"My goodness."

"Don't make fun of me," she says.

I'm startled. I have been imagining this whole time that she was making fun of me. I a.s.sumed we were speaking to each other in the same way my sisters and I always did - the hostility frothing up around the edges of our every sentence like sc.u.m on soup. We could spend entire holidays in a single house together, talking to each other like that, without a second thought, like picking and picking at your cuticles and being surprised when they start to ache and bleed.

We sit in dull silence for a moment or two.

"Can you bring me communion sometime?" Catherine asks.

"Would you take it?" I say, surprised again.

"Of course I would take it. It's all I would take. The Body. I will have the Body."

Well, I'm thinking, maybe we could sneak some peanut b.u.t.ter on there or some such thing.

"There's a priest who makes the rounds," I tell her. "I can bring him this week."

Catherine makes a face and writhes bonily under her sheet. "He's old!" she protests. "I don't want him."

It's difficult to hide my exasperation but I do because won't Hilary eat her hat if I'm the one to get this girl to swallow something of her own accord. Dr. Pat will wonder what they're paying her for.

"Well, you know I can't do it, Catherine," I say.

"Will you be there at least?"

My. I blink down at her. Am I touched?

"Of course," I tell her.

"Will the doctor be there?"

What to say about that? I suppose he will, if I tell him what's happening.

"What do you need the doctor for, to check your pulse?" I joke. "You plan on keeling over?"

"Don't make fun of me!" she yells.

I hurry down the hallway to find him, but run into Hilary instead. She stops dead in her tracks because, I realize, I'm smiling at her. Differently than I did in the office, I a.s.sume. She unruffles herself and c.o.c.ks her head at me like a bird.

"She's going to eat something," I blurt.

Hilary blinks and blinks.

"She's going to take communion."

"Kah," says Hilary.

"Communion. The sacrament."

She keeps her bird-expression for a while. Bird-flown-into-a-window. Finally: "Oh," and exhales. "It's not much," she adds.

"Well, I was thinking we could . . ." I look down and witness my hands darting around in front of me. "Bulk it up somehow."

Hilary nods slowly, the fluorescent lighting playing across her wiry red hair. "Sister," she begins. No more blinking. "It's a very good start. But of course you see the problem. Again, it's all about religion for her. It's symbolic. It's not about eating."

"Well, it is, because she'll actually be eating something."

"Yes of course, but we're, we're, what we're trying to do is break down some of these psychological barriers. It has to mean something when she takes a bite - to Catherine. It has to mean she wants to eat. Do you see what I mean? It can't just mean more of the same thing - I want G.o.d, I want G.o.d, I don't want food. She has to want food, you see? For food's sake."

"For food's sake," I repeat, hands still.

She nods, smiles. I smile as well.

"Well, I think we should ask the doctor," I say as I move around Hilary. She follows me to his office without a word.

In a moment of what I am certain must have been boredom, Catherine once asked me why I became a nun. I asked did she want the long version or the short version.

"Short version," the thing replied. Not a moment's hesitation.

The short version was this. I was nineteen and sitting having a beer in the sun with my friend Dell Mercer. She was not my best friend or even a particularly good friend, but more one of those inevitable friends - someone you've known since preschool who is as much of a fixture in your life as a parent or a pet. In fact I remember it was Grade two when Dell decided she wanted people to call her Dell instead of Adela. I was the reason. She thought it sounded too much like my name. But was she sorry by Grade Three, because everyone started chanting "The Farmer in the Dell" at her in the playground, and I think she blamed me for it right up until Grade Seven or so.

But since this was the short version, I didn't tell Catherine all that.

I just told her I was nineteen and sitting having a beer in the sun with my friend Dell Mercer. It was summer and we were both home from school - she nursing, me teaching. We were in her parents' backyard overlooking the wharf, watching tourists bob around in their sailboats, and she announced she was getting married. I squealed and pretended to fumble my beer and did and said all the things girls are supposed to on these occasions. Of course I asked to see her ring.

Dell told me, "We haven't got it yet. Terry's got to save up for a while. I want a real rock. I've always had nice things, and you only get married once, so I feel like I deserve a real rock. I've waited a long time to get married. So I told him, Terry, I want a rock. Nothing else will stand."

She kept saying, rock. A real rock, over and over. Beer in the sun, sun on the water, water under sailboats. I thought I think I'll be a nun after that.

Catherine of course could be counted upon to find this story idiotic.

I didn't tell her my secret reason. The other, the story of the rock, was my official reason, and it's true that Dell going on and on like that very much clinched the deal for me. But there was another story I'd never tell Catherine. It happened when I was her age, wandering around in the fields at my grandparents' place in Margaree. It was summer then also, but late, long-shadowed and hot. No ocean nearby with a breeze off the water to cool things off. The high gra.s.s had turned gold, dead from heat. I was listening to the silence, the strange hot buzz of nothing - just sky and dry gra.s.s. I b.u.mped against a stinking willie, which nodded at me, and as I pa.s.sed I glimpsed an enormous b.u.mblebee nodding along with it. I jumped - I'd had a terror of bees ever since one of my stupider brothers took to a hive with a rake. But the big bee wasn't perturbed. It just rode the nodding flower, not budging or moving its wings. I bent over and nudged the stinking w.i.l.l.y again, ready to run. The bee still didn't move. I must have watched it forever before finally extending a finger and actually poking the bee. Nothing. It was frozen, somehow.

And then, panic. Like the world had stopped, and the hot buzz of nothing in every direction.

Something like, Help me i'm alone.

"BODY OF CHRIST."

Dr. Pat just stands there. I catch his eye over the priest's shoulder and mouth a big amen.

"Oh!" exclaims Dr. Pat. "Amen." The priest gazes at him with indulgence, raises the host mouth-level. Dr. Pat stares at it. Oh, I am going to start laughing if someone doesn't do something.

"Open your mouth to receive the host," encourages the priest in church tones.

Dr. Pat appears horrified, and I must say it unnerves me as well, the idea of him standing before the priest just opening his mouth like the rest of us, waiting. Him not even Catholic, but a doctor. We didn't tell the priest because Catherine was so insistent - Dr. Pat had to receive too, or else she wouldn't. Guilt. My fingertips tingle, my palms seep with it. And I keep wanting to laugh.

I only wish Catherine had insisted on Hilary receiving as well. Hilary is the one who needs to be here with her mouth hanging open. She would know the responses, the amens, when to stand and when to kneel. She would know it like a baby knows to suck, and be infuriated. Thanks be to G.o.d. The words would fly from her mouth, her mouth would hang open, her tongue would pop out of its own accord, welcoming the host. Not a thing the social worker could do about it. She knows, and that's why she hasn't come. "I want nothing to do with this," she said in Dr. Pat's office. Her face went red to match her hair. She's very cool, Hilary, but her face betrays her. If it weren't for that fair complexion and those telltale blotches that say I would like to choke you, Sister Anita, you'd suppose b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

Dr. Pat kept yanking on his telephone cord in the face of Hilary's reproach. He held it with both hands and kept pulling the curls apart and then gently letting them sproing together again. For a moment I thought he was going to start chewing on the thing.

"I just want to make sure we're doing everything we can," he said to the cord. "I want to leave no stone unturned - for Catherine's sake."

"Then have her committed," said Hilary. "Send her to Halifax. Get her the professional care that she needs, don't partic.i.p.ate in this fantasy."

"Pardon me?" I said.

"Her fantasy," repeated Hilary. "The thing that is making her sick."

I decided I didn't need to answer. I just sat back in my chair, relaxing.

"Catherine is running this," said Hilary. "She's - she's in the director's chair."

I t.i.ttered then, Hilary's blotches deepening. I don't know why. Catherine in her nightdress shouting Action!

"Body of Christ," to me. Open your mouth and close your eyes.

Then he turns to Catherine. She gets to stay in bed.

"Body of Christ."

"Amen." Catherine sticks her tongue out. It's as white as the host itself. White as the blood of the lamb and all that.

And it's over already. As the priest blows out the communion candle, we all watch Catherine close her mouth and swallow. I suppose it's a bit anticlimactic. He turns to shake hands with Dr. Pat, and then there is a noise - a big one. We all twitch and look at each other for explanation before we think to look at Catherine again. She's sitting there with a face of mild surprise, hands lightly resting on her stomach. It makes the noise again, but louder.

"There's a demon down there," she remarks.

"It certainly sounds like it," admits Dr. Pat. He moves toward her, reaching for his stethoscope. But she grabs his hand before it gets to his pocket. She grabs it and places it on her belly.

"Feel," she tells him.

And he does, he stands there feeling. I want to snap at him to cut it out, and I look around for the priest, who is mumbling dazedly to himself in the corner, packing away his communion things. Old. As Catherine has already pointed out.

"I'm going to be sick," she announces, and starts to clamber out of bed. Whereupon of course she collapses. Dr. Pat must pick her up. Dr. Pat gathers her into his arms like kindling.

And for G.o.d's sake, her gown has not been tied in the back and now it slips right off the creature, skin melting off bones. The poor priest is a white-robed dervish, whirling from the darkened room.

IT OCCURS TO me that I haven't visited Sylvia in a while and she is probably wondering what's gotten into me. Well, Sylvia, I will tell her. I just got so wrapped up in that little girl down the hall. Yes - the one who doesn't eat. Wouldn't swallow her own spit if she had her druthers. Would want to know how many calories it had in it. Well, baby steps, Sylvia. We got her to take the host, and that's a beginning, now, isn't it? You could do a lot worse now, couldn't you, Sylvia, than the Body of Christ? I'll say.

And we will laugh quietly - Sylvia wheezily - at my near-irreverence. Sylvia enjoys those kind of jokes, the ones that take a run at blasphemy, swerving away at the last dangerous moment, like kids playing chicken.

Sylvia's room is darkened too - maybe everyone on the floor is taking communion today, the traumatized priest shambling from room to room: B-b-b-body of Christ. B-body. Body. Stuffing the wafer distractedly down everyone's throat. Take this and eat it.

I will tell the story to Sylvia sometime. Not today, but when I'm feeling a bit more collected and can joke about the hapless Dr. Pat and the muttering priest. Sylvia will enjoy hearing me make fun of the priest and the doctor, the men she depends on to such an unthinkable extent. I imagine you have to hate them a little. Need to see them ridiculed at times - it brings relief. I can do that for Sylvia.

But Ducky's in there and the room is hazy, rank. His flannelled back is to me, a third wall, and from behind it come low, private giggles. Surrept.i.tious wheezings. s.n.a.t.c.hes of song from Ducky.

Yooooo doooooo something to me He is hamming up the Yooooo dooooo's, drawing them out forever. Sylvia coughs voluptuously and Ducky turns his head in a deliberate, aristocratic sort of gesture. A gesture that plays at luxury and indulgence. I see his blunt woodsman's profile outlined in the dark - the scar that dents his cheek.

Yoooooooo doooooooo.

Here is what he's doing. He's inhaling, and then letting the smoke pour out as he sings. It cascades from his face and swirls heavenward, enveloping them both as he extends the cigarette to his wife. A more honest gesture, now, a gesture like the nurses when they feed her, only loving.

And then of course he takes a look around, a guilty boy. As he has probably been doing intermittently throughout this performance.

And if they think I am going to stand here denouncing this and that, they are not smart. If they think I'm going to slap my palm against the light switch and start hollering for doctors and nurses and the pope, they don't have to concern themselves. If they suppose I could possibly bother with any such nonsense, let them turn around and get on with what they're doing. Let them do as they please, the whole bunch of them. Eat and smoke and starve and stand on your head as far as I'm concerned. Live and die and do what you want all over the place. I won't be the one to say a word.

AN OTHERWORLD.

Falling down the stairs, Erin's only thought was: G.o.dd.a.m.n Sean! Because she knew he would take this as proof that he'd been right about her bicycle accident three months ago, which proved she had some kind of a psychological problem.

You hurt yourself when you're upset about something, Sean had said.

There was a speed b.u.mp, she repeated at him. On the bike path. On the hill! It wasn't even marked.

I went to get your bike, said Sean, and there was a big sign. Speed b.u.mp, it said.

There was no sign!

There was a sign.

I am calling the city, Erin said, and I'm going to complain that there wasn't a sign.

There was a sign, said Sean. Go check.

Without telling him, once the black eyes from her broken nose had dwindled to under-eye smudges and people no longer gave her appalled looks when she appeared on the street, she slipped into the river valley to visit the scene of the accident. Just walking down the same hill made her stomach roil - provoked a visceral remembrance of sailing over her handlebars during the long, doomed oh-no time warp that hitting the speed b.u.mp had triggered. She had been playing a lot of computer games that month and, after crunching face-first to the ground, her instinct was to wonder: When did I last hit save? I can go back. It was that feeling of losing, of having screwed up badly in the game and just wanting to quit in disgust and start over.

Then she stood up. No problem. Bounced to her feet. I'm okay, she thought, I'm fine. Blood started getting everywhere at that point and an over-tanned man who'd been leaving the pitch-and-putt with his preteen daughter re-parked his car and rushed over to offer a.s.sistance, the grossed-out twelve-year-old wincing in his wake.

In the stairwell, she landed against her outstretched hand, the same hand she had outstretched to slow herself down after having flown over the handlebars, the hand with all the subsequent soft tissue damage, which had kept her from doing yoga for three months and was only now starting to get better.

Motherf.u.c.ker, said Erin in the stairwell - the word echoed in noisy layers. She took advantage of the privacy and crumpled up there for a while, cradling her hand.

Then she bounced to her feet just the same way she had on the bike path, put her shoe back on and finished moaning quickly. She was already late for the welcome reception.

Everyone except Erin had arrived by the time she got there, and her dad waggled his eyebrows at her, faux-jocular. He extended his arm, the better to herd her toward his new accountant and also new best friend and business partner, Frank. Blank-minded and smiling, Erin held out her freshly damaged hand to Frank and next she was shrieking on her knees as Frank staggered backward, staring at his palm as if it pulsed with electricity.

Motherf.u.c.ker, Erin said again. It was something she didn't often say in front of her parents. c.o.c.k, shouted Erin. Sean rushed to pick her up and sit her down somewhere.

THE STAIRWELL, SHE said to Sean back in their room, was very poorly lit.