“Father Brenner should be honored this is happening in his church. So should you. This is the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to any of us. Or ever will “
Dan shook his head slowly and smiled. “I wish I could look at everything like you do. I wish I could work a room like you do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I wish I could get people to respond to me like you do. You move through those people upstairs like an angel. They’re hot, tired, sick, irritable, and hurting. Yet you squeeze by, say a few words as you pass, and suddenly they love you.”
Carrie felt her cheeks reddening. “Come on...”
“I’m serious. I watch you, Carrie. And believe me, you leave a sea of happiness in your wake. Sounds corny, I know, but I see the smiles that follow you. I see the love in their eyes, and they don’t even know you. You have that effect on people.”
Carrie hesitated, trying to frame a reply, and then the phone rang. Dan picked it up.
“Hello?...Hi, Brad. Fine. Yeah, she’s right here. Hang on.”
He passed the phone over to Carrie, then waved as he took the tunnel back to the rectory.
“Hi, Brad,” Carrie said. “What’s up?”
“It’s Dad.”
Carrie groaned. “Now what?”
“He could be on his way out.”
She’d heard that before.
“What is it this time?”
“They were just getting ready to send him back to the nursing home when he had another heart attack. A bad one. They’ve moved him into the coronary care unit.”
Carrie said nothing, felt nothing.
“He’s asking for you,” Brad said.
“What else is new?”
“The doctors say he’s not going to make it this time. He’s on a respirator, Car. He looks like hell...”
That’s where he’s going.
“...and I just wish, before he dies, you could find some way to forgive—”
“How can I forgive what he did to me?” she said in a fierce whisper. “How?”
“God forgave—”
“I’m not God!”
“At least give him a chance to say he’s sorry.”
“Nothing he can say—”
Brad’s voice rose. “You’re better than he is, Carrie! Act like it!”
And then he hung up.
Carrie stared at the receiver, stunned. Brad had never yelled at her before. Never lost his temper.
She replaced the receiver on the cradle and shoved her hands into her pockets.
Poor Brad. Always the peacemaker—first between that man and Mom, now between that man and her. But how could he think she could ever...
Carrie’s right hand pressed against the two little Zip-loc bags in her pocket. The powdered nail clippings and the ground-up hair...
The stuff of miracles.
She decided to make a pilgrimage to the hospital.
‡
Carrie stood outside the door to CCU and trembled like one of her homeless guests in the throes of withdrawal.
How bad could this be?
She didn’t know. And that was what terrified her. Fourteen years since she’d last seen that man. Half her life. Sixteen years since he’d started sneaking into her bedroom at night...
And Brad...how much had her older brother known?
He’d never said. They’d never discussed it, never laid it out on the table between them and stared at it. He always referred to it as “the trouble” between her and that man. Brad could have been discussing wrecking the family car or getting sick drunk. “The trouble”...
Some trouble.
At first, as a pre-teen, Carrie had been afraid Brad would hate her if he found out, hate her as much as she hated herself. And then she’d thought, he has to know. How can he not know?
And if he knew, why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t he help her? Why didn’t he do something to stop that man?
Carrie was pretty sure Brad had spent the years since she ran away asking himself those same questions. She wondered what answers he came up with. She wondered if he’d ever really faced what that man he called Dad had done to his little sister. Probably hadn’t. Probably had it hidden in some dark corner of his mind, buried under a pile of other childhood and teenage memories where he couldn’t see it.
But he could smell it. Carrie knew the stink of those two hideous years had affected the rest of Brad’s life. Incessant work...a life so filled with deadlines and meetings and shuttling between coasts that that it left no room for old memories to surface...a life alone, without a wife or even a steady live-in, because a lasting relationship might lead to children and God knows what he might do if he ever fathered a little girl...
Carrie half turned away from the CCU door, ready to leave, then turned back as Brad’s final words echoed through her brain.
You’re better than he is, Carrie! Act like it!
She set her jaw, numbed her feelings, and forced herself to push through into the CCU.
White...white walls, white curtains between the white-sheeted beds, white-clad nurses gliding from bed to bed, bright white sunlight streaming through the southern windows...flashing monitors, hissing respirators, murmuring voices...
Carrie turned to flee. She couldn’t do this.
“Can I help you, Sister?” said a young nurse with a clipboard.
Carrie mechanically handed her the visitor pass. “W—Walter Ferris?”
A smile. “Bed Two.” She pointed to the far end of the unit. “He’s stable now, but please limit your visit to no more than ten minutes.”
Ten minutes? Might as well say ten eternities.
The air become gelatinous and Carrie had to force her way through it toward Bed Two. She couldn’t breathe, her knees wobbled, her hands shook, her intestines knotted, she had to go to the bathroom, but she kept pushing forward. Finally she was standing at the foot of the bed. She compelled her eyes to look down at it occupant.
The room spun about her as she stared at a pale, grizzled, wizened old man with thin white hair and sunken features. His hospital gown seemed to lay flat against the mattress. Wires and tubes ran under that gown, a clear tube ran into his right nostril, a ribbed plastic hose protruded from his mouth and was connected to a respirator that pumped and hissed as it filled and emptied his lungs. His eyes were closed.
He looked dead.
She moved to the side of the bed, opposite of where a nurse was swabbing the inside of his mouth with some sort of giant Q-tip.
“What are you doing?” Carrie asked.
The nurse looked up, another young one, blonde. They all seemed young in here.
“Just running a lemon swab over his oral membranes. Keeps them moist. Makes him more comfortable. You must be his daughter. Your brother’s mentioned you a lot but he said you couldn’t come.”
Carrie could only nod.
The nurse dropped the swab into a cup of water on the bedside table. “I’ll leave you two alone.”
Carrie fought the urge to grab her and hold her here.
No! Please don’t leave me alone with him!
But the nurse hurried off. Carrie thanked God he was asleep. She’d do what she came here to do and then leave.
“I forgive you,” she said softly.
Who knew what torment he’d been going through during Mom’s illness? Perhaps something had snapped within him...temporary insanity. There was a good chance he’d never done anything like that before or since. One sick period in an entire life...true, that period had scarred both his children for the rest of their lives, but now, at the end of his days, it was time for forgiveness. These were words Carrie had thought she’d never say, but her time with the Virgin had brought a change within her, a softening.