"I'd say… that surprises me. I didn't think this part of New York had the kind of large-scale agriculture that requires importing labor." She stabbed several green beans, wondering, for the first time, whose hands had picked them.
"It's dairy farming country," Lucia said. "Hard, thankless work. Dairymen have to be able to fix machinery, repair barns, bring in crops, deliver calves, and, most demandingly, milk. Corn or soybeans or wheat can wait twenty-four hours for attention, but cows have to be milked, morning and evening, three hundred and sixty-five days a year."
"You sound like someone speaking from experience."
"I grew up on a dairy farm in Vermont. Last year, I went back to Rutland for a family funeral and discovered my brother's neighbor had six Guatemalans working for him. That's when I realized we were needed back East again."
"So you got your superiors to send you." She cut a slice off her chicken breast. "But they must have had to get the diocese's support."
"I have my superiors' blessing. I have the Diocese of Albany's permission. They weren't too wild about giving it, either." Lucia gave Clare a dry smile. "Caring for illegal aliens is Christian, but it's not very convenient. Especially when you have a large conservative element in your diocese that believes everybody without papers ought to be rounded up and sent back to Mexico."
"So what is it you do?" Clare wiped her mouth. "I mean, it sounds as if you're shooting for more than getting these people to a Spanish-language Mass. "
"We start with basic services, like transportation away from the farms and translators to help them deal with government bureaucracies. Then we act as advocates. Guest workers don't have the right to disability or unemployment insurance, to overtime, or even to a day of rest. The men who are here without papers won't seek health care, won't report safety violations, won't complain if they get stiffed on their pay, because they're scared of the authorities. They keep their pay in cash because they don't have the ID to open bank accounts, and if one of them is the victim of a crime, he won't go to the police. Some of them live in appalling conditions, in ancient trailers that wouldn't have passed safety inspections in 1958, eight or nine men sharing a space."
"Wow." Clare pushed her plate away so she could prop her elbow on the table, a bad habit she had never gotten rid of. "That sounds amazingly challenging. And worthwhile."
Sister Lucia nodded. "I'm glad you see that. Now I just have to find some congregations to partner with me."
"Doesn't your order support your mission financially?"
"I get a modest amount. And by modest, I mean it's swathed in a burka, unseen by human eye."
Clare laughed.
"No, the problem is, we're stretched thin up here in the North Country. Small parishes, every priest responsible for two or three of them, donations down… Without the bishop behind me, my tiny little mission's needs get squashed on the bottom of the pile every time."
"Let me help you."
The nun sat back in her seat. "I beg your pardon?"
"I have some friends at the Episcopal Development Fund. This sounds like just their sort of thing: small, grassroots, helping individuals in a tangible way."
Sister Lucia's face was a mixture of interest and doubt. "There is a spiritual component to the work, you know. It's definitely Catholic. Spanish-language Masses and all."
Clare grinned. "Not to worry. In the Episcopal Church, we are all over the ecumenical like white on rice. In fact, we are kinda the white on rice."
The waitress replaced their empty plates with fat slices of cheesecake. "Coffee?" She held up a pot.
"Absolutely," Clare said. Sister Lucia demurred, then watched with amusement as Clare emptied packet after packet of sugar into her cup. "I may be able to round up a few bodies for you as well." Clare reached for her spoon. "We've had an uptick in our membership over the past year, younger people-" they could hardly be older, since the average age when she arrived at St. Alban's had been fifty-seven-"who haven't found a spot in our current volunteer programs. I think your mission might be just the thing." Her spoon ting-ting-tinged in the cup as she stirred clockwise, then counterclockwise. "When I started my ministry, I was worried I wasn't going to be able to get anyone to reach out to the marginalized among us. But I've come to believe it's not that people are unwilling, it's that they just don't see them. Look at me. I've lived here over two years without knowing about any of these workers." She looked at the nun confidingly. "I didn't really want to come to this luncheon. Now I'm so glad I did."
Sister Lucia smiled. "Do you always leap into things so… ah… decisively?"
"You bet," Clare said. "I'm not sure if it's a virtue or a flaw, but after thirty-six years, I've come to accept it's who I am." She took a sip of her coffee and sighed as the heat and sugar and caffeine hit her. "And thank you."
"For what?"
"For calling it decisiveness instead of 'jumping in without thinking things through.' "
"Oh, I see it as fearlessness." The nun glanced at Clare's left hand, bare of rings. "You're not married."
Clare shook her head.
"Partnered?"
"No! I mean, no… I'm not."
Sister Lucia patted her hand. "Not meaning to be nosy. It's just that I've found one of the great benefits of the celibate life is fearlessness. Especially for women. You can see what needs to be done and do it, without fear of how it's going to affect your family or your reputation." Where she had been patting, she squeezed, hard. "Don't let anybody convince you it's a flaw. We need more fearless women following Christ, not less."
IV
On the way back to Millers Kill, she and Deacon Aberforth had to stop at a
Citgo station to gas up. When she went inside to pay-leaving the deacon muttering about the wasteful extravagance of the tricked-out Hummer taking up almost two spaces at the next pump over-there were five young Hispanic men getting sodas in the back. Five. Bumping into each other, joking around in Spanish, underdressed for the weather in sneakers and the ripstop jackets she saw kids in her congregation wearing. She shook her head.
The people we don't see.
Feeling well justified in her decision to aid Sister Lucia, she returned to the deacon's Scout. "Father Aberforth." She willed her eyes away from the speedometer as he more or less accelerated up Route 9. "Would you describe me as impetuous or fearless?"
He glanced at her. "I would describe you, Ms. Fergusson, as the vehicle through which God shows me He still has a great deal of work for me to do."