8
A year passed with Willow and I spending weekends at Farthest House. Julian came on Sunday evenings to get her for the week and gradually overcame his aversion to stepping inside. Often, he sat at the table over a plate of Mable’s cookies, conversing with his sister and mother. An outsider might have watched them and believed everything was good.
That spring, Willow stood on the school playground of Our Lady of Supplication, Sister Dominic Agnes at her side. She watched her classmates form a circle, one child skipping around the outside of the others, deciding at whose heels to drop a scarf. For the fourth day, the nun hadn’t let her join in, and for the fourth day, the nun was angry.
Sister Dominic Agnes’s immaculate white habit hissed, and the beads of her long rosary, hanging from
