She never said a word, but she told us everything we needed to hear that night.

The door was open, but the reception was empty. A note, propped carefully on the desk, explained: “At the river. Back soon. Call if you need anything.”

My mom read the note aloud. “The river,” she sighed, “That sounds like a great idea…” She mopped her brow with the sleeve of her shirt.

I heaved my backpack to the floor, brushing a sticky cloud of hair out of my face. It didn’t help—my hand was just as sticky—but after ten days walking and five days of 100-degree temperatures, I didn’t have the energy to care. “Or we could just go to bed…”

My mom laughed—it was only 7 p.m., but since we’d been walking the Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage route across Spain, anytime we weren’t walking had essentially become bedtime. “I just hope they’ll have space.” We didn’t have reservations or phone service—and the din inside the kitchen portended a full hostel tonight.

We dragged ourselves across the room, collapsing on a bench. It felt good to put our backpacks down and rest our feet, but it was hard to relax until we knew we’d have somewhere to sleep. “I hope we won’t have to keep walking tonight.” I leaned my head against the cool wooden backrest. “Maybe we could do it…we’ve only walked twenty-eight miles today…”

“Only twenty-eight miles!” my mom scoffed. We were getting used to walking long days, but this was close to our longest. “Seriously, My, we’ve been walking since 6 a.m.!”

“I’m not saying I want to…”

“Besides, the next town is in—” She flipped through our guidebook— “seventeen kilometers.”

“Oh.” She was right—no way we were walking ten-and-a-half more miles tonight. So we waited, with growing anxiety as a stream of hikers flowed between the kitchen and dormitory.

We’d just turned back to the guidebook when several nuns bustled in. Two of them settled behind the reception desk, while the others hurried off with a pile of wet towels. One looked up as we hauled our backpacks over, greeting us cordially and pulling a heavy logbook toward her. It was filled with row after row of names and numbers, scrawled in the same black ink. “Pilgrim passports?”

We handed them over—slumping with relief—and she stamped them with a decisive and well-practiced thud. We’d carried these “passports” all the way from our starting point in the French town of San-Jean-Pied-de-Port, acquiring daily stamps to prove we’d been walking and to qualify for the budget hiker accommodations.

When the first nun completed our registration, the other stood up. She beckoned us to follow, then mounted the stairs and pushed open a heavy wooden door.

It was like she’d opened an oven. Both my mom and I recoiled in surprise as sweltering heat and blinding light accosted the cool, dim hallway, illuminating the chaos inside. The dorm was crammed with bunks and the aisles crammed with people, everyone shuffling about to prepare for the evening. Each bed was exactly the same, with sleeping bags and sweaty clothes strewn on every mattress and hanging from every frame.  A small fan at the foot of one of the bunks was doing its best to buzz the heat away, but its efforts only added to the tumult. Even if there were two available beds, we’d be sleeping on opposite sides of the room.

I glanced at my mom, whose clear overwhelm matched my feelings.

The nun—unperturbed—walked sideways between the rows, giving the room a cursory glance. Then, weaving her way back to us, she paused. She looked us over—we were completely disheveled—but her face remained impassive. Then she ushered us back into the hallway, pausing to open a closet and pull a stack of crisp white bedsheets from a shelf. Instead of turning back to the dormitory, she continued forward, opening a door on the left. My confusion grew as she put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a firm push through the doorway. I turned around as my mom was propelled behind me, but before I could recover my bearings, the door closed and I heard footsteps retreating down the hall. We were left in a small, silent room, with a high wooden ceiling and several empty bunk beds.

We  stood there for a moment, staring at one another. My mom shook her head, gaping at the bedsheets in her arms. “What just happened?”

“I think,” My eyes slowly spanned the dormitory, “she gave us our own room.”

My mom shook her head again, smiling in disbelief. “But she…pushed us in here!”

I nodded, and we both started laughing. Finally I paused, “do you think she’ll be coming back?”

The nun never came back. She never explained why she’d pushed us into this room, or gave us a chance to thank her. But she didn’t have to. We realized even then that somehow, through the cool darkness of her veil, between the columns of text in a heavy logbook, among the lines of people and the rows of identical bunk beds, she had seen us. She’d known just what we needed.

Process

In 2022, my mom and I walked across Spain on the Camino de Santiago, and this story is based on an evening that particularly stuck with us. I’m writing this piece as part of a larger project, but realized it could work as a standalone as well, so I brought it to my mentor, Stephanie Golden, who helped me to shorten and hone it to its current state. I’ve found that cutting down a piece in this way makes me think about it differently, considering which details are the most important to turn my memories into stories.