Stone Yard Devotional

The next morning, the protagonist wakes feeling that something immense happened, then remembers the arrival of the bones and Helen Parry. The protagonist thinks of how Richard Gittens told her that his wife Annette does not want him to come to their church any longer. Annette used to come with him, and the protagonist once saw her looking at their “garden for lost children” where parents can memorialize their dead or missing children (141). The garden is run down and shabby, and the protagonist believes that this reflects poorly on the abbey. Richard tells the protagonist that Annette thinks their way of life at the abbey is unnatural.

The protagonist does not remember being told she had an older brother who died two days after birth. Her mother had him, alone, while separated from the protagonist’s father because of a flood. Her mother never talks about it, but when the protagonist asks about it for a college assignment, she writes her account for the protagonist. She remembers two details from the birth. The first is that after her newborn son passed, they kept her down the hall from where “the illegitimate babies” waited to be adopted (144). She wanted to take one for herself. The second detail is that when she left, they gave her a bill for her son’s burial. The protagonist misses babies, though she never wanted to be a mother. She looks for them when she goes to town.

Birds begin dying from eating the poisoned mice behind the fence. The protagonist and Dolores dig a hole to bury the corpses, disgusted by their work. As they dig, the protagonist begins singing a hymn, “God Loves a Cheerful Giver” (148), and both women begin laughing, distracted from the task at hand. Helen works alone on her computer, avoiding the sisters and the protagonist. Trapped because of the travel restrictions, she is demanding of the sisters. While others grow frustrated, the protagonist remembers the teenage Helen and believes she deserves whatever she needs.

The protagonist once took a kayak out on the dam and believed she saw a translucent face in the water. Recently, the protagonist saw Helen out on the kayak, but she knows she will not ask Helen if she also saw the face.

The protagonist remembers a radio segment by a neurologist who claimed that many people with epilepsy are religious. The symptoms of epilepsy, such as hallucinations, intense emotions, and twitching, are all associated with moments of religious ecstasy.

When Alex first left, the protagonist came home late one night from work to find her room a mess. This mess frustrated her, though she herself had created it, and as she remade the bed, she watched the sheet slowly float down and realized that she wanted that same peace as it settled. Before she came to the abbey to stay, the protagonist unsubscribed from all the organizations she belonged to or followed related to the climate, social justice, and other progressive movements.

In town one day, Annette ignores the protagonist as she talks to a friend. Despite this, the protagonist feels grateful, relishing the freedom she feels. She is happy while Annette, speaking with a friend, seems miserable and annoyed. She realizes that the abbey is now home to her. The protagonist finds it hard to believe she has spent another year at the abbey, but she cannot imagine herself anywhere else.

Sister Carmel is horrified to see the protagonist scraping mold spots off bread, but the protagonist insists they should not waste food. The protagonist remembers her mother’s unusual housekeeping practices, like scattering wet tea leaves to collect dust before sweeping. She would also reuse plastic shopping bags, and though as a child the protagonist believed these to be weird practices, she knew that such thrift came naturally to her mother.

Both of the protagonist’s parents were accepting people. She remembers when the town sent out a letter trying to garner support to run a group of hippies out of town, and her parents defended the hippies, criticizing others for their intolerance.

Simone is frustrated with how the protagonist approaches prayer, admonishing her for believing that prayer merely speaking with God. Simone describes prayer as a time to think in new ways. The protagonist does not fully understand her, and though she sometimes feels belief at night, it is always gone in the morning.

Helen Parry remains at the abbey, and the protagonist and sisters begin to think she is judging them. They believe she thinks of them as lazy, sitting around while she does real work to change the world. Helen tries to arrange lodgings elsewhere, and there is a dual sense of offense across the abbey. They do not want her to stay but feel angry that she wants to leave.

On the way home from town, the protagonist stops and admires the landscape of the plains around her. On the radio, she hears an American professor speak on the reckoning occurring over the nation’s racist history, and she thinks of Australia’s crimes against Aboriginal people. At dinner that night, she tries to start a conversation about it, but no one engages or understands. She feels guilty when she realizes that Helen would understand.

The protagonist becomes used to emptying the mouse traps, unphased by the death of the mice. When she hears a scream in the kitchen from Sister Carmel, she assumes the sister is being dramatic. When she goes to empty the trap, she finds a mouse with its face chewed off. The mice are eating each other.

After Alex left, the protagonist confided in a coworker about her loss of hope for the relationship. Her coworker became angry with her, saying, “If you decide it’s over, then it’s over” (168). Now, the protagonist believes she understands why Catholics believe that despair is a major sin. In the loneliness after Alex left, the protagonist believed, with no evidence, that she would die.

The protagonist’s parents immigrated to Australia from Britain. The protagonist knows they did not flee anything dire, but she feels as though they escaped death by starting new lives.

While Simone struggles to clear Sister Jenny’s burial with the local officials, the bones stay in the good room. Helen also remains, watching the news every night while the rest of the abbey is at prayers. After she shuts the TV off, reports of everything awful happening around the world haunt the protagonist and the sisters, who stay isolated from it at the abbey.

Richard Gittens promises to dig the abbey a pit for the mice. As she waits for the work on the pit to begin, the protagonist watches every day as birds hunt and eat mice. When the protagonist sees Helen return late one night, dropped off in the Gittens’s car, she decides to devote herself to her work rather than speculate.

One morning, the protagonist finds a mouse in her shoe as she puts it on. The plague of mice worsens, and the sisters begin devising new ways to trap and kill them, despite their moral obligations. They try to keep from putting traps in the good room with Sister Jenny’s remains, though the traps outside its door are constantly filled.

Sissy and the protagonist chat while polishing the hallway floor. Sissy reveals that Sister Carmel left two teenage children to join the abbey. While Sissy admires the woman’s sacrifice, the protagonist is horrified, and angry at Carmel. After Carmel’s children come to visit, the protagonist observes the woman closely, enraged to see her become even more devoted to her duties and religious observations.