Brother Odd

it.
        "You don't like Flossie? It's a pretty name."
        "It's a cow's name," she declared.
        "Well, yes, I have heard of cows named Flossie."
        "And it sounds like what you do with your teeth."
        "Maybe it does, now that you mention it. What would you prefer to be called?"
        "Christmas," she said.
        "You want to change your name to Christmas?"
        "Sure. Everyone loves Christmas."
        "That's true."
        "Nothing bad ever happens on Christmas. So then nothing bad could happen to someone named Christmas, could it?"
        "So, let me begin again," I said. "I'm so pleased to meet you, Christmas Bodenblatt."
        "I'm gonna change the last p-p-part, too."
        "And what would you prefer to Bodenblatt?"
        "Almost anything. I haven't made up my mind yet. It's gotta be a good name for working with dogs."
        "You want to be a veterinarian when you grow up?"
        She nodded. "Can't be, though." She pointed to her head and said with awful directness, "I lost some smarts in the car that day."
        Lamely, I said, "You seem plenty smart to me."
        "Nope. Not dumb but not smart enough for a vet. If I work hard on my arm, though, and my leg, and they get b-b-better, I can work with a vet, you know, like help him with dogs. Give b-baths to dogs. Trim them and stuff. I could do a lot with dogs."
        "You like dogs, I guess."
        "Oh, I love dogs."
        A radiance arose in her as she talked about dogs, and joy made her eyes appear less wounded than they had been.
        "I had a dog," she said. "He was a good dog."
        Intuition warned me that questions I might ask about her dog would take us places I could not bear to go.
        "Did you come to talk about dogs, Mr. Thomas?"
        "No, Christmas. I came to ask a favor."
        "What favor?"
        "You know, the funny thing is, I don't remember. Can you wait here for me, Christmas?"
        "Sure. I got a dog book."
        I rose to my feet and said, "Sister, can we talk?"
        The mother superior and I moved to the farther end of the room, and confident that we could not manhandle him, the Russian joined us.
        In a voice almost a whisper, I said, "Ma'am… what happened to this girl… what did she have to endure?"
        She said, "We don't discuss the children's histories with just anyone," and fried the Russian with a meaningful look.
        "I am many things," said Romanovich, "but not a gossip."
        "Or a librarian," said Sister Angela.
        "Ma'am, there's a chance maybe this girl can help me learn what is coming-and save all of us. But I'm… afraid."
        "Of what, Oddie?"
        "Of what this girl might have endured."
        Sister Angela brooded for a moment, and then said, "She lived with her parents and grandparents, all in one house. Her cousin came around one night. Nineteen. A problem boy, and high on something."
        I knew she was not a naďf, but I didn't want to see her saying what surely she would say. I closed my eyes.
        "Her cousin shot them all. Grandparents and parents. Then he spent some time… sodomizing the girl. She was seven."
        They are something, these nuns. All in white, they go down into the dirt of the world, and they pull out of it what is precious, and they shine it up again as best they can. Clear-eyed, over and over again, they go down into the dirt of the world, and they have hope always, and if ever they are afraid, they do not show it.
        "When the drugs wore off," she said, "he knew he'd be caught, so he took the coward's way. In the garage, he fixed a hose to the exhaust pipe, opened a window just wide enough to slip the hose into the car. And he took the girl into the car with him. He would not leave her only as damaged as she was. He had to take her with him."
        There is no end to the wailing of senseless rebellion, to the elevation of self above all, the narcissism that sees the face of any authority only in the mirror.
        "Then he chickened out," Sister Angela continued. "He left her alone in the car and went in the house to call nine-one-one. He told them he had attempted suicide and his lungs burned. He was short of breath and wanted help. Then he sat down to wait for the paramedics."
        I opened my eyes to take strength from hers. "Ma'am, once last night and once today, someone on the Other Side, someone I know, tried to reach me