Changing Habits Read Online Free PDF

Maureen’s eyes sought hers.
    â€œDid you do it?” Kathleen whispered.
    Maureen nodded. “Twice.”
    â€œIn one night?”
    Again her sister nodded.
    Kathleen shouldn’t be this anxious for details, but she had to know, despite the fact that she’d never experience physical love herself. She sat up and wrapped her arms around her bent knees. “Tell me what it was like.”
    A soft smile lifted the edges of her sister’s full mouth. “I know why Mom and Dad had eight of us. It feels so good, Kathleen. It’s like…oh, I don’t know. It’s like nothing else in the whole world.”
    Kathleen leaned against the headboard and bit her lower lip, taking in her sister’s words. “Did Robbie use…protection?”
    Maureen lowered her eyes.
    â€œMaureen!” Sure as anything, her sister was going to end up pregnant before graduation and the whole family would be disgraced.
    â€œHe put it on, but he said it wasn’t as good and—”
    â€œYou should’ve made him do it.” Kathleen covered her mouth with both hands, equally dismayed at her sister’s foolishness and her own willingness to abandon the Church’s stand on birth control. “If you get pregnant, Mom and Dad will kill you.”
    Indignant, Maureen leapt off the bed. “Robbie said it was a big mistake to tell you. I should’ve listened to him. Miss Goody Two-shoes. No wonder entering the convent is all you talk about.”
    â€œThat’s not true,” Kathleen snapped.
    â€œIf you tell Mom or Dad, I’ll never forgive you.”
    â€œI’m not going to tell.”
    Maureen hurriedly undressed in the dark. “I could never enter the convent,” she whispered, calmer now.
    â€œBecause you’ve lost your virginity?”
    â€œNo,” she returned with a snicker, “because I could never live without sex. You’re better off not knowing, Kathleen. Ifyou did, you wouldn’t be so keen to listen to that call from God you’re always saying you hear.”
    Thankfully Maureen wasn’t pregnant, although once she and Robbie had started having sex they couldn’t seem to stop. Three months after graduation, Maureen had an engagement ring, and all thoughts of attending college were discarded like yesterday’s newspaper.
    In the last month of her junior year, Kathleen was elected prefect of the Sodality, the society dedicated to the devotion to Mary, the mother of Christ. She felt elated that her classmates had entrusted her with this honor—until her uncle Patrick unexpectedly pulled her aside at the pub one afternoon.
    Kathleen was sure he intended to offer her a weekend job as a waitress. She was a good worker and the extra money would mean she could afford a few extras without having to ask her mother.
    â€œSit down, Kathleen,” her uncle said, showing her to a table at the back of the pub. She wondered why he’d chosen to sit in the shadows.
    He pulled out a chair for her, and as she sat, she glanced down at the floor; even in this dark corner it shone. She took whatever task she was given seriously. There wasn’t a spot or a speck of dust on the polished oak floor.
    â€œI’ve never hidden the fact that you’re my favorite niece,” her uncle said, folding his arms across his big chest.
    He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and Kathleen wondered if he was already into the beer. Her uncle had a weakness for his own product.
    â€œSince you are my favorite, it pains me to tell you this. Damn, it doesn’t seem right, but your mother and father said…” He let his words fade, then took a deep breath. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to let you go.”
    Kathleen thought she must have heard wrong. Let her go? It sounded as though her own uncle was firing her. Shecouldn’t imagine what she’d done to deserve this. Furthermore, without the job, she