When Marcia saw the Falcon, when Elmer started it up, she winked at Bobby. “Sharp car,” she said. “Let's cruise.”

Amy held his hand in the backseat, her body close to his. They drove past the gnarled cottonwoods between the quarry ponds and the river, the leaves so yellowed that the slightest breeze liberated them from the tree, sent them trembling in whirling spirals, first away from the trunk, then down to the roots. Elmer found Marty Robbins on the radio, sang along as they headed west toward the foothills, all four windows open to the bluest of big skies, the cumulus-puffy promise of a sun-bright October day.

Sister Agnes Mary in the Spring of 2012

IN THE VESTIBULE OF St. Paul's Catholic Church, set off from the main sanctuary, tiny flames shimmer inside blood-red votive holders. There are shelves and shelves of them. The smell of matches and candle wax and the vague remnants of Sunday's incense make the air feel rich, tangibly holy. Sister Agnes Mary, age seventy-four, has risen early every morning for over fifty years to pray in this vestibule. She prays with her mother's old rosary, worrying the beads—magnesite, amethyst—between her fingers. For years, her morning prayers were full of gratitude for the routines of her life, happy prayers, full of certainty and light, fresh air in the stale sanctuary. Those prayers wandered and spread, rose as though drawn by a magnet toward heaven, escaped through stained glass.

Yesterday, when Sister discovered that the church planned to approve a new oil and gas drill site just behind the playground at St. Paul's Catholic Primary School, she went directly to the new priest, Father Morel, with her opposition. Father Morel, a grim liturgical leader, recently arrived from Argentina. He is twenty-eight years old, but his youth does not translate, as she hoped it might, into progressive thought.

“It's too close to the children, Father,” she said. “They won't be able to—”

Father Morel put a hand on her shoulder. Sister felt it as though he'd placed it over her mouth. “There is nothing to worry about, Sister,” he said, smiling the same smile Sister had given to the kindergartners she used to teach, condescension dressed up as kindness. “And if you persist in worry, lift your worry up to God.”