By the time I was exiled to Maryville, I was really tired of all the games. Sister Consuela almost always spoke to me in a clipped and icy tone. I was her young puppet. She was the evil puppet master. Sister Consuela seemed to search in her evil bag of tricks to find the most despicable or boring job in the nursing home and give it to me. What she didn't know and never asked was that I'd spent the summer after high school working in our local nursing home washing adult diapers. I was comfortable with things she was not. Being uncouth had its advantages.
The civilian employees at Maryville accepted me very quickly. Sister Consuela spoke to them just as she spoke to me. They didn't appreciate her condescending and superior tone. I had more in common with the lay staff than I did with the Sisters. Sister Consuela's watchful eyes saw how quickly I made friends. She didn't like it. Like prisoners of war, we learned to give each other secret glances and to check the hall for surveillance by the enemy before stopping to talk. We went so far as to some times post a lookout to warn of coming danger.
The meaner Sister Consuela was to me publicly, the more sympathy I received from my "mates in the trenches." One day after she was especially abusive, the two male janitors stopped me in a hall way and quietly said, " You don't have to put up with this. Leave. You can stay with us if you need some where to go."
I was shaken by their offer. It may have been completely sincere and with no strings attached but I remained wary of what could have been an indecent proposal. I was young and inexperienced but I wasn't stupid.
It wasn't just the men who offered refuge. Maryville had a young vibrant activity director named Kaley. We hit it off right away. She warned me to be careful and offered me refuge on many occasions. Sister Consuela's "wingman" Sister Thomas warned me to stay away from Kaley but never bothered to say why. Determining who was most sinister was not that difficult.
I had been very careful not to complain or tell tales of what happened outside of public view. Surprisingly, the Sisters treatment of me was very disturbing to the outside world. The outside world didn't know the half of it. Their empathy arose from what they observed. Their belief in me and their obvious disgust at how I was treated helped me more than I realized at the time. Once I left the convent, I never saw any of them again. I hope they all moved on to bigger and better things.
Since I had no problems handling the laundry, Sister Consuela put me in the kitchen. I served up trays of pureed everything that looked more like vomit than food. I had to work very quickly to get the trays loaded and delivered and I did. Being competent and capable seemed to anger her more. Then she tried to punish me by assigning me to work with an obsessive compulsive dentist. Every one of the lay staff refused to work with him after word about his peculiar style leaked out. I had no choice. I suddenly became a part-time dental hygienist who used an ancient suction machine that vacuumed spittle and pieces of broken teeth and tartar into a clear Mason jar. I can't tell you how disgusting that was.
Within minutes, I could see that this dentist's behavior issues were too great a strain on geriatric patients with health issues. I went to the Director of Nurses at the nursing home and told her what I was witnessing. She was kind and really cared about her elderly charges. She actually believed me and had me document what was happening. The dentist was let go. I can still see him leaning against the nurses station, pleading for his job with tears in his voice. It was a heartbreaking no-win scenario.
Soon, I was told that I'd be staffing the front desk and handle incoming calls. At that time the waiting list in this Cadillac of nursing homes was about three years unless you had money or the right family name. Phone calls poured in. People desperately sought a good nursing home for their relatives. I listened to many a desperate and exhausted caller who pleaded for a home for their family member through tears. In the background, Sister Consuela would often appear and make motions for me to hurry the caller off the line so I could take more calls and not tie up the switchboard. The callers sadness often tapped into my own and despite Sister Consuela's impatient gestures I couldn't cut them off. I listened. It was the least I could do.
Angry at some imagined crime, Sister Consuela punished me by giving me the job of cutting up scrap paper and stapling them into smaller note pads. For three days, that is all I did for 8 hours a day. Finally, at the end of day three, she steamed by and snapped, "Alright you're done here."
I never knew why I was given this punishment. I was bored almost senseless but I coped by daydreaming. In my mind, I led an alternate life. I traveled the world and had interesting adventures. Life had already given me practice in coping. I was better at it then they ever imagined.
For Christmas, she told me that I would be dressing up as Santa Claus for the employee party and for the residents. Naturally, shy, I dreaded this job. When the time came and I was in costume, I suddenly found myself in character. The staff couldn't guess who I was. My Santa even delighted the icy Sister C who laughed like a young child. My performance bought me several days of better treatment. She seemed to need a Santa to thaw her heart. I kept this realization to myself. Who could I tell? Who would believe me? Part of me felt sorry for her. Hating her was easy. Pitying her was not.
During all this time, Sister Consuela was meeting with Sister Felicity or so they said. Their efforts weren't producing the result they desired. For a while, I felt like I was winning but this victory was bittersweet. Winners and losers existing side by side in a convent based on a concept of community was disheartening. From day one it had been easy to see that there were "haves" and those who were relegated to the "land of have-not."
Eventually, they discovered how to break me but before they did, I gave them a bit of a ride.
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