The Bracelet by Mary Jane Clark

corner of her smock.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” asked Jillian. “Is something wrong?”
    â€œNothing is wrong, miss. Everyone is so nice to me. They work so hard to help me and make sure I am comfortable. Tonight they are bringing me a special dinner for New Year’s Eve.” Esperanza’s eyes smiled above the plastic mask.
    â€œWe have a lot to celebrate this year,” said Jillian. “You’ve been healing so well. My father thinks he’s going to be able to discharge you in a week or so. Isn’t that wonderful, Esperanza? Soon you’ll be able to go home to your own place.”

    Esperanza watched through the window until Jillian was out of sight. Then she went to the bedroom, climbed into the queen-size bed, and snuggled beneath the light down coverlet and freshly laundered white sheets.
    She was torn. Of course she was glad that her healing was progressing and that Dr. Abernathy was confident that repeated procedures would continue to improve her appearance. But she didn’t want to leave Elysium. She didn’t want to go home.
    Not ever.
    After living in the luxury of Elysium, where the staff catered to her every desire, how could she return to the seedy and suffocating one-bedroom apartment she used to share with three other women? Actually, she couldn’t go back there even if she wanted to return. She had given up her spot, and someone else had taken her place.
    Esperanza wiggled her toes and felt the softness of the bed linens. She closed her eyes and began to concentrate on her breathing as the yoga teacher who came to the cottage for private lessons had taught her to do in order to relax. As she inhaled, a light scent of lavender filled her nostrils.
    She loved it here.
    Maybe if she told them that she was having flashbacks and was afraid for her life, they would see she was traumatized and let her stay longer. Esperanza hadn’t told anyone that she was remembering something she saw when she opened the door and the acid was flung in her face. But she didn’t want to answer any more questions from the police. Things had finally quieted down, and she didn’t want to stir it all up again.
    Most of all Esperanza was terrified that if threatened with identification, whoever had attacked and scarred her would find her and finish the job. Yet with what she now remembered, she realized that she might not really be safe at Elysium after all.

 
    C HAPTER T HREE
    S ister Mary Noelle bowed her head and knelt in the chapel of the Monastery of the Angels. Her fingers rubbed her rosary beads as she murmured the Hail Marys along with the voices she could hear praying on the other side of the screen that separated the chapel’s two parts—one for the cloistered sisters and one for the laypeople who came to pray. They asked for various things: a job, the restoration of a damaged relationship, a cure for a sick child, a miracle.
    She couldn’t see them, and they couldn’t see her.
    Sister was aware that this was the most secular night of the year. Outside the monastery walls, traffic buzzed along the Los Angeles freeways. People were heading off to an evening of partying and drinking, often to excess. Glamorous clothes and makeup, gyrating bodies, bright lights, dreams of being discovered by modeling agents or casting directors beckoned.
    For Sister Mary Noelle, the beckoning had come from Christ, when he asked her to “Come follow me.” That beckoning had led her to the contemplative life of a cloistered nun. She had completed her two years as a postulant, taken her simple vows, and was now a novice extern sister, with two more years until she made her final vows.
    It was a life she would never have imagined for herself as she grew up just a few miles away, the daughter of a successful plastic surgeon and a former model and actress. She and her sister had lived a beautiful life, in a beautiful home, and they’d gone to private schools