Changing Habits Read online

  Praise for the novels of

  #1 New York Times bestselling author

  DEBBIE MACOMBER

  CHANGING HABITS

  A USA TODAY 2003 SUMMER READ PICK

  “Excellent characterization will keep readers anticipating the next visit to Cedar Cove.”

  —Booklist on 311 Pelican Court

  “Macomber is known for her honest portrayals of ordinary women in small-town America, and this tale cements her position as an icon of the genre.”

  —Publishers Weekly on 16 Lighthouse Road

  “Macomber’s women serve as bedrock for one another in this sometimes tearful, always uplifting tale that will make readers wish they could join this charming breakfast club.”

  —Booklist on Thursdays at Eight

  “A multifaceted tale of romance and deceit, the final installment of Macomber’s Dakota trilogy oozes with country charm and a strong sense of community.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Always Dakota

  “Sometimes the best things come in small packages. Such is the case here….”

  —Publishers Weekly on Return to Promise

  “Popular romance writer Macomber has a gift for evoking the emotions that are at the heart of the genre’s popularity.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Debbie Macomber whips up a delightful concoction of zany Christmas magic as delicious as chocolate steeped with peppermint….”

  —BookPage on The Christmas Basket

  “Well-developed emotions and appealing characters.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Montana

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  Hannah’s List

  Cedar Cove Books

  16 Lighthouse Road

  204 Rosewood Lane

  311 Pelican Court

  44 Cranberry Point

  50 Harbor Street

  6 Rainier Drive

  74 Seaside Avenue

  8 Sandpiper Way

  92 Pacific Boulevard

  A Cedar Cove Christmas

  The Manning Family

  The Manning Sisters

  The Manning Brides

  The Manning Grooms

  Christmas Books

  A Gift to Last

  On a Snowy Night

  Home for the Holidays

  Glad Tidings

  Christmas Wishes

  Small Town Christmas

  When Christmas Comes

  There’s Something About Christmas

  Christmas Letters

  Where Angels Go

  The Perfect Christmas

  Angels at Christmas

  (Those Christmas Angels and Where Angels Go)

  Dakota Series

  Dakota Born

  Dakota Home

  Always Dakota

  Heart of Texas Series

  VOLUME 1

  (Lonesome Cowboy and Texas Two-Step)

  VOLUME 2

  (Caroline’s Child and Dr. Texas)

  VOLUME 3

  (Nell’s Cowboy and Lone Star Baby)

  Promise, Texas

  Return to Promise

  Midnight Sons

  VOLUME 1

  (Brides for Brothers and The Marriage Risk)

  VOLUME 2

  (Daddy’s Little Helper and Because of the Baby)

  VOLUME 3

  (Falling for Him, Ending in Marriage and Midnight Sons and Daughters)

  This Matter of Marriage

  Montana

  Thursdays at Eight

  Between Friends

  Changing Habits

  Married in Seattle

  (First Comes Marriage and Wanted: Perfect Partner)

  Right Next Door

  (Father’s Day and The Courtship of Carol Sommars)

  Wyoming Brides

  (Denim and Diamonds and The Wyoming Kid)

  Fairy Tale Weddings

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  (The First Man You Meet and The Man You’ll Marry)

  Debbie Macomber’s

  Cedar Cove Cookbook

  DEBBIE MACOMBER

  CHANGING HABITS

  Dear Reader,

  The question I’m most often asked is where I get my ideas. The one for Changing Habits came from a birthday celebration for my cousin Shirley, who is a former nun. Sitting in the sunshine, drinking wine and laughing with Shirley and her friends, I suddenly realized I was the only woman there who’d never been a nun.

  Almost thirty years ago Shirley was a Sister of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She made the difficult decision to leave the order and underwent the transition from religious to secular life. Shirley inspired me, as did her friends; they showed such courage, facing the world after all those years behind convent doors.

  Like Shirley, I was raised Catholic and attended twelve years of parochial school. My best friend in high school, Jane Berghoff, entered the convent, with dreams of nursing the sick in India. After three years she, too, made the decision to leave. For a time, I’d also considered the idea of becoming a nun—but I discovered boys, and my interest in the religious life was soon a distant memory.

  And now, dear reader—thanks to Shirley’s birthday party—you’ll meet three special women who respond to the call. For the sake of their vocations, Angelina, Kathleen and Joanna each abandon the lives they’d led. Later, after Vatican II and the radical changes within the Church, their safe and secure world starts to fray, bit by bit. And then many of their traditions disappear—the habits, the new names they’ve taken, the routines they’ve become accustomed to.

  I don’t think I’ve ever devoted so much time and effort to research. I read books, from sociological studies to personal memoirs, interviewed nuns and former nuns and visited a monastery, all in preparation for writing Changing Habits. I am indebted to Shirley Adler, Sheila Sutherland, Jane McMahon, Diane DeGooyer, Theresa Scott, Mary Giles Mailhot, OSB, and Laura Swan, OSB, for their assistance.

  I hope you enjoy Angelina’s, Kathleen’s and Joanna’s stories. I love hearing from my readers. Feel free to write me at P.O. Box 1458, Port Orchard, WA 98366, or visit my Web site at www.debbiemacomber.com.

  Warmest regards,

  To my cousin Shirley Adler

  Who lived the life

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part 1: The Call

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Part 2: Brides of Christ

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part 3: Living the Vows

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Part 4: Out of the Habit

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

 
; Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Part 5: The Reunion

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Glossary

  Prologue

  1973

  Kathleen waited in the cold rain of a Seattle winter as her brother placed her suitcase in the trunk of his car. She felt as awkward and disoriented as she probably looked, standing there in her unfashionable wool coat and clumsy black shoes. For the last ten years she’d been Sister Kathleen, high school teacher and part-time bookkeeper for St. Peter’s parish in Minneapolis. Her identity had been defined by her vocation.

  Now she was simply Kathleen. And all she’d managed to accumulate in her years of service was one flimsy suitcase and a wounded heart. She had no savings, no prospects and no home. For the first time in her life, she was completely on her own.

  “I’ll do whatever I can to help you,” Sean said, opening the car door for her.

  “You already have.” Tears stung her eyes as her brother backed out of his driveway. She’d spent the last two months living at his house, a small brick bungalow in this quiet neighborhood. “I can’t thank you enough,” she whispered, not wanting him to hear the emotion in her voice.

  “Mom and Dad want you to come home.”

  “I can’t.” How did a woman who was nearly thirty years old go home? She wasn’t a teenager who’d been away at school, a girl who could easily slip back into her childhood life.

  “They’d never think of you as a burden, if that’s what you’re worried about,” her brother said.

  Perhaps not, but Kathleen was a disappointment to her family and she knew it. She didn’t have the emotional strength to answer her parents’ questions. Dealing with her new life was complicated enough.

  “You’re going to be all right,” Sean assured her.

  “I know.” But Kathleen didn’t entirely believe it. The world outside the convent was a frightening place. She didn’t know what to expect or how to cope with all the changes that were hurtling toward her.

  “You can call Loren or me anytime.”

  “Thank you.” She swallowed hard.

  Ten minutes later, Sean pulled up in front of the House of Peace, a home run by former nuns who helped others make the often-difficult transition from religious to secular life.

  Kathleen stared at the large two-story white house. There was a trimmed laurel hedge on either side of the narrow walkway that led to the porch. She saw the welcoming glow of lamplight in the windows, dispersing a little of the day’s gloom.

  Still, she missed the order and ritual of her life. There was a certain comfort she hadn’t appreciated: rising, praying and eating, all in perfect synchronization with the day before. Freedom, unfamiliar as it was, felt frightening. Confusing.

  With her brother at her side, Kathleen walked up the steps, held her breath and then, after a long moment, pressed the doorbell. Someone must have been on the other side waiting, because it opened immediately.

  “You must be Kathleen.” A woman of about sixty with short white hair and a pleasantly round figure greeted her. “I’m Kay Dickson. We spoke on the phone.”

  Kathleen felt warmed by Kay’s smile.

  “Come in, come in.” The other woman held open the door for them.

  Sean hesitated as he set down Kathleen’s suitcase. “I should be getting back home.” His eyes questioned her, as if he was unsure about leaving his sister at this stranger’s house.

  “I’ll be fine,” she told him, and in that instant she knew it was true.

  Part 1

  THE CALL

  The Harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.

  Matthew 9:37

  1

  ANGELINA MARCELLO

  1948 to 1958

  “Angie, come here,” her father called in heavily accented English. “Taste this.” He held out a wooden spoon dripping with rich marinara sauce.

  Obediently Angelina put her mouth over the spoon and closed her eyes, distinguishing the different spices and flavors as they met her tongue. “Not enough basil. You should add fresh chopped parsley, too.”

  Her father roared with approval. “You’re right!” He tossed the spoon into the restaurant’s large stainless steel sink. Then he reached for eight-year-old Angie and lifted her high in the air before hugging her tightly. It was 1948, and Angie’s world revolved around her father and, of course, the family-owned business, the restaurant named after her. It was a well-known fact that Angelina’s served the finest Italian food in all of Buffalo, New York.

  Unlike other children her age, Angie’s first memories weren’t of being plopped on Santa’s knee in some department store for a candy cane and a photograph. Instead, she recalled the pungent scent of garlic simmering in extra-virgin olive oil and the soft hum as her mother bustled about the kitchen. Those were the warm years, the good years, during the big war, before her mother died in 1945.

  Sometimes, late at night, she’d heard giggles coming from her parents’ bedroom. She liked the sound and cuddled up in her thick blankets, her world secure despite all the talk of what was taking place an ocean away.

  Then her beautiful mother who sang her songs and loved her so much was suddenly gone; she’d died giving birth to Angie’s stillborn brother. For a while, any hint of joy and laughter disappeared from the house. A large black wreath hung on the front door, and people stopped, stared and shook their heads as they walked past.

  Only five years old, Angie didn’t understand where her mother had vanished, nor did it make sense when strangers crowded into her home. She was even more confused by the way they put their heads together and whispered as if she wasn’t supposed to hear. A few wept openly, stopping abruptly when she entered the room.

  All Angie understood was that her mother was gone and her father, her fun-loving, gregarious father, had grown quiet and serious and sad.

  “You’re going to be a good Catholic girl,” he told her soon after her mother’s death. “I promised your mother I’d raise you in the Church.”

  “Sí, Papa.”

  “Use English,” he insisted. “We live in America.”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “I’ll take you to Mass every Sunday, just like your mother wanted.”

  Angie listened intently.

  “And when you start first grade you’ll attend St. Gabriel, so the nuns can teach you.”

  She nodded; her father made this sound like a promise.

  “It’s just you and me now, Angelina,” he whispered.

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “You’re going to be a good Catholic girl,” he said again. “You’ll make your mother proud.”

  At that Angie smiled, even though she dreamed of being a cowgirl when she grew up so she could ride the range with Hopalong Cassidy. Her hero didn’t look Italian but she made him so in her dreams and he ate at her father’s restaurant and said it was the best food he’d ever tasted.

  In 1948, by the time Angelina entered the third grade, she wore her thick black hair in two long braids that her father dutifully plaited each morning at the breakfast table. He put down the newspaper, giving his full attention to her hair, and when he’d finished, he carefully inspected his daughter. It was the same ritual every morning. Awaiting his approval, Angie would stand tall and straight, arms held stiffly at her sides. She wore her blue and gray plaid school uniform with the pleated skirt and bib front and anxiously awaited her father’s nod, telling her she’d passed muster.

  “Smile,” he instructed on this particular day.

  Angie obediently did as he said.

  “You’re as beautiful as your mother. Now eat your breakfast.”

  Angie slipped into the chair, bowed her head and made the sign of the cross before and after grace, which she said aloud. Then she reached for her spoon. She hesitated when she noticed her father’s frown. Studying h
im closely, she wondered what she’d done wrong. The worst thing she could imagine would be to disappoint her father. He was her world and she was his—other than the restaurant, of course.

  “It’s nothing, bambina,” he reassured her in gentle tones. “I just hope your mother forgives me for feeding you cold cereal.”

  “I like cold cereal.”

  Her father nodded, distracted by the newspaper, which he folded back and propped against the sugar canister while Angie ate her breakfast.

  “I want to leave early this morning,” she told him, struggling to hold back her excitement. “Sister Trinita said I could sing with the fifth- and sixth-graders at Mass.” This was a privilege beyond anything Angie had ever been granted. Only the older children were permitted to enter the choir loft at St. Gabriel’s, but Sister Trinita, the fifth-grade teacher, was her special friend. She chaperoned the children who attended Mass at St. Gabriel’s every morning before school—children who rustled and fidgeted and talked.

  Angie knew it was important to show respect in church. Her father had taught her that and never allowed her to whisper or fuss during Mass. She might not understand the Latin words, but she’d learned what they meant, and she loved the atmosphere of the church itself—the lighted tapers, the stained glass windows and shining wood, the Stations of the Cross telling their sacred story. Sister Trinita had commented one morning, as the children streamed out of the church and hurried toward the school, that she was impressed with Angie’s respectful behavior.