Chapter Eight
“Sister Una is in the gardens,” the young nun said to me in a voice that was barely above a whisper. She wore a coif that reminded me of an origami bird. The hat folded into a triangle over her forehead and the tips stuck out at the side like wings. Her Spanish cant told me she was from poverty.
In the early days of convents, the Church only accepted girls from wealthy families. These girls came with dowries that would be passed on to the Church. Sometimes the girls who came were young women with babes in arms. Other times, they were widows who chose to live a quiet life of service after the deaths of their husbands. In the old times, a convent was rarely a woman’s first choice.
This morning, there had been only a few sisters about the halls in the worn-down building. Desc
