Sister Lydia continued to pace as she cogitated.
“I know the president of the A&M. He’s one of my biggest financial supporters. And he’s a friend of your brother’s too, isn’t he, Sister Vivian?”
Miss Colthurst nodded.
“Then I see no reason these men shouldn’t be held to account for their actions and expelled from the college, and the sooner the better. This very afternoon, in fact. Monstrous behavior like this shouldn’t go unaddressed and unpunished.” Sister Lydia checked a smile. “I’m afraid my Old Testament is showing.”
“But you can’t mean Pat,” said Molly in a quiet but urgent voice.
“No, darling. We won’t expel your Mr. Harrison, of course not. Sister Ruth, I assume you’d like to make the same appeal on behalf of your Mr. Pardlow?”
Ruth nodded. “He can’t have that kind of blemish on his school record. You see, Cain’s decided to leave Zenith and enroll in the U. of W. in the fall.”
“I see,” said Sister Lydia, the suggestion of a sly grin now breaking through. “It seems that ‘Old Gang’ of theirs is breaking up six ways from Sunday. And it’s all for the best, girls. Now, Molly, let’s go see your Mr. Harrison. And as for the rest of my Quintet of Songful Seraphim, Sister Vivian has told me she can get along without you for the next couple of days. But then I need the five of you back among the angels. Our inaugural service, in which you will all play so vital a part, is only a few days away.”
As Sister Lydia began making her rounds (word of her impromptu appearance at Zenith General had now begun to circulate, and the renowned faith-healing evangelist simply could not, in good conscience, confine her bedside visits to only Pat Harrison and Sylvia Hale), Ruth Thrasher and Vivian Colthurst excused themselves from the company of Maggie, Carrie, and Jane, and went down to Dunker’s for doughnuts and coffee.
“There’s something I didn’t say upstairs that you should know, Vivian,” Ruth eventually worked herself up to saying.
“Yes?”
“Cain’s asked if I might move to Mohalis with him. He proposed that we attend the university together.”
Vivian nodded. “I’ve always wondered why a girl of your intelligence and with your obvious gift for words — why you never considered going to college.”
Ruth waited to answer until after the waitress had set down the plate of doughnuts and cups of coffee. Then she said, “I never thought there was much need for it. There are plenty of writers who’ve made important careers for themselves without an advanced education. But Cain said that given the opportunity, I should take it.”
“And this is that opportunity. Ruth, dear, do you love this man?”
“Not in the way I’m expected to. But he and I are becoming very good friends—close friends.”
Vivian Colthurst nodded as she dunked. She tapped the doughnut on the rim of her cup to keep it from dripping on its way to her mouth. She thought for a moment and then asked, “Won’t he be disappointed when he finds out you aren’t the kind of woman he thinks you are?”
Ruth smiled and shook her head. “He knows how I am. And I know how he is. It’s the kind of arrangement a lot of people like us are making these days. Society dictates that we must hide who we are, so if we find someone we’re fond of with whom to do our hiding, why shouldn’t we be with that person?” Ruth touched Vivian’s hand. There was nothing in the gesture that one might not see on any given day between two female friends. But the touch meant something very special for these two friends.
Vivian Colthurst spoke softly and without smiling. “Why shouldn’t you be with that person, you ask. Because you should be with this person — the person sitting right across from you.”
Ruth shook her head. “I don’t want a Boston marriage, Vivian. I want a Winnemac marriage. I think Cain does too, or he wouldn’t have asked me to go with him. Besides, Mohalis is only a short interurban ride from Zenith. You’ll continue to see me and I’ll continue to see you. And there will be a nice advantage to your seeing me there: we’ll be removed from the curious looks and the outright scowls of all those men and women of the ‘Sanctified Spirit,’ who are quick to judge in the name of their blessed Jesus.” Ruth laughed. “Good gracious God, Vivian, leave it to you to pick a profession which offers no romantic flexibility whatsoever. You might as well give up your job as choir director for Sister Lydia and, and join a convent!”
Vivian tried to hold back, but Ruth had gotten the better of her and she acknowledged the comical irony in her situation with a shrug and a grin. “Your Mr. Pardlow—” said Vivian when the feeling of merriment had somewhat subsided, “—he’s been sitting in that ward right next to his friend all this time?”
Ruth nodded. “He told me he thinks somebody should be there for those moments when Pat wakes up — so one of the nurses can be called to give him another shot of morphine to put him back to sleep again.”
“Is Pat talking? Does he say anything during those moments when he’s awake?”
“Not much. Cain says that once or twice he asked for his mother.”
“And where is his mother?”
“She’s dead. But in his delirium he doesn’t seem to know this.”
“And the boy’s father?”
“In Hollywood. He’s a carpenter. He works in pictures. But I don’t think anyone’s been able to reach him.”
“Then it’s good that Cain is there.”
Ruth nodded.
Cain had moved his chair away from the bed and put it against the wall to give Sister Lydia more room. She spoke a few words to Pat, who could not hear her; the latest dose of morphine having placed him into a deep, almost coma-like sleep. Then she knelt next to the bed and clasped her hands prayerfully. “Kneel with me, Molly,” she entreated. “You too,” she said to Cain, over her shoulder. The three knelt together as Sister Lydia DeLash Comfort prayed first for Pat’s speedy recovery and then for the redemption of his soul, should God decide instead to take him home. Molly nodded and amened as tears coursed down her cheeks. Next to her, Cain also nodded, his own eyes moist, his throat constricting as he fought the urge to blubber unmanfully in the presence of these two women and all the men bedded in the crowded ward.
That night Maggie and Molly telephoned all over Zenith in search of their missing parents. Molly was sure the two middle-aged lovers — one a fugitive and the other a very likely accessory after the fact — had found one another and were now hiding somewhere in town. Maggie wondered if they’d blown town altogether. She wondered this because Clara had failed to come home. When Maggie returned from the hospital that night, she found their house unchanged from the state it had been in earlier in the day. She also found no new hurriedly scrawled missive pinned to the Hoosier.
Nor had Molly’s father left his daughter a single word as to his whereabouts. Molly knew why. Once he surfaced, he’d be nabbed by the police right away, a hot warrant for his arrest having been issued shortly after the incident.
As Molly sat on the edge of Maggie’s bed, fighting sleep, Maggie made mention of her Uncle Whit’s cabin in the northern woods of Minnesota. “He doesn’t go there anymore, but he never sold it. He once told Mama and me we could use it whenever we liked.”