Authors: Judith Campbell
“Of course, Sister, and thank you for hearing me out. Thank you for believing me.”
Sister Patrick leaned back in her chair and looked straight into Olympia’s eyes. “I think we may be a lot alike, Olympia. I never took the easy road either. Time will tell on this one, but it’s not on our side. I’ll speak to him as soon as I can.”
Then she stood and held out her hand. “You did a brave and honest thing today, and I appreciate it. Now we both need to pray on it. I just hope to God it doesn’t backfire.”
“Thank you, Sister,” whispered Olympia, “I’d probably better get going now.”
Sister Patrick nodded and picked up the well-worn pencil and began smoothing it with her thumb.
On the way up to her new assignment in the Maternity and Newborn unit, Olympia wondered if she should have told Sister Patrick about Timothea’s discomfort with Luther, or about his cancer, or about Jim doing some investigation on his own. In the end she decided she had done the right thing by only reporting her own experience with Nancy Farwell. She’d spoken her own truth, and Sister Patrick was the one to deal with it. She was, after all, the woman in charge. Olympia allowed herself a very small sigh of relief. Now it was out of her hands.
Or maybe it wasn’t. She hoped she wouldn’t have to say all this again with Luther sitting there. But Olympia, she told herself, you already have, remember? And he didn’t listen.
After Olympia left the office, Sister Patrick put down the pencil and sat with her hands folded, trying to make sense of what she’d just been told and deciding how to proceed. Best to start with a visit to Nancy Farwell. Everything that Olympia Brown had told her carried the unpleasant ring of truth to it, but she needed to talk to the woman herself and get her side of the story.
And then what, Patrick Alphonsus Wanda Theresa Wysocki? Then what?
She popped another toffee into her mouth, poured the remains of the cold coffee into the drain in the water fountain outside the Pastoral Care office and started toward the elevator.
Once upstairs on the Transitional Unit, where Nancy was a patient, she waved at a familiar figure sitting behind a desk.
“Hi, Jane, I’m here as a chaplain today. I’d like to visit with Nancy Farwell.” Sister Patrick was leaning companionably on the counter surrounding the nurse’s station. The two had known each other for almost twenty years.
“You don’t know?” The charge nurse paused and corrected herself. “No, I don’t suppose they automatically tell you these things.”
“Tell me what things?”
“Nancy Farwell died last night, Sister. It’s so sad. She was scheduled for a transplant this morning. If she just could have hung on for another twenty-four hours, she might have had a chance.”
“When did she die?” said Patrick, not fully believing the bizarre turn of events.
“I can’t say for sure,” said the nurse. “All I know is an aide found her after ten p.m. It certainly wasn’t expected. She must have turned over and pulled out some of the lines, or maybe she started thrashing and disconnected herself. Like I said, I just found out myself. The family was devastated. They always believed she would make it. We called in one of your chaplains when the family came. Was she a friend of yours?”
Sister Patrick was on full alert. “Do you know which chaplain came in last night?”
“Let me see, said the nurse. She began flipping through the pages of the record book. “Ah, here it is. That’s an interesting name. Chaplain Timothea Jones, paged at ten forty-five, arrived just before midnight, and signed out at two a.m. Nothing else. I don’t recall ever meeting her.”
“Oh, you’d remember her if you did,” said the nun, holding her arms high and wide apart. She’s a woman of color, very tall and very impressive. She has a beautiful speaking voice, as well.”
The nurse shook her head. “You can check with the night nurse, if you want to.”
“I should have come up sooner,” said Patrick, more to herself than to the woman at the desk.
“You can’t be everywhere at once,” said the nurse, laying a sympathetic hand on the nun’s arm.
Sister Patrick thanked her and suggested they needed to have a coffee one day.
“We get so busy,” said the nurse, turning back to her paperwork.
“Too busy,” said the nun, starting off in the direction of the stairs, “but I’ll be calling you. I promise.”
As she rounded the corner out of the elevator foyer and stepped onto the Maternity Unit, Olympia couldn’t help but make the obvious comparison between this place and what she had come to know on the TU. Here, soft-bellied women in bathrobes were walking along the hallways in that slow shuffle that comes with just having given birth. She could hear the rhythmic, piercing squall of a newborn who has just discovered its appetite and was demanding to be attended to.
Olympia smiled in recollection of the birth of her sons, twenty-seven and twenty-five years ago, and that of her daughter, the one she had only just come to know, ten years before that. “Thank you, God,” she whispered. It was a miracle then, and it was a miracle now, the gift of new life and all that it promised.
After she introduced herself, the nurse on the desk immediately suggested that she go and visit the woman in Room 514, Grace Mangiani.
“She gave birth to twins last night, and one of them is in trouble. She could certainly use some support. She’s beside herself with worry, and that’s affecting the healthy one. He’s rejecting the breast. Babies, even newborns, pick up on what’s affecting the mother.”
Olympia took a deep breath and started in the direction of the room. Sister Patrick wasn’t kidding when she said this was going to be tougher than I anticipated, she reminded herself.
She found Grace Mangiani sitting up in bed, holding the healthy twin. Olympia tapped on the doorframe. “Hello, Mrs. Mangiani, I’m the chaplain assigned to this unit. My name is Olympia Brown. Would you like me to come in and sit with you for a while?”
The exhausted woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, please, yes. Did the nurse tell you? I had twin boys last night, Stefano and Giovanni. This is Stefano.” She looked down at the tightly swaddled baby in her arms. “Giovanni, that’s the other one, he’s in the NICU. They said he’s way underweight, and he’s having trouble breathing. They were born six weeks early. The doctor said they were doing everything they could, but I had to know that he might not …” She shook her head. “My husband’s down there with him, you know, so he won’t be alone. I’m staying here with Stefano.”
“Can I see him?” Olympia stepped closer. “I have two sons.”
Grace Mangiani loosened the blanket around the little boy’s face and then held him out. “Would you like to hold him?”
Delighted, Olympia reached for the baby and immediately began the instinctual rocking and swaying motion she used when holding her own sons all those years ago.
“He’s beautiful,” was all she could say.
“Will you pray for Giovanni?” asked Grace.
“Why don’t we pray for everyone?” suggested Olympia handing the warm little bundle back to his mother. “How much did they weigh? My kids were enormous. I suppose twins are always smaller.”
“Stefano’s the big one,” she said smiling down at her new son. “He weighed exactly five pounds, so if he doesn’t lose too much weight, I can take him home right away. But Giovanni’s under four pounds. Did I say he’s having trouble breathing?”
Olympia nodded. “May I hold your hand while we pray?”
Grace held out her free hand, and Olympia began reciting the words she had learned as a child. “Our Father, who art in heaven …”
Fourteen
The conversation with the nurse in the Transitional Unit dramatically altered Sister Patrick’s initials plans to investigate the situation. With no way to question Nancy about Luther’s behavior, she had only what Olympia had reported to go on, and that might not be substantial enough. Poorly handled, it could be the stuff of a libel suit. Even without Olympia’s warning, she had her own reservations about Luther Stuart. She was reasonably confident that Olympia wouldn’t have made up such a story, but on the other hand, stranger things had happened when intense personalities became involved in a power struggle, even hospital chaplains.
“Can you tell me if Luther Stuart has come in yet?” Sister Patrick located the charge nurse on the Hospice Unit, and now they were walking side by side along the wide corridor in the direction of the day room. “He’s one of the chaplains in the extended unit.”
“I know who he is,” said the nurse. “He’s probably straight ahead of us in the sun room. He’s been doing a regular Bible study with the ambulatory patients. They seem to like it. He’s an odd one, though.”
Patrick caught the nurse by the arm and stopped walking. “Why do you say that?”
“I wish I could put it into words.” The nurse was tapping her pencil against the edge of her clipboard. “He’s certainly attentive to the patients. Very conscientious about his hours, knows all the names, checks on them all the time. Even comes in after hours and on weekends. If someone is passing, he always offers to sit with them. He says he believes that no one should ever have to die alone.”
“Sounds like the perfect chaplain. So what’s the odd part?”
“It’s just a feeling. I probably shouldn’t say anything,” said the nurse and then continued talking. “You’ve encountered male nurses and orderlies who try to slip into labor and delivery so they can look at women’s private parts?”
Patrick nodded, her mouth set in a hard line.
“Not that. I don’t think he’s a voyeur, but I think he might have a fixation on death and dying. I’ve encountered it before. Maybe that’s why he wanted so much to be on this unit. I didn’t really pay it much attention when he started, but your asking me about him is making me think about it.”
“Can you say any more?” said Patrick, wishing she were taking notes.
“The other day I told him that a certain patient had a DNR on his sheet and then went on to say what exactly the words Do Not Resuscitate meant in terms of the person’s care. He started asking me questions like when exactly the moment of death was and if people can still hear after they stop breathing and …”
“And what?” asked Patrick.
The nurse shook her head. “I don’t want make trouble where there isn’t any, Sister. He wanted to know how soon
rigor mortis
set in. But those are all pretty standard questions for anyone new on the unit.”
“What are you trying to tell me?” pressed the nun.
“Last week one of the hospice patients died in the wee hours of the morning. When Luther came in that morning, I told him about it. He asked if the body had already been removed.”
“Had it?”
“Yes.”
“Then he wanted to know where it had been taken. I told him they take a body down to the morgue at first, but since it was already after nine, the funeral director had probably come and removed it.” He asked if I knew which one, that he thought he might go to the funeral. I told him I didn’t know, but if he really wanted to go, he should read the obits in the newspaper.”
“This sounds like a little over-involvement here, don’t you think? What then?”
“Not really, Sister. Hospice workers and volunteers often attend funerals and memorial services of the people they’ve taken care of. Hospice is different than everyday nursing care, you know that. We really do get very close to the patients and their families. I can see a chaplain doing that kind of thing. As I said, he’s very attentive.”
“What happened after that? Did he ask any more questions?”
“No. He seemed satisfied, but he was pretty quiet, more like moody, for the rest of the day. I didn’t ask. He’d spent a lot of time with the old man. We always miss someone when they go. I don’t think any of us get really used to it. I think it hit him harder than he expected.”
The nurse dropped her voice. “See, there he is.” She indicated a small group of people sitting in a circle at the far end of a bright sunny room. “He’s doing his daily Bible study. The ones who are able to get there really look forward to it. They like his hands-on approach.”
Sister Patrick thanked the charge nurse and walked across the room to where Luther was sitting, surrounded by a small group of patients. He was holding an open Bible in one hand and cradling his silver cross with the other.
“Sister,” he said, getting to his feet. “Why don’t you join us? We’re studying ‘The Book of Psalms.’”
“Thank you, Luther, maybe some other time. Can you please come down to my office as soon as you finish with the group? I have some information concerning one of the hospice patients that I need to go over with you.”
“I’ve not visited any of my regular patients here yet, Sister. It would be more convenient if we could meet for lunch.” Luther looked off past the nun and toward the hallway.
“I’m afraid this is urgent, Luther. Please come down as soon as you can. I’ll be waiting.”
On the way back to her office, Sister Patrick detoured by the NICU. She decided to take a few extra minutes to visit her little crack baby and see how she was doing. After that she would think about how to structure her conversation with Luther Stuart.
At Grace Mangiani’s request Olympia agreed to go down to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and look in on little Giovanni. If the father was there, she would introduce herself and offer to sit with him, if he wished. If not, she’d wait until he left and come back later.
As she entered the dimly lighted room, she was surprised to find Sister Patrick ensconced in one of the rocking chairs, holding a very small bundle. The nun’s lips were moving, but Olympia couldn’t hear what she was saying.
“What are you doing here, Sister?” asked Olympia.
The nun continued her rocking and looked at Olympia. “I come in here sometimes to rock the babies. It calms us both down. It’s not an opportunity one generally finds in a convent, or in my case, in the apartment I share with two other sisters. What are you doing here yourself? I thought you were upstairs in maternity.”
Olympia explained the situation of the healthy twin and the at-risk twin and then turned to see if she could locate little Giovanni Mangiani.