Stone Yard Devotional

One morning, at Lauds, the protagonist feels a heat rise within her, and briefly believes it might be God or a ghost. As she entertains this thought, it disappears, and she remembers how epilepsy was long confused with religious fervor.

The protagonist remembers how her mother never judged anyone, always respecting other people’s beliefs. When she encountered bigotry and hatred, she grew angry and did not back down, often earning ire from those around her. In the years after the protagonist’s father died, the protagonist’s mother did not cry. When she attended a yoga class and left halfway through because of an overwhelming need to cry, the protagonist told her she did not need to go back. The protagonist remembers with anger how people around town wanted her mother to cry. One woman even seemed angered when she asked the protagonist if her mother cried yet and she said no.

Later, the protagonist learned from a friend that exercise of the thoracic spine, common in yoga, can elicit great waves of emotion, often followed by a feeling of peace. Now, the protagonist regrets having potentially prevented her mother from finding that peace.

Richard Gittens uses a mini excavator to dig a new pit for the abbey to dump the mice into. He shows the protagonist the lime he brings and advises her to sprinkle some over the corpses every time they drop them in. Later, he tells her how the night before, he and Annette saw so many mice crossing the road it looked like a river. The protagonist and Josephine begin using the pit and lime, and the protagonist accepts that the plague of mice will not soon be over.

The protagonist occasionally sits with Sister Jenny’s remains, though she cannot think of them as anything but bones unless Bonaventure is there with her. She sees the bones as unresolved sorrow and tragedy, and she does not believe the abbey will return to normal until they are buried.

One morning, after a bad dream, the protagonist goes to the dam to wash it away. She undresses and floats out into the water. As she dresses and goes to leave, Helen arrives and waves. The protagonist walks away but turns around and sees Helen floating, just as the protagonist had.

A farmer in town kills himself in his truck, leaving a note that reads, “SUICIDE—CALL POLICE” (194). While the sisters pray for his soul and his family, Richard Gittens tells the protagonist that the man’s daughter told him she is not angry with him. She is glad he finally ended his battle and grateful that she and her mother do not need to anxiously wait for this day anymore. The woman goes to the morgue every day to visit her father and cry.

Helen Parry does not eat with the rest of the abbey until one night Simone brings her in. Everyone is drawn to her, notices her actions, and feels as though she controls the space. The protagonist sympathizes with Helen Parry but hopes she will not join them again.

When the protagonist was a child, her mother raised money for the Phillips-Pelham Foundation. The protagonist liked that the foundation sent her mother small notebooks to sell. She sat for hours staring at pictures of the starving and unfortunate people on the pages, fascinated. The protagonist’s mother once held an event for the foundation, and for one night, everyone only ate a bowl of rice. This symbolized what an Indian child eats in a day, and they donated the money they would usually spend on dinner. At the event, all the children refused to eat except the protagonist, who forced the rice down, dramatically gagging. Her mother continued donating to the organization until the end of her life.

Simone tells the protagonist that the three elderly sisters who lived at the abbey before going to a Catholic nursing home died. When the protagonist looks into Simone’s eyes, she sees not relief at their salvation but uncertainty. She wonders if Simone grapples with the fact that she is now closer to becoming an elder in their community.

The chickens lay more eggs, perhaps benefitting from eating the mice. The protagonist knows the hens well, watching them hatch, grow, and even die, though she never kills them. She watched Sister Bonaventure kill a chicken once and saw how horrified she was to do it. The sisters and the protagonists decided to stop killing chickens when the elderly sisters left for the nursing home. Though they will accept meat from Richard Gittens, they refuse to kill to eat.

One morning, the protagonist finds a dove stuck in the church and opens all the doors. She watches it until it leaves. When she tells Richard Gittens about it, he tells her it was a peaceful dove.

A large rainfall will supposedly end the plague of mice, and Simone asks those at the abbey to pray for it. The mice grow powerful, and the protagonist is unable to stomach the sight of them, feeling violated when one watches her shower. They overrun the church but still do not enter the good room. The protagonist notices that even Richard Gittens prays now when they pray for rain.

When she was younger, the protagonist went to the wedding of her boyfriend’s sister. At this wedding, another brother’s girlfriend, Cleo, was vegetarian, and the bride’s family hated her for this. They warned her that there would only be meat at the wedding, and she in turn brought a peanut butter sandwich to eat. Though no one noticed, the family believed she had stolen the bride’s day from her, and they shunned her all night.

The mother of the bride was the protagonist’s stepmother. The boyfriend’s mother had disappeared on a family camping trip on the Nullarbor Plain when he was young. Years later, when his father told him he would remarry, the boyfriend begged him not to, dreaming nightly that his mother would come home, see another wife, and leave all over again. The protagonist used to think that there was always a before and after with tragic events in life, but she now realizes that tragedies cannot be contained in a singular moment.

The protagonist continues to read about saints and their deaths. She wonders why rape is not mentioned more in their stories as a catalyst for their martyrdom. She thinks of Maria Goretti again and wonders if the girl would be a saint if she had gone along with what Alessandro wanted to survive, or even killed him in self-defense. She wonders if Maria would be a saint if her mother had not forgiven Alessandro, or if she had cut off his penis in retaliation.

Helen Parry joins the protagonist on a morning run. When the protagonist stops at the gate to turn back, Helen Parry keeps running.

The protagonist remembers when a Catholic movement swept through town. The group was named “the Charismatics,” and they called for worship in the home and promoted “religious intoxication” (214). The protagonist’s parents were critical of the group and forbade the protagonist from attending any sessions. Despite their disapproval, the protagonist attended one at her friend Kelly’s house. During the meeting, the protagonist watched as Kelly’s mother was overcome by the Holy Spirit and started speaking in tongues.

While others seemed resistant to it, a group of young men from the church, who the protagonist believed were gay, seemed to revel in the freedom the exercise provided. Later, the protagonist doubted that Kelly’s mother was touched by the Holy Spirit but felt that there was a certain beauty and freedom to the exercise.

Helen Parry skips dinner, to everyone’s relief. Sister Bonaventure dislikes Helen Parry especially, constantly staying away from her. Accompanying Helen Parry’s absence is a brief moment in which the sisters and protagonist believe the mouse problem improves.

Bonaventure finally shares with the protagonist what is behind her devotion to Sister Jenny’s remains. Before Jenny left, she and Bonaventure had a huge fight, in which Jenny criticized Bonaventure for staying at the abbey, saying it was immoral. They never apologized after the fight, and with Jenny’s disappearance, Bonaventure felt burdened by guilt. She tells the protagonist that she does not seek Jenny’s forgiveness, but forgiveness within herself.

One morning, Helen Parry speaks with the sisters and protagonist about doing what you are born to do. This is then accompanied by a lecture about “falling in love with Jesus” (225). The protagonist wishes they could devote themselves to this monastic life for reasons more personally meaningful to her than the love of Jesus. When Helen Parry meets the protagonist’s gaze and mocks Sissy and Carmel’s dramatic devotion, the protagonist swallows a laugh. Sissy notices and asks Helen Parry exactly why she came here. Helen Parry tells them she came to deliver Sister Jenny. In the silence that follows, Helen Parry admits this is not the only reason. She wanted to come home and see her mother before she dies.