Saints for All Occasions

by J. Courtney Sullivan

She had the feeling that the immediate, the task at hand, was everything here. She thought about the women in the teachers’ lounge at school, who seemed to be waiting for something better, some man who might set life in motion.

She looked past him, to the image of the Miraculous Medal, forged in iron. It was then that she understood. She had assumed the Virgin Mother was guiding her to Patrick. But now she saw that the medal had been drawing her here.

This, then, was the hardest part of being a parent. Your children had their private worlds, where you could never protect them. They were yours and yet not yours.