Pat contemplated the massive concrete and steel of Detroit. “You know, Joe, we’re lucky.”
“Ummm.”
“I mean, our jobs . . . our lifestyle . . . us.”
“Hey, is this a preamble to another try at getting me to go to church?”
Pat snorted. “If you ever darkened a church door, they’d have to reconsecrate the place.”
Cox covered Pat’s hand with his. “You’re right; we are lucky.” He lifted his glass and squinted at Lennon through the remaining champagne. “Here’s looking at you, kid.”
* * *
“How’s it going, Sister?” Dr. Fred Scott asked.
“Oh, I’m a little wobbly. But not bad for an old lady.”
Under her modified veil, Sister Eileen wore a wig while her own hair was growing back. The thought had occurred to her that in the not-so-distant good old days she wouldn’t have had to worry about her hair. The traditional habit would have covered everything.
“You sure you should be up and about?” Scott sat opposite the nun in her office. He had just taken her blood pressure, which was a little high, but understandably so.
“Not much help for it, Fred. So much going on since John . . . well . . .”
“Yeah, everything did pretty much hit the fan. How’d your meeting with the bishop today go?”
Eileen glanced sharply at him. “You knew about that!”
Scott shrugged. “Small hospital.”
“Hmmm. Depends on whose side you’re on. As far as my side goes, not well.”
“How bad?”
Eileen winced. It was difficult to tell whether it was from the occasional pain she still felt or the memory of her episcopal visit.
Scott leaned forward. “You all right?”
“Yes . . . yes. I’m okay. It still hurts once in a while, but not as often. I guess the thought of this afternoon doesn’t help.”
“You see Cardinal Boyle.”
“No. That was last week when we went over my options.”
“Oh?”
“Even in this ‘small hospital’ you didn’t hear about that?
“Well, it was one of those things that had to happen after all this publicity. I can’t really blame His Eminence. I have a hunch he was aware of what we were doing here about family planning and the like. But he was able to pretend he didn’t know, until just about everybody in the country found out. The poor man! He couldn’t really approve of what we were doing—even though he could understand why we were doing it. But in the glare of all that publicity neither he nor I could dodge the issue.”
“Which was?”
“That we were going to have to make some kind of public response. All I could tell him was that I was, in conscience, unable to change the philosophy and interpretation of theology under which we operate. He said he’d take my answer under advisement. And that culminated with my meeting today with Auxiliary Bishop Ratigan. I met with him and our Mother General, Sister Qaire Cécile.”
“And?”
“Bishop Ratigan was nice enough. But he had a job to do. He explained that if this had happened a few years ago, Cardinal Boyle would have resorted to his former custom of appointing a ‘blue-ribbon committee’ to study the matter. And they would have studied it until hell froze over or until the media forgot about it. Whichever happened first.
“But now . . . with the climate in Rome . . . well, there was no getting around it. We had to face up to conforming to the Church’s magisterium. I was to enforce the letter of the law or I had to step down. I told him that left me no alternative.”
“Sister?”
“The next part has got to be just between you and me, even though this is a ‘small hospital.’” She forced a smile. “St. Vincent’s is going to close.”
“No!”
“I’m afraid so. Sister Qaire Cécile said the Board had anticipated this sort of dilemma and had voted that, with my departure, St. Vincent’s would be closed. The only reason they’ve been sustaining it, in the face of serious financial loss, was because I insisted I could make it work.
“But even to keep the poor old place alive, I can’t compromise my principles. St. Vincent’s conforming to the letter of Church teaching would have no meaning here in any case. So John Haroldson got at least part of what he wanted. I will be gone. But so will St. Vincent’s . . . and at what cost!”
There followed several moments of silence. Scott reflected that the closing, as shocking as it was, also solved Dr. Lee Kim’s problem. Under the circumstances, Kim would have no problem transferring to another hospital. And wherever he went, it would be a step or more upward.
“And how about you, Sister? What will you do?”
“Oh, Sisters don’t join the unemployment line. Not even old ladies like me. I talked to Sister Qaire Cécile about it. Well, we’ve talked before about what might come after St. Vincent’s—if that ever happened.
“I’m going to be in charge of a new health-care program for our senior Sisters. Right now, there’s little rhyme or reason to the various scattered houses that care for our elderly and ill. The program needs to be pulled together and coordinated. Without lots of young Sisters out in the field to bring in money, we’re financially pinched as never before. It’s a good program and I’m eager to get into it. It’s . . . it’s the program Sister Rosamunda would have been a part of. But . . .
“Poor Sister Rosamunda.” Eileen shook her head sadly. “A classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She went to the pharmacy to get a supply of Terpin Hydrate . . . the poor dear probably couldn’t sleep a wink . . . all that pressure. She didn’t know I had ordered all the locks changed just so she wouldn’t be able to lean on that crutch anymore.
“And when she couldn’t get the pharmacist to give her the new key—again at my order—she knew where she could find a bottle. Everyone who knew me well was aware that I needed it for this postnasal-drip problem. If she hadn’t taken the poisoned bottle, I might have. Or John might have retrieved it. Poor Sister: in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Well, God writes straight with crooked lines. I guess it was time for me to move on.”
“And St. Vincent’s?”
“Yes, I suppose. Even time for St. Vincent’s to . . .” There was a catch in Eileen’s voice. “. . . to close its doors for good.”
“One thing, Sister.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t ever play poker.”
* * *
“I can’t say this hasn’t been fun, big fella. But don’t you think we ought to get outta bed?”
“Why?” George Snell was deeply depressed.
“Why?” Helen Brown echoed. “Because call lights will be going on and the nurse is gonna wonder why she’s runnin’ her ass off when there’s an aide someplace on the floor.”
“That’s just it,” Snell observed, “you ain’t exactly been ‘on the floor’ for quite a spell now. You been off the floor, as it were.”
“I know, big fella, and that’s why I gotta get back on duty. All somebody’s gotta do is look in this room and our collective ass’ll be in a sling.”
“What difference does it make?”
“What difference! The difference between gettin’ a paycheck and standin’ in line waitin’ for charity. If it trickles down this far.”
“It don’t make much difference. This place is gonna close down anyhow.”
“This hospital?”
“What else?”
“How do you know that?”
“Small place. Rumors travel fast.”
“Rumor! That’s all it is.”
“No. It’s gonna close.”
“Is that what’s gettin’ you down? Just ’cause this place closes don’t mean there won’t be any more jobs anywhere.”
“Yeah? Like where?”
“Like lots of places. You keep forgettin’: You’re a hero!”