Read Online Embracing Darkness by Christopher D. Roe - Free Book Online

and even though she did remind him that she was his inferior, she didn’t act like it. He ignored her tone once more and waved his hand in the air to get Mrs. Keats’s attention, angering Sister Ignatius.
    “What are you doing, Father?” she hissed.
    His reply sounded angry. “I’m trying to get her attention without having to scream over the dinner table.”
    Sister Ignatius tried to object. “I’ve already told you that she has minimal hearing and that her eyesight is… .” But Father Poole cut her off.
    “Yes, you’ve told me in wonderful detail how much the woman has suffered, but now I’d like to speak to her directly. Do I have your permission?”
    The nun’s left eye twitched twice. She bit her lip hard and picked up the fork she had placed beside her dish seconds earlier. Meanwhile Mrs. Keats piled food into her mouth so fast that she looked as though she were vying for first place in a pie-eating contest.
    “I say, Mrs. Keats,” the priest said in a loud voice, but the woman continued scooping her food like a coalman on a steamship. He tried again, this time even louder. “Mrs. Keats. I was wondering…,” but Mrs. Keats kept on eating.
    Not looking up from her own plate, Sister Ignatius said, “She’s sitting right across from me. Would you like me to get her attention for you?”
    Father Poole felt utterly ridiculous. “Thank you, Sister,” he replied.
    Sister Ignatius placed her left hand on Mrs. Keats’s right wrist, which rested on the table as she ate. Mrs. Keats quickly looked up from her meal, her lips soiled with food. Slivers of potato adhered to both corners of her mouth, and a shaving of meat hung from her bottom lip.
    Without saying a word, Sister Ignatius motioned for the mute woman to face Father Poole at the other end of the table. Mrs. Keats obliged her. The priest, fearing now that his question might strike a nerve, asked boldly, “Why do you limp?” Mrs. Keats didn’t react. Poole assumed that she hadn’t heard him. He didn’t want to shout any louder, so he rocked his torso side to side and then pointed down at her feet. Mrs. Keats followed his finger down and then opened her mouth as though she were going to speak, but it was only a gesture as if to say, “Oh, right!”
    She turned her index and middle fingers upside down and made a gesture of legs walking downstairs. Then she stuck out her chest, grimaced, and swayed her own torso from left to right. The priest understood this representation to be her abusive husband. Mrs. Keats suddenly made a pushing motion and then pointed to herself. Then, in a descending angle with her hand, she made tumbling motions.
    “You were injured in a fall,” Father Poole said sadly. Mrs. Keats understood him immediately because she could read his lips. She smiled, nodded, and shrugged as if to say, “That’s life.” He beamed at Sister Ignatius, feeling victorious in his first communication with Mrs. Keats, but the nun was quietly eating her dinner with her head still down.
    Father Poole decided that it would be a good idea to start eating himself. As he chewed his first bite of meat, he smelled a strange odor. He dismissed it as nothing since neither of the ladies scowled. After he swallowed his second mouthful of beef, he asked, “Whatever happened to her husband? You never said.”
    Sister Ignatius sipped her lukewarm milk and replied, “Father Carroll went over to the house while I stayed with Mrs. Keats. By the time he got there, Mr. Keats had writhed his way to the front door. He was actually trying to go after her.”
    As the nun continued her story, her eyes still downcast, Father Poole noticed that her tone was more even-tempered than when she had first begun her narrative.
    Perhaps she loves to hear herself talk , the young priest thought.
    She continued, “Father Carroll grabbed him by the collar, and the dog in turn grabbed Father Carroll by the throat. So Father Carroll reciprocated by grabbing the bloody mess where