It was eleven o'clock in the morning, and Robert was on the third shuttle to Denver. The flight was only three hours, but as they were heading west it would be only about forty-five minutes due to the time change. Robert was nervous from the time he sat down and buckled in.
The 737 revved up the engines, then taxied out on to the tarmac. The flight attendants went through the safety procedures, and explained how everything worked. Suddenly although Robert wasn't ready, the airplane started down the runway and lifted into the air.
"Well here goes nothing." Said Robert as the little airplane broke through the clouds. Making a wide sweeping turn to head west. At Robert's request, the flight attendant brought him a double Jack Daniels on the rocks, which he drank down immediately, then ordered another.
After downing two doubles, Robert began to relax, and sat back to try and enjoy the flight. When he looked around at the other passengers, they all looked like terrorists, but he was a little higher than the airplane, so he just giggled.
What seemed to be about two or three minutes later one of the flight attendants was shaking his arm and telling him that they were now on the glide path into Denver, and they would be landing in fifteen minutes. Robert took a chance and looked out the window. Although he expected a lot of trees and snow, the city was very desolate looking and there were no trees in sight.
When they landed it felt like all the tires were flat, but the plane taxied to the terminal, and some of the passengers began to get off. Robert was never so happy just to be on the ground. When the flight attendant said,
"Welcome to Denver, and join us again."
Robert mumbled under his breath,
"Oh yah like that will ever happen."
Robert picked up his bags and went over to the Hertz Rental agency, where he rented a little dark blue sedan. He also obtained a local, and state map and went to the car.
It was almost two o'clock, when Robert pulled the rental car up to Our Lady of Sacred Love Academy and St. James High School on Barton Street. He got out of the car and walked up to the school. He thought to himself he could just talk to her. If she liked the life she was living, he would leave.
As he entered the front door he saw a sign, which displayed, Principal Leo Bonarotti. A very prim and proper secretary, in her late forties, with a very large nose, greeted him as though she had a mouth full of cotton. She picked her words carefully and said slowly, "May I help you sir?" and even though she said it, Robert knew by her attitude that she didn't mean it.
"I believe my sister is a nun here. I would like to speak with her."
"Her name?"
"Kathryn English."
"Sorry, she is allowed no visitors. Goodbye Sir." The woman turned her back on him and began shuffling some papers.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I will have to ask you not to raise you voice, and refrain from using profanity. This is a Catholic School." She said still with her back toward him.
Robert reached over the desk, grabbed her chair and spun her around. She had an expression of someone riding a "tilt a whirl" at an amusement park.
"Listen very carefully ... lady." said Robert, "I don't care if this is the fucking Vatican. I said I want to talk to my sister."
The robot like woman slowly lifted her arm and flipped a switch on an old intercom box.
A voice answered. "Yes Miss. Murray, what is it."
"Mr. Bonarotti, there is a ... man ... out here who wishes to visit a nun," she said in a monotone voice. "Sister Mary Stewart. He refuses to take no for an answer."
The door to the Principal's office opened and a rather large man of about three hundred pounds with a bright red face, wiping perspiration from his forehead stared at Robert incredulously. It was obvious he was of Italian ancestry, as he looked more like more like a "Mafia" good guy than a schoolteacher. He said. "Please come in." "My name is Robert English, and my sister Kathryn is employed here as a nun. I would like to speak with her."
"Didn't my secretary explain that it was not possible."
"There were words to that effect. But I don't accept her statement."
"Well what is it that you don't understand? This is a cloistered nunnery, and the sisters never speak to anyone."
"Why ... is she under arrest?"
"Of course not. She is here of her own free will. Do you not understand what a cloistered nunnery is?"
"Yes ... I'm Catholic. It means, separated from, and having little contact with the outside world."
"Well?"
"Little contact doesn't mean no contact at all, does it."
"I'm awfully sorry, however those are our rules."
"May I ask how many nuns and priests are employed here?
"About fifty nuns, many of whom are teachers and twenty priests."
"Fine, I'll just give you my card. I work for a large western newspaper in California. Can you tell me the direction of the Sheriff's Department? I'm beginning an investigation in this area of priests who have been molesting children."
Bonaritti, sat motionlessly his face turning a deathly white, as though the blood bank had taken a little too much at his last donation.
"What is it that you really want Mr. English?"
"I really want to speak with my sister. Will you arrange that now?"
Bonaritti picked up the phone and entered three numbers on the pad.
"Yes Miss. Swarthing, this is Bonaritti. I wish to speak to the Mother Superior."
"Reverend mother, I have a situation. We have a man who must speak with his sister, Mary Stewart ... Yes I know that, however this is an emergency ... we will just have to forget the rules this one time ...Yes I will explain it to you later. OK that will be fine ... Yes OK."
The Principal directed Robert down the hall to a recreation room. He took Robert in and had him sit in a chair in the middle of the room. There, he was left alone for about ten minutes, until one of the back doors opened and two nuns walked in. Robert stood as they walked over to him. It almost looked like a prison matron with and inmate.
They both appeared to be just over five foot, and they were dressed in heavy robes.
"Are you Kathryn English?" asked Robert.
The nun made no statement however nodded her head looking toward the floor. The other sister who was easily in her sixties, stood close to the younger one, holding her arm.
"Excuse me, but I would like to talk my sister alone."
"That is not possible."
"You wouldn't want to bet your rosary beads on it would you Sister?"
"Well I was told ..."
"I know exactly what you were told," said Robert. "Now I'm telling you, if you want to keep this school out of the newspapers, off of television and out of the courts, you will leave this room immediately."
She stood looking at him, with a forty-year history of Catholic School behind her. She had handled many students in her time and Robert was no different.
"Did you not understand what I said sister?" Said Robert looking down into her eyes, not blinking about three inches from her face. "If things don't go my way and you people don't cooperate, I'll get this school closed down, no matter what it takes."
The little old nun, who resembling a thoroughbred pit bull, almost snared at him curling her upper lip, then turned and defiantly walked from the room.
He sat down next to the younger nun and asked,
"Do you know who I am Sister?
She shook her head however said nothing.
"I'm your brother Robert."
"Robert?" She had the beginning of a smile on her face, and tears welling up in her eyes.
