Danielle Steel - Amazing Grace

She was back five minutes later, in jeans, her pink Converse, and a T-shirt from Barnum & Bailey's Circus, with a tiger on it. He laughed at the incongruous shirt, which she had picked up on the donation table. She was definitely a most unusual nun. And she was dying to see his photographs. They walked a few feet away to a bench, and sat down to look at them. Her hands were shaking when she opened the box, and when she saw them, she was moved to tears several times, and just as often laughter, as they both remembered the moments and faces, the heart-rending times. There were photographs of the woman he'd watched taken out from under her house, after they had to cut her leg off to free her, others of children, and a huge number of Melanie, but far more of Maggie. At least half his photographs were of her, and she exclaimed as she looked at each one … oh, I remember that! … oh my God, remember him? … oh that poor kid … that sweet little old lady. There were photographs of the destruction of the city, the night of the benefit when it had all started. It was an exquisite chronicle of a frightening but deeply moving time in both their lives. “Oh Everett, they're so beautiful,” she said, looking at him with her bright blue eyes. “Thank you for bringing them to show me. I've thought of you so often, and hoped everything was fine.” His messages had been reassuring, but she had missed talking to him, almost as much as he missed talking to her.

“I missed you, Maggie,” he said honestly, after they finished looking at the pictures. “I have no one to talk to when you're not around, not really.” He hadn't realized how empty his life was until he met her and then left.

“I missed you too,” she confessed. “Have you been going to meetings? The one you started here is still going strong.”

“I've been going to two a day. Do you want to go out to lunch?” A few of the fast food places on Lombard Street had opened. He suggested they pick up something to eat and walk to the Marina Green. It was a gorgeous day. And from there, they could look at the bay and watch the boats. They could do that on the Presidio beach too, but he thought it would do her good to get out, walk, get some air, and leave the Presidio for a change. She had been cooped up in the hospital all week.

“I'd love that.” They couldn't go far without a car, but Lombard was within easy walking distance. She went back for a sweater, left the photographs that were his gift to her in her room, and a few minutes later they left.

They walked along in comfortable silence for a while, and then chatted about what they'd been doing. She told him about what was happening in the reconstruction of the city, and her work in the hospital. He told her about the assignments he'd been on. He had brought her a copy of the earthquake edition of Scoop too, with all the photographs of Melanie, and they talked about what a nice girl she was. At the first fast food place they saw, they bought sandwiches and then headed toward the bay. And finally they sat down on the vast expanse of grass at the Marina Green. Maggie didn't say anything to him about Sarah's problems, because that had been told to her in confidence. She'd heard from Sarah several times by then, and things were not going well. She knew Seth had been arrested, and was out on bail. And she said they were selling the house. It was a terrible time for Sarah, who didn't deserve any of what had happened to her.

“What are you going to do when you leave the Presidio?” Everett asked Maggie as they ate their sandwiches, and then lay on the grass facing each other, like two kids in the summer. She didn't look anything like a nun in her circus T-shirt and pink high-tops, as she lay on the grass talking to him. Sometimes he forgot she was.

“I don't think I'll be leaving for a while, maybe not for months. It's going to take a long time to get all these people housing again.” So much of the city had been destroyed. It could take as long as a year to rebuild, or more. “After that, I guess I'll go back to the Tenderloin, and do the same old stuff.” As she said it, she suddenly realized how repetitious her life was. She had been working on the streets with the homeless for years. But it had always felt right to her. Now suddenly she wanted more, and she was enjoying hospital nursing again.

“You don't want more than that, Maggie? Your own life someday?”

“This is my life,” she said gently, smiling at him. “This is what I do.”

“I know. Me too. I take photographs for a living, for magazines and newspapers. It's been strange since I went back, though. Something shook me up when I was here. I just feel like there's something missing in my life.” And then as he looked at her as they lay there, he spoke softly. “Maybe it's you.” She didn't know what to say in answer. She just looked at him for a long moment and then lowered her eyes.

“Be careful, Everett,” she said in a whisper. “I don't think we should go there.” She had thought of it too.

“Why not?” he said stubbornly. “What if you change your mind one day and don't want to be a nun anymore?”

“What if I don't? I love being a nun. That's all I've ever been since I left nursing school. It was all I wanted as a kid. This is my dream, Everett. How can I give that up?”

“What if you trade it for something else? You could do the same kind of work if you left the convent. You could be a social worker, or nurse practitioner with the homeless.” He had thought about it from every angle.

“I do all that, and I'm a nun. You know how I feel about it.” He was scaring her, and she wanted him to stop before they said too much and she felt she couldn't see him again. She didn't want that to happen, and if he went too far, it could. She had to live by her vows. She was still a nun, whether he liked it or not.

“I guess I'll just have to keep coming up to visit you then, to bug you from time to time. Is that okay with you?” He tried to back off and smiled at her in the bright sunshine.

“I'd like that, as long as we don't do anything foolish,” she reminded him, relieved that he didn't press her further.

“And what would that be? Define foolish for me.” He was pushing her and she knew it, but she was a big girl and could take care of herself.

“It would be foolish if you or I forgot that I'm a nun. But we won't do that,” she said firmly. “Isn't that right, Mr. Allison?” she said, referring to the old Deborah Kerr‐ Robert Mitchum movie with a chuckle.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Everett said, rolling his eyes. “In the end, I go back to the Marines, and you stay a nun, just like in the movie. Don't you know any movies where the nun leaves the convent?”

“I don't go to see those,” she said primly. “I go to the ones where the nun keeps her vows.”

“I hate those,” he said, teasing her. “They're so boring.”

“No, they're not. They're very noble.”

“I wish you weren't so noble, Maggie,” he said gently, “and so true to your vows.” He didn't dare say more, and she didn't answer. He was pushing. And she changed the subject.

They lay in the sun until the late afternoon, and could see building and reconstruction starting in the areas behind them. They walked back to the Presidio, as the air got cool, and she invited him to eat something in the mess hall before he left. She told him that Tom had gone back to Berkeley to close up his apartment. But many of the same faces were still there from before Everett left.

They both had soup, and he walked her back to her building after they ate, and she thanked him for the visit.

“I'll come up and see you again,” he promised. He had taken a few pictures of her that day, as she lay in the sun talking to him. Her eyes had been the same color as the sky.