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Sister Mary Sebastian drank her fifth cup of the morning at a coffee bar in the Atlanta airport. Her booth sat by the wall—really just a long glass panel looking out over the planes parked in the rain below. The planes reminded her of cartoon dogs: big dogs and little dogs, ears straight out and tails up in the air. Smooth, wet noses. Go dog, go. She had read those words to many small children over the years, the "special needs" children who came to the school as babies and lived with the nuns until someone adopted them or foster families took them in. One little boy, Danny Clift, she'd raised by herself for three years. He was four when he left her. The night before he went to live with his new family, he pushed open her bedroom door, crying.

"Did you have a bad dream, Danny?"

"Yes. There was dogs."

"Do you want me to read you a Psalm?"

"No. Read Stop Dog, Stop."

Later, she'd heard he died in an accident at home. "Maybe it wasn't an accident at all," she told Theresa in tears, but there was no way of knowing. She hated the system, like everything else she couldn't control. She'd have preferred to keep all the children safe with the Sisters of Good Hope forever; she'd have established an old–fashioned orphanage for them, if Florida law had allowed it, or else adopted every child herself (but the order didn't allow that). Only the most exceptional children stayed for any length of time: the lame, the crippled, the blind.

None had stayed longer than Theresa—soon to be "Sister Theresa," if she decided to keep her own name. She had one arm, no left foot, and a mangled ear that she kept hidden under her habit. One night 26 years ago, a frightened woman in flat white shoes appeared at the back door, holding out a bundle. "A little present for you," she'd said, slurring her words as if she'd been drinking for about an hour before she came. She disappeared quickly, her shoes making streaks through the dark. Mary brought the bundle into the light and unwrapped it on the kitchen table, trembling. The last corner of blanket fell away like withered skin: inside was a tiny newborn, horribly injured, quivering and gasping for breath.

Sister Mary wore ordinary clothes today: grey slacks and a 20–year–old green sweater. Some nuns hated the habit, but she felt stangely conspicuous without it. It let people look at you without seeing you: you could hide in a habit, like an almond in a shell. Without it, you were only yourself—the person you'd always been—no longer hidden in the armor of the church.

She smiled at herself—to make such a melodrama out of clothes!—and smoothed her hair behind her ears, noticing the heavy–set blonde woman making circles outside the bar. No need for a second look. The woman had a memorable face: weepy brown eyes, a round jaw and a small mouth. Sister Mary sipped her coffee, nervously. A plane landed. Minutes later, a crowd of travellers swarmed through the concourse. She stood up, stuffed her styrofoam cup through the flap of a trash bin, and stepped gamely out into the walking traffic. Luggage whizzed by: suitcases on wheels, all of them black and exactly the same size. How did these people manage at baggage pick–up? She felt the blond woman hovering about ten feet behind her, but still she didn't look back.

Better to look like a follower than a leader. She chose a youngish Asian man as a pacesetter and walked after him, wheezing with the effort. He was perfect: long–legged and uncatchable. Far down the concourse he slowed and turned for a moment, maybe sensing something. She let her eyes meet his. That slight bow of the head, the one always expected of nuns—she gave him that, tipping her forehead and closed her eyes. The man frowned and flicked his hand over the front of his jacket. He looked back around and sped up. Another hundred yards and he turned off at an Internet station.

Whatever happened, she couldn't miss her connecting flight. Twenty minutes till boarding, but she'd gone too far in the wrong direction now and she didn't want to look hurried on the way back. She checked her watch again, turned into a hallway off the main thoroughfare, and found an empty restroom. It wouldn't be empty long—the quicker she got this over with, the better. She sat down on a toilet at the far side of the room and waited, looking at her watch. Two and a half minutes passed, and then she heard footsteps on the tile.

The door squeaked open in the stall next to hers. She bent down and saw the woman's stubby feet and thick ankles. She'd seen those feet before—just a few days ago, actually—but in different shoes, and from farther away, behind a baby stroller. Today the shoes were white, with rubber soles. There was no stroller. Sister Mary put her head against the metal wall, near the bottom.