PROLOGUE:
Nicole had been living at the Saint Agatha's Orphanage in Cottonwood, Rhode Island, for just over a year now; her 18th birthday a few days away. She'd come to stay at the orphanage when her parents had both perished in horrific train accident while traveling from Rhode Island to New York for an Easter celebration; she was nearly 17 at the time and thus knew her stay at the orphanage would be relatively short-lived.
Deeply scarred and afraid of being hurt again, Nicole was very quietâkeeping to herself the fragile feelings, thoughts and emotions that drained her of any hope for joy. The other children, perceiving her discretion to be snotty and stuck-up, virtually ignored her completely. In fact, the only person who seemed to care enough to attempt to build a positive relationship with her was one of the nunsâSister Mary Elizabeth.
Sister Mary Elizabeth was a wonderfully kind and compassionate woman. She had come to serve at Saint Agatha's shortly after taking her vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to Godâdedicating her life to service towards fulfilling His will. Her path to righteousness, however, had been both tumultuous and painful; the trials she encountered cruel and unyieldingâher devotion to God the only reprieve from her vivid scars.
--Part One, Finding FaithâŚa prelude--
Born Mary O'Connell on October 16, 1947, her Irish-Catholic parents were first-generation immigrants who came for opportunity and settled in upstate New York. Her father, when working and not drunk, worked at a timber-mill while her mother worked as a cleaning-maid in downtown Albany. Mary's childhood was much like that of almost every child that grows-up in a working-class householdâharsh and taxingâbut at 16, life suddenly became dramatically worse.
It began when her father, quite an anomaly as he was an Irish man who really couldn't hold his liquor, went to work slightly drunk. In his stewed-state, he didn't properly secure the chains meant to hold the gigantic tree-trunks in place; they broke loose and he was caught beneath some of them. The accident turned-out to be quite severe, his back was broken and because he was intoxicated at the time of the accident, they were all left without any insurance to cover the medical bills nor the cost of unemployment.
Due to her father's impaired state, Mary's mother soon lost her job as well due to the time consumed by taking care of him. Mary was forced to get a part-time job while she attended school, but the family suffered dearly nonethelessâforced to move to a one-room shanty with only two mats for beds and a wood stove in the corner. Poverty and unemployment seemed only to stimulate her father's constant consumption of alcohol and he rapidly became more belligerent towards Mary's mother, and more explicitly-carnal towards Mary.
One night, Mary awoke to find her drunken father smothering her in her bed. The dank, robust odor of sweat and whiskey seared her nostrils, but she had to breathe through her nose because one of his large, clammy hands was clasped tightly over her mouth to keep her from screaming while his other hand groped her roughly, crudely beneath her nightgown. There was little that she could doâat around 280 pounds, her father easily outweighed her by over 150 poundsâstruggle as she did, there was simply no way of stopping him.