of the biggest dangers I faced was finding someplace to wash that didn’t have a hippo in it. They’re not the docile creatures everyone thinks they are. They can get pretty nasty. Makes you see the world in a different light and makes you truly grateful for the simplest modern convenience.” She grinned. “Like toilet paper.”

He listened quietly. When she paused, he commented, “I can see why you’d want to leave that.”

He’d misunderstood her meaning, she thought. “I never minded the harsh conditions. It was a small price to pay for being able to help people, to do some good for those less fortunate. Some of the things I’ve seen could break your heart,” she said with a heartfelt sigh. “I might even opt to go back someday.”

He frowned. Was she having a change of heart? “Then you think you’ll reenlist?”

“Reenlist?” she echoed, amused by the term.

He made a sharp left. She caught herself leaning into him. “As a nun.”

“Anything’s possible,” she allowed. “But at this point, I don’t really think I’m going to ‘reenlist’ in the order. Besides, my being part of a religious order was neither a plus nor a minus when it came to the work I was doing in Africa. I can just as easily go back there as a civilian.”

In some ways, she added silently, it might even be easier that way. They wouldn’t be turning to her, expecting answers to the questions that troubled their souls. Because she didn’t feel as if she had the answers any longer. If anything, she shared their questions.

“Do you want to?” he asked bluntly.

Claire pressed her lips together, suppressing a sigh as Caleb drove down the street that led to the far-side entrance to her development.

“I’m not sure what I want right now,” Claire told him honestly. “Other than doing whatever’s necessary to make sure my mother gets well.”

“What does she have?”

The word all but burned on her tongue as she said it. “She has acute leukemia. It seems that she’s had it for a while now, but I just found out recently.”

He wasn’t all that familiar with the ramifications of the disease, but he knew it wasn’t anything good. “I’m sorry.”

She appreciated his sentiment, but she wasn’t going to let dark thoughts get the better of her. She was here to raise her mother’s spirits and do anything else she could for her, not to let her own spirits drag her down.

“It’s not necessarily a death sentence,” she told him. She’d done her homework. “There’ve been plenty of people who have had long remissions.”

He made another right turn, slowing his pace down to twenty miles an hour, then spared her a glance. “You’re still an optimist, even after working in third-world countries?”

Despite working in third-world countries, she corrected silently.

Working in Africa was what had started the ball rolling to her ultimately leaving the order. Ever since she’d been a child she’d been taught that God wasn’t to be questioned, that His ways weren’t to be measured by the same rules as those that were applied to the people He’d created.

But, try as she might, she just couldn’t help herself. Couldn’t completely lock away the horror and the feeling of disappointment she’d experienced, and kept experiencing, whenever she thought of all the children who had died of the plague in that one village. All the children she hadn’t been able to help.

She’d been sent there, she’d really believed, to act as an instrument of God—and still she couldn’t save them, couldn’t help.

Because He hadn’t helped.

These were all thoughts she couldn’t voice, couldn’t even find any relief by talking about to the people who could give her some insight into the matter. She knew she would be told she was being blasphemous. And maybe she was, but she couldn’t just accept that, in some way, God couldn’t be held accountable for all those young lives that had been cut so short.

Caleb glanced at her again and she realized that he was waiting for her to say something.

“Not as much of an optimist as I once was,” she finally replied, saying each word carefully.

“But you still are one,” he pointed out.

She supposed that was what kept her going, what made her still think that what she did made a difference in the grand scheme of things. “Yes.”

“Why?”

The single word was razor sharp. Was he challenging her? Or was he somehow asking her to give him an explanation so that he could find his way to optimism himself?

She did her best to make him understand. “Because without optimism, we can’t go on. Optimism is just hope dressed up in formal clothes. And without hope, the soul has nothing to cling to, the spirit dies.”

Caleb laughed shortly. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

Claire eyed this familiar stranger who’d reentered her life after all these years. His profile had gone rigid, as if he’d suddenly realized he’d just let something slip that wasn’t supposed to be exposed. Her need to help, to comfort, to make things better, surfaced instantly.

“Maybe you can tell me,” she coaxed.

“Sisters can hear confessions now?” Caleb said to her flippantly.

“Is it something you need to confess, Caleb?” she asked gently.

This was getting far too personal. He didn’t want her digging around in his life, even if her intentions were altruistic. “Just a play on words, Claire. I don’t have anything to confess.”

She regarded him for a long moment. “That would make you a minority of one.”