The Sisters

It was 4pm when Maria and Anna got in the back of the garda car. An alarm beeped loudly, startling the Sisters as they eyed Garda Jim O’Neill with great suspicion.

“It’s just the seatbelt warning; you need to put them on before I drive away,” he said.

The blank expressions on their faces told Jim that they did not know what he was talking about.

“The seatbelt, you see, behind your shoulder, the black belt thingy,” he said as he pointed towards it.

Maria reached behind and tugged on the belt; it jammed.

“Do it more slowly,” Jim said.

Maria followed his instructions, and after a few attempts, he finally heard that precious sound… click.

A smile stretched across her face as her excitement spilled over to Anna, who followed Maria’s lead, and she, too… eventually got strapped in, and off they went.

“I’m sorry ye have to do this today,” Jim said, “but Sr Bernadette had no living relatives that we know of. She needs to be formally identified.”

He glanced in his rear-view mirror, observing their smiling faces as they looked out the window.

“That’s okay,” Maria said, “we’ve seen a dead body before; last year Sr Margaret died in her sleep.”

“And the year before, it was Sr Mary, remember?” Anna piped in.

“She didn’t die in her sleep, though,” Maria said. “Heart attack while praying,” she added as she looked at Jim in the mirror, rolling her eyes in disbelief.

Jim stifled a laugh; he wasn’t sure if Maria meant to be funny.

Anna elbowed her.

“What?” Maria whispered. “You can’t laugh at something like that, Maria, it’s not right,” Anna scolded.

“It’s alright, Anna, no one can hear us, and anyway, Sr Mary was good for a giggle when no one was looking.”

Soon, they arrived at the mortuary.

A sickly sweet scent hung in the air as they walked reverently to the room where Sr Bernadette lay.

The silence was broken only by the solemn swishing of their long-flowing red habits that brushed the cold ceramic floor.

When the identification process was complete, they returned to the car.

“Are we going back now?” Maria asked as she tried to pull the downward corners of her mouth into a smile.

“Well, I’m not due to return to the station for a while yet, so if there is anything ye would like to do before I take ye back…” Jim said.

He watched the Sisters’ eyes dart from one to the other, back to him, and back to each other again.

“Could we go to the airport?” Maria asked as she bit her bottom lip.

“The airport?” Jim said, raising his eyebrows so high they almost disappeared into his receding hairline.

“We would like to see an aeroplane.”

“An airplane,” Jim smiled, “Aero is chocolate; air is air.”

The sisters laughed. “We’ve heard about airplanes but never saw one,” Maria said, searching Jim’s face for permission.

“I was just 17 when I entered the closed order; that’s almost 40 years ago now, and I never saw one.”

“Me neither,” Anna butted in.

“Buckle up then, Sisters, the airport, here we come,” Jim said.

The sound of click-click rang out from the back seat, their broad smiles washing away the years.

For a brief moment, two excited 17-year-old girls returned and sat in the back seat of garda Jim O’Neill’s car.

• Trish Raleigh-Doyle is a member of Inklings Writing Group, who meet on Tuesdays at 10.45m in the Annebrook House Hotel.