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The first week of a new school year was always full of people pretending nothing had changed while checking constantly to see what had. Lockers belonged to different students. Timetables had shifted. Teachers occupied rooms that still smelled faintly of summer cleaning. Older pupils walked the same corridors with new authority mostly because younger ones now moved out of their way. Riri noticed the changes more sharply that September because Sister Mary-Agnes no longer taught her directly.
The fact was ordinary. Students advanced. Timetables separated people who had spent years in the same room. No conflict had caused it, and nobody behaved as though an era had ended. Mary-Agnes remained in the building, visible in corridors, at assemblies and occasionally in the staff-supervised activities that overlapped with Riri's day. That very ordinariness made the adjustment strange. For three years Riri had known she would see Mary-Agnes at a particular hour, in a particular classroom, with work that would pass beneath those precise eyes. Now a whole school day could go by with nothing more than a glimpse across the hall.
Riri had expected herself to be more mature about this. Instead she discovered how much affection could hide inside routine. She missed the sound of Mary-Agnes beginning a lesson. She missed the small irritation of having an argument interrupted by the bell. She missed putting real effort into an essay partly because she wanted the comments at the end. None of this meant she disliked her new teachers. One was excellent. Another was funny in ways Mary-Agnes rarely tried to be. Riri's education continued. The problem was not academic. It was the absence of a person from the structure of the day.
Their first real conversation of the term occurred beside a supply cupboard. Riri was carrying a box of hockey fundraising forms to the office when Mary-Agnes came around the corner with a stack of exercise books. They nearly collided. Riri stepped back, Mary-Agnes shifted the books, and for one second both looked absurdly formal with each other. Then Mary-Agnes asked how the new timetable was treating her. Riri said it was all right. Mary-Agnes asked whether that meant all right or whether it meant Riri had already found six things to complain about. Riri said only four.
The ease returned at once. They spoke for perhaps two minutes. Mary-Agnes had another class. Riri had forms to deliver. There was no reason to make the corridor into an emotional occasion. Yet afterward Riri felt steadier. Their relationship had changed shape without disappearing.
That autumn Riri began seeing more of Tessa Bell. Not officially at first. They studied together badly, watched hockey when they could, walked through town after school and found increasingly transparent reasons to stand close. Tessa was still uncertain about how openly she wanted to identify herself, and Riri, who had little patience for dishonesty but more patience for fear, learned not to demand declarations. They kissed for the first time behind a community centre after a game, both cold enough that the moment was less cinematic than either had imagined. Tessa laughed against Riri's mouth because Riri's nose was freezing. Riri had never felt anything so reciprocal.
The experience rearranged her understanding of Mary-Agnes without replacing it. Kissing Tessa was not like imagining Mary-Agnes. Tessa could want her back. Tessa could be nervous, stubborn, wrong, jealous, funny and physically close in ways that required no impossible future. Riri did not need to translate every glance. If Tessa wanted to hold her hand, she reached for it. If she did not, she said so. Reciprocity was not less profound for being simpler.
Mary-Agnes learned about Tessa gradually because there was no formal announcement. She saw them together after school, then at a game, then walking with the particular half-distance of girls who wanted to be close without becoming school gossip. Riri watched carefully for some reaction and was ashamed of herself for watching. She knew Mary-Agnes would not be jealous. The thought itself felt disrespectful to everything the woman had taught her about the difference between affection and possession.
What Riri saw instead was quiet approval directed not at the romance itself but at Riri's widening life. Mary-Agnes greeted Tessa normally. She did not ask intrusive questions. Once, when Tessa waited near the gym while Riri finished helping with equipment, Mary-Agnes brought her a chair rather than leaving her standing in the corridor. That was all. Riri felt an odd tenderness in the simplicity.
They still ran occasionally, always with Evelyn knowing the arrangements as she had from the beginning. The frequency had decreased naturally. Riri's hockey schedule was heavier, Mary-Agnes had her own obligations, and Riri's social life no longer revolved around adult availability. When they did run, the conversation had changed. Riri brought more of her own conclusions rather than questions. She challenged Mary-Agnes more freely. Once they argued for nearly three miles about whether refusing help could become a form of vanity. Mary-Agnes accused Riri of having a suspiciously specific example in mind. Riri told her the example was standing beside her.
Mary-Agnes was offended enough to become faster. Riri laughed so hard she lost rhythm. Seeing Mary-Agnes as an actual person had become one of the great developments of Riri's affection. She noticed fatigue now. She noticed days when Mary-Agnes had no patience left for unnecessary conversation and respected them instead of feeling personally rejected. She noticed the older woman's tendency to carry too much herself because delegating felt inefficient. During a school event that October, Mary-Agnes spent most of an afternoon moving boxes of books from one room to another rather than waiting for the caretaker to bring a cart. By the fourth box she was visibly annoyed with the awkward weight.
Riri found her halfway down the corridor and took the bottom of the box without asking. Mary-Agnes said she could manage. Riri replied that this was not the question. The borrowed sentence stopped Mary-Agnes completely. She looked at Riri, then at the box, and let Riri carry the heavier end.
The pleasure Riri took in that victory was almost indecent. They moved the remaining boxes together. Nothing about the work was romantic, yet Riri felt the old adoration braided through it. She loved the competence of Mary-Agnes and increasingly loved the places where competence became stubbornness. She loved that the woman who taught restraint could forget to apply it to herself. She loved being able to push back now without losing the basic hierarchy of their history. Mary-Agnes was still the adult, still a former teacher, still someone whose role in Riri's life had been shaped by responsibility. But Riri was no longer the younger girl who accepted every instruction because hearing Mary-Agnes speak felt like receiving law.
The shift showed itself in smaller ways. When Mary-Agnes recommended a book, Riri sometimes said no. When she disagreed with a comment about an essay written for another teacher, she defended her interpretation instead of quietly assuming Mary-Agnes must be right. Once Mary-Agnes admitted Riri's reading was stronger than hers. Riri carried the admission around for a day, but not because she had been crowned clever. It mattered because disagreement had not broken respect.
Tessa noticed all of this with the acuity of someone who had been studying Riri in turn. One evening they sat in the Callaghan kitchen doing homework while Evelyn read at the table. Tessa asked Riri whether Sister Mary-Agnes knew she was still in love with her. Evelyn did not visibly react, which made Riri certain she was listening. Riri stared at Tessa long enough to make the question uncomfortable. Then she said yes.
Tessa asked whether that was weird. Riri thought about it before answering. She said the love was different now. Tessa asked different how. Riri could not explain without making it sound more finished than it was. She said Mary-Agnes was Mary-Agnes. Tessa was Tessa. Neither cancelled the other because they were not asking the same thing from her.
Tessa accepted that with more maturity than Riri had expected. She looked down at her homework and said, "Good." Riri asked what good meant. Tessa said it meant she was not interested in competing with a nun who had no intention of competing back. Evelyn covered a smile with her hand.
Riri groaned and told both of them she hated the kitchen. The joke did not erase the seriousness underneath. Riri was learning that love could persist after fantasy had been disciplined. She did not need Mary-Agnes to become a future lover in order for the attachment to remain formative and real. She could also desire Tessa wholeheartedly without pretending the earlier devotion had been childish nonsense. Adolescence did not require each new feeling to invalidate the one before it.
In November Mary-Agnes attended one of Riri's hockey games. She was not there solely for Riri; several students were playing, and the school had encouraged staff to support the local teams. Riri knew all of this and still became painfully aware of where Mary-Agnes was sitting in the stands. Old habits survived sophistication. She played too hard during the first shift, recognized the mistake almost immediately, and forced herself back into position.
The game settled. Riri stopped trying to impress and began playing properly. She read the ice, protected space, moved the puck, and used her strength without chasing contact for its own sake. Late in the second period she had a clean opportunity to flatten a smaller opponent who was already losing the puck. The hit would probably have been legal. It would also have been useless. Riri angled her away instead and took possession.
From the bench she glanced toward the stands once. Mary-Agnes was watching the game, not performing approval. Riri smiled anyway. Afterward Tessa met her outside the dressing room. Mary-Agnes passed them on her way toward the exit and said Riri had played intelligently. Three words. Years earlier, Riri might have floated home on them. Now she still felt the warmth, but it joined the rest of the evening rather than replacing it. Tessa had brought her a hot drink. Evelyn was waiting by the doors. One of Riri's teammates was complaining about a referee. Life had become crowded enough to hold several kinds of love at once.
That was perhaps the greatest change of the year. Mary-Agnes had once seemed enormous partly because Riri's world was smaller. As Riri's world expanded, Mary-Agnes did not shrink. She became more proportionate. The love lost some fantasy and gained context. Riri could walk past her in a corridor without the whole day tilting. She could also turn a corner unexpectedly, see the familiar habit and quick stride, and feel the old bright pull beneath everything she had learned.
September had made her fear that losing the classroom would mean losing the relationship. By winter she understood that some bonds survived precisely because they could tolerate less access. Mary-Agnes did not need to be part of every day to remain important. Riri did not need constant approval to remain loved in the way Mary-Agnes loved her: as a pupil she had cherished, a young athlete she enjoyed, a girl becoming more capable before her eyes.
Riri still wanted more sometimes. She was not pretending sainthood for herself. Desire could flare without warning, especially on runs when Mary-Agnes's face was bright from cold and exertion. But wanting more no longer made what existed feel insufficient. That was new.
One Monday morning in December, Riri saw Mary-Agnes at the far end of the corridor and lifted a hand. Mary-Agnes lifted hers in return, already moving toward a classroom. Neither changed direction. Riri continued to her own class.
A week later, Riri received an essay back from her new history teacher with a note praising the structure of her argument. Her first impulse was still to wonder what Mary-Agnes would have thought of it. The reflex surprised her, not because it remained but because it no longer controlled what happened next. She reread the new teacher's comments on their own terms, saw where the criticism was right, and revised the paper without seeking a second opinion. Later, passing Mary-Agnes near the stairs, she considered mentioning the essay and chose not to. The choice did not feel like withholding. It felt like evidence that some of what Mary-Agnes had given her was working exactly as intended. Riri could trust her own judgement more often now. She could carry a teacher's influence without continually returning to the teacher for confirmation that she was carrying it correctly.