Stone Yard Devotional

The protagonist had a friend who once admitted to helping her terminally ill brother die. He had a doctor come to the house to discuss his options with the family, but no one would agree to help. The protagonist’s friend did agree to help, and one day, while their family was out, the protagonist’s friend helped her brother pass. Afterward, she destroyed the evidence, and then called a doctor to certify the death. The friend, though she knew it was the right thing to do, is haunted by what she did for her brother.

At night, the protagonist hears mice climbing up the flyscreen over her closed window. The protagonist associates this noise with the feeling that her death is inevitable. She realizes that this is why she hates the mice. In a hallway of the abbey, there are two framed collections of dead, pinned butterflies. They remind the protagonist of all the horrible things happening in the world while she and the others hide, protected in the abbey. The protagonist confronts the fact that Helen Parry is the only one of them brave enough to face the outside world.

It rains all night, and the rain reminds the protagonist of when she lived in Sydney as a young woman. She had grown up in “drought country,” and the constant rain and humidity of the city was a shock.

The protagonist comments that when she was growing up, she never heard about biblical women in school or church. Josephine objects to this comment, and the protagonist then says that God does not care for her if she cannot hate herself for having been born a girl. Josephine, upset, begins listing women from the Bible, demanding that the protagonist see them as important. The protagonist does not change her mind about the sexism of Catholic doctrine, but she apologizes for upsetting Josephine and feels guilty when she sees that Josephine can tell she did not change her mind.

The rain continues, and against the protagonist’s hopes, it does nothing to the mice but drive them inside, making the plague worse. In church in the morning, as the protagonist changes flowers, she finds the peaceful dove dead, its face chewed off by mice. The protagonist is devastated.

The mice problem becomes even worse, and a guest cabin is converted into a storeroom to keep the food safe. One morning, Helen Parry joins the protagonist to check the storeroom. As they search for mice, Helen Parry asks the protagonist if she remembers Helen’s mother. When the protagonist says she does, Helen tells her, “I thought you would” (248).

When the protagonist was young, her mother and other women looked after a woman who tried to die by suicide. The woman did not appreciate their care, but the protagonist’s mother sat with her many mornings, and the woman warmed to her. One day, this woman told the protagonist’s mother that she, “won’t do it on one of your days” (249). After the woman took her own life, a sense of failure hung over the protagonist’s mother and the other women. No one ever visited Helen’s mother.

Driving becomes an act of bravery as the mice invade the protagonist’s car. She remembers how, in the time leading up to her staying at the abbey, her friend Beth received a terminal cancer diagnosis. The protagonist struggled with seeing and reaching out to her, not wanting to take too much of her energy and time, though it hurt to see others with her.

One of the last times the protagonist saw Beth, they sat on the grass and looked up at the sky. Beth told the protagonist about a man who had recently written to her seeking amends for having hurt her in the past. The letter was part of his 12-step treatment. She refused him, not having the time or energy for forgiveness. Beth died after six months, and even now, years later, the protagonist thinks of that man and how he must live knowing he will never have forgiveness from Beth.

Helen Parry helps the protagonist collect eggs one morning and asks the protagonist if she can join her on her next drive into town. The protagonist agrees but looks ahead to it with anxiety.

The protagonist’s parents belonged to a small group in town that helped to resettle Vietnamese refugees. They would throw welcome parties and help them find homes and jobs. Once, two young girls stayed with the protagonist and her family after being separated from their parents. The protagonist tried her hardest to make them feel welcome, but when they drove out to a barbecue to bring the girls to the Vietnamese community, the girls screamed in terror at the barren plains around them.

When the protagonist was a bit older, she continued attending the barbecues with her parents. She took Kelly to one, and they sat to the side until the protagonist’s mother introduced them to a couple, Binh and Thuy, not much older than they were. Though there was a strong language barrier, the girls spent the day with the couple, teaching them some English words and having fun. When they said goodbye, the protagonist felt as though she had made a difference. When she saw Binh and Thuy on the street later that week while walking with her friends, she ignored their enthusiastic wave and felt intense shame.

As the protagonist and Helen Parry drive into town, the protagonist tells her how she saw a man disappear down a drain the last time she drove to the abbey. She assumed he had gone down for a purpose, but was not sure what it could be. Helen tells the protagonist that the man disappeared, as the protagonist did.

Helen asks the protagonist to stop at their old high school, and they sit and look at the building in silence before driving to the supermarket. While Helen Parry runs her errand, the protagonist sits in the car, remembering a time she spoke at a Country Women’s Association meeting on a visit home for the Threatened Species Rescue Centre. After she spoke, the parents of a girl who died of anorexia spoke, advocating for more medical care for eating disorders at the local hospital. Her father declared that his daughter’s illness stemmed from her reaction to a dying world, destroyed by capitalist greed. When he said that he respected her for this, the crowd pushed back.

Helen Parry returns and reveals that she has a flight out of the area the following week. The protagonist congratulates her but feels as though something remains unresolved. On their way back to the abbey, Helen Parry asks to stop at her childhood home. After this, Helen directs the protagonist to the hospital and asks her to park outside the mental health unit. As they sit, the protagonist realizes that this is where Helen’s mother was for long stretches of her teenage years. Helen was alone, and no one in the town helped her. Their final stop is at the aged care center, and Helen emerges with a look of resolve. As they leave, Helen tells the protagonist that her mother tried to love her, though her mental illness made it difficult for her to express this love.

The protagonist once learned of forgiveness therapy, in which one engages with the pain of a wrongdoing to find out if they can forgive the perpetrator. Even if they cannot, they are still able to move forward and allow the pain to fade. After Beth’s death, the protagonist stayed away from those who she thought knew Beth better.

Winter arrives, and the protagonist sweeps leaves in the courtyard. No one in the abbey sees a mouse for days, though they continue finding corpses with no faces.

After her mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, the protagonist spent time with her. She died in winter, the scene outside her window ugly, and the protagonist wonders now if this made her passing easier. While in the hospital with her, the protagonist grew to think of her mother’s nurses as saints, always present and helpful, but never overbearing. She watched as they grew annoyed with that view, disliking how it replaced their medical expertise with mysticism.

Before her stay in the hospital, the protagonist’s mother recovered from surgery with the protagonist in the city. She did not worry about her own condition, saying her only fear was that of a near-death experience. Now, the protagonist wishes she was older when her mother died, thinking she would be a better comfort.

Simone announces that Helen Parry is leaving, and the sisters celebrate, though not for Helen. She also announces that Richard Gittens is finally digging a grave for Sister Jenny in the Stone Yard paddock and that they will bury Jenny before Helen leaves.

Once, Alex woke the protagonist in the early morning, worried that he was having an allergic reaction. As she called for an ambulance, she felt the urge to use the bathroom. She waited until after the ambulance picked her husband up, then emptied herself. She felt amazed at how she could feel so calm during an emergency even as her body reacts with terror.

It rains the morning they bury Sister Jenny. Helen is the one to suggest they bury her in Stone Yard, a way to work around the local government, which still has not given permission. They load the coffin into Richard Gittens’s truck and walk to Stone Yard. There, the protagonist and other sisters hand the coffin down into the earth, where Richard and Helen wait to receive it. When the protagonist helps Helen climb out of the grave, they lock eyes and squeeze each other’s arms. Simone leads them in a prayer, and as they say, “May our trespasses be forgiven, may we forgive them,” the protagonist silently asks Helen for forgiveness and is sure she understands (290). Richard Gittens fills in the grave, and as they watch over it, Helen leaves. She packs a car and is gone by the time the protagonist returns to the abbey.

Weeks later, the rain stops, and the plague of mice ends. The protagonist reminisces about her childhood pet, a three-legged dog named Peggy. Peggy slept outside until one cold night when the protagonist’s parents let her sleep by the heater. The protagonist realized that the dog was dying, and the next morning, they buried her. The protagonist’s mother always said that anything alive should return to the earth when it dies. It was why she composted, to make use of what is dead. The protagonist still does not know anyone who loves the earth like her mother did.