Sister Arnette
The Passage (Justin Cronin Edition)Sister Arnette is a senior sister at the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy whose concern for Amy turns into an intervention: after realizing that Sister Lacey’s explanation for the girl’s arrival cannot be true, she contacts the authorities, and Amy is taken away. Arnette’s decision is shaped by a protective understanding of Lacey’s past, but it places her on the opposite side of the separation that follows.
Identity and Background
Arnette is part of the convent community and has known Sister Lacey for years. She understands that Lacey’s account of her childhood is not a reliable record of what happened: Lacey believes she was found in a field in Sierra Leone after soldiers killed her family, but Arnette knows that Lacey’s memory of the event has been lost. She regards that absence as a mercy that has spared Lacey from reliving what happened, and keeps the knowledge, along with her worry, to herself.
Arnette has also tried repeatedly to draw Lacey into ordinary community life, including trips to the Pantry and small errands. Lacey generally declines, maintaining a cheerful, untroubled manner that ends further questioning. Against this long pattern of seclusion, the sudden appearance of Amy—and Lacey’s claim that she is a friend’s daughter—strikes Arnette as inexplicable.
Suspicion and Decision
When Sister Lacey and Amy fail to return, Arnette waits through the morning. Sister Claire eventually explains that Lacey skipped Mass and left with Amy, who carried her backpack; Claire had seen them go through the back gate toward the park. Their absence turns Arnette’s longstanding unease into a concrete problem. She concludes that Lacey’s story about knowing Amy’s mother cannot be true and that there is no plausible explanation for how the two could have met.
At 10:30, Arnette decides to act, though she is uncertain how to begin. Her first question is what she should say about Amy, but she recognizes that any account will have to begin with Lacey and the story of the field. She picks up the phone. The moment is a shift from silent, private concern to intervention: Arnette chooses to involve outsiders rather than continue accepting an explanation she believes is false.
The Authorities and Amy’s Removal
When two FBI agents arrive, Arnette immediately understands that their visit concerns Amy. She says so before they explain why they are there, then confirms the point when the older agent acknowledges it. Her response suggests that she has already connected her own suspicions to the possibility of an official inquiry.
The intervention ends in a painful reversal. During the agents’ attempt to take Amy, Arnette urges Lacey to do as they ask. Lacey pleads for Amy not to be taken, but Arnette is the person who has brought the separation about. Amy is carried away, and Lacey is left behind. The episode gives Arnette’s choice its lasting consequence: an action begun as an effort to address a troubling, unexplained situation becomes the immediate cause of the rupture between Lacey and the child she has taken into her care.
