In This Small Spot Page 7

  “Wait.” Sister Anselma looked from Mother Theodora to Sister Mary David. “Could you care for her here? Or could I help?”

  Sister Mary David was puzzled. “Why in the world would you not want her in the infirmary?”

  Sister Anselma’s gaze shifted to Mother Theodora. “I realize what I’m asking seems drastic, but I truly believe Michele’s retreat should continue. I’m afraid she will lose all that she’s gained if we stop now.”

  Sister Mary David was looking at her as if she were suggesting torture. “Can’t she do that in the infirmary?” she demanded.

  Sister Anselma considered her answer. “It isn’t only the normal commotion of the infirmary’s comings and goings; I’m also concerned for Michele’s privacy. I’m not sure what may come up, especially while she’s in this fevered condition, but I’m fairly certain it shouldn’t happen where others can overhear.”

  Mother Theodora thought about this. She looked at Sister Mary David. “Can you physically care for her here? Is there special equipment needed that requires she be in the infirmary?”

  “I suppose not,” Sister Mary David admitted. “With a fever this high, she’ll need someone with her constantly until it breaks.”

  “I know you’re very busy, Sister,” Sister Anselma acknowledged. “I don’t mean to inconvenience you.”

  “I believe the three of us should be the only ones to watch over her for now,” Mother Theodora said.

  “Mother, you can’t! There are so many demands on you as it is,” Sister Anselma protested.

  Mother’s gaze met Sister Anselma’s directly as she said, “I believe you are correct about issues that may rise to the surface at this stage of her retreat, and I do not wish to compromise Michele’s privacy any more than this situation requires.”

  Sister Anselma nodded in acknowledgment of what lay unspoken between them.

  “If I may ask the two of you to get her out of those wet clothes and into bed, I am going to get a cot for us to use.”

  By the time Mother Theodora returned with a folding cot, Mickey was in a dry nightgown and under several blankets. Sister Mary David went to get medications and other supplies she thought they might need. She also brought water and juice.

  “I’ll stay with her first,” Mother Theodora said in a tone which cut off any protests. “Sister Mary David, please come to relieve me in the morning. Sister Anselma will relieve you after lunch. We’ll rotate until her fever breaks.”

  Mother Theodora got up every hour for the rest of the night. Mickey’s fever actually climbed higher. She took a few sips of the liquids Mother gently coaxed her with. She seemed to sleep fitfully, but when she was awake, her eyes were focused on something only she could see. She didn’t respond to her name or to questions.

  At four a.m., there was a soft knock on the door, and Sister Mary David came in. Mother gave her an update on Mickey’s temperature readings and went to get some sleep until it was time for Mass. Sister Mary David continued to rotate the cold compresses on Mickey’s forehead and kept trying to get her to drink. Mickey’s shivering continued. She alternately grasped the blankets to hold them more tightly around her, and then tried pushing them all off. Sister Mary David gently, but firmly, kept covering her up.

  When Sister Anselma got there, Mickey was sleeping. “Has she said anything?”

  “Nothing.” Sister Mary David gathered up empty juice containers. “I’ll come back before dinner to check on both of you.”

  Sister Anselma pulled a chair up next to the bed. She took Mickey’s Bible off the desk and quietly read out loud the passages she had given Mickey to pray with. Mickey’s fever remained constant at just over a hundred and three throughout that day. Not until that night did it start to come down even a little. Sister Mary David and Mother Theodora had both rotated through shifts. Sister Anselma was with Mickey again when she spoke for the first time.

  “Alice?” Mickey’s voice startled Sister Anselma who was dozing on the cot. She got up and came over to the chair. She reached out to change the compress on Mickey’s head, but Mickey grabbed her hand and held it tightly.

  “I am so sorry,” Mickey whispered, tears running out of the corners of her eyes.

  “Sorry for what?” Sister Anselma asked, but Mickey drifted off again, still holding to Sister Anselma’s hand and whispering “sorry” every now and again.

  A couple of hours later, Mickey’s temperature was down a bit more. Her eyes focused on Sister Anselma’s for the first time.

  “What happened?” she asked weakly.

  “We’re not sure. We found you soaking wet in the organ loft, delirious with a very high fever.”

  “I remember going out to the orchard – I just needed to walk.” Mickey stared at the ceiling for a long time before saying, “Did you know our property butts up against a schoolyard?”

  “No,” said Sister Anselma, watching Mickey closely.

  “I sat there all afternoon, listening to the children’s voices,” Mickey said. “I got caught in the storm. I don’t remember much after that. How long ago was that?”

  “Over twenty-four hours,” Sister Anselma replied as she placed a fresh cold compress on Mickey’s forehead.

  Mickey seemed to just realize where she was. She noticed the cot. “You haven’t been here the whole time, have you?” she asked, aghast.

  “Mother, Sister Mary David and I have been with you in shifts. Your fever got to nearly one hundred and four. We were afraid we might have to call an ambulance.”

  “I am so sorry. I never meant to cause so much trouble.” Mickey looked stricken. “You are all so busy…”

  “Nonsense,” Sister Anselma said firmly. “But ‘sorry’ seems to be on your mind a great deal. The only things you’ve said are to call Alice’s name and keep repeating that you are sorry. Sorry for what, Michele?”

  Mickey’s face was still flushed and hot with her fever. Her eyes looked at Sister Anselma as if haunted. Sister Anselma’s image began to swim as Mickey’s eyes filled with tears. She closed her eyes and the tears spilled over.

  “I should have seen,” Mickey whispered.

  Understanding dawned on Sister Anselma’s face. “You blame yourself for her death?” she asked softly. “You think you should have been able to save her?”

  “I should have paid more attention, should have caught it earlier,” Mickey’s voice cracked as her throat tightened. “If she’d been a patient… I always saw things others missed, diagnosed things no one else saw. But… with Alice… I didn’t pay enough attention.”

  “Could anyone have seen what was happening?”

  Mickey didn’t answer, but she almost seemed to convulse with the effort of holding back her sobs.

  “Let it go,” Sister Anselma murmured.

  And the anguish broke forth in waves. Mickey’s whole body was racked with the depth of her sobbing. Each time it started to quiet, new waves came.

  As she sat there, knowing Mickey needed to work through this, Sister Anselma’s face changed – her features relaxed, softened, “melted,” Sister Mary David would say later.

  Mickey cried until she cried herself to sleep. Watching her curled up on her side, her eyelashes and cheeks still damp, Sister Anselma reached out and laid her hand gently on Mickey’s head. To her surprise, Mickey actually felt cooler. She wasn’t sure why, but she let her hand linger, not wanting to break contact.

  ╬ ╬ ╬

  When Mickey awakened the next morning, the fever was completely gone, and Mother Theodora was with her. Mickey sat up, feeling disoriented.

  “Was Sister Anselma here last night, or was that a dream?” she asked, rubbing her forehead.

  Mother Theodora smiled. “It was no dream, although I don’t doubt you’ve had some bizarre ones. Being ill always does that to me.”

  Mickey felt her own face. “I think my fever broke.”

  “I don’t think that’s all that broke last night,” Mother Theodora said cryptically.

  Mickey didn�
�t seem to hear. “Mother? Not that I mind, but why wasn’t I taken to the infirmary?”

  “It was Sister Anselma’s idea,” Mother Theodora replied as she handed Mickey a glass of orange juice. “Drink. She felt it was important for your retreat to continue and that it should probably do so in a more private location than the infirmary.” She watched Mickey’s face as she asked, “What do you remember of last night?”

  Mickey delayed answering by drinking more of her juice. “I’m pretty sure I remember everything, although it seems distorted. I woke to find Sister Anselma here. It took me a minute to realize where I was. She told me I had been calling Alice’s name and saying I was sorry.” She looked down at her glass as her eyes filled with tears again.

  “It’s all right,” Mother Theodora said quietly. “I just wanted to be sure you recalled what happened. I think it will be important as you continue your retreat. Do you think you could eat something?”

  Mickey nodded.

  “Good. I’ll give you time to wash up and change nightgowns. I’ll return in a little while with some breakfast.”

  Sister Mary David was with Mother Theodora when she returned. She insisted on taking Mickey’s temperature again. “Almost normal,” she pronounced.

  “We’ll leave you now,” said Mother. “Sister Anselma will be by later, and the two of you may decide the best schedule for the remainder of your retreat. I think it would be wise for your meals to be brought to you for the next few days, until you are fully well.”

  With that, Mickey was left alone and in silence once again. “Well, in silence maybe,” Mickey would have said, “but certainly not alone,” as memories long pushed to the recesses of her mind kept surging into the present.

  Chapter 11

  Mickey stopped outside the classroom door, balancing three pans of cupcakes in one hand while she opened the door with the other. One of the more distractible students who hadn’t been paying attention anyway saw her and gasped. Immediately, the whole class was watching her as she quickly put her finger to her lips, signaling silence. She glanced at Alice who was writing on the board with her back to the class. Quickly lighting a candle on one of the cupcakes, she signaled the class and they all started singing Happy Birthday.

  Alice jumped, dropping the marker, and turned with a big smile.

  “Make a wish, Miss Worthington!” the children shouted, squirming in their seats. Several of them blew with her as she made a wish with her eyes scrunched tight and blew out the candle.

  Alice’s fingers intertwined with Mickey’s briefly as she took the cupcake from her. Mickey went to pass out the rest of the cupcakes with one of the second graders clinging to her waist.

  “Thank you, Dr. Mickey,” each child said as he or she was given a cupcake.

  “You know you totally disrupted my lesson plan,” Alice said as Mickey unwrapped her own cupcake.

  “You bet. You’re not supposed to work on your birthday. Wait till you see what else I brought!”

  She retrieved her backpack which looked suspiciously full. She pulled out a box of gloves, paper surgical gowns and masks. Soon twenty-three midget surgeons were running around, flapping their too-large gloves and tripping over the gowns.

  A few faces appeared at the classroom door as other teachers and one of the assistant principals came by, laughing and pointing as the children milled around. Mickey waved them in, passing out more cupcakes.

  “Well, it’s a cinch I’m not going to get any more work done today,” Alice said, giving up and dropping into a vacant chair with a second cupcake.

  Mickey sat down beside her as they laughed at the little ones. “I love you, Miss Worthington,” she whispered in Alice’s ear.

  Chapter 12

  Mickey was finally approaching the end of the longest thirty days of her life. If she had thought the worst was over with the fever, “boy, was I wrong,” she admitted later. Sister Anselma had been relentless, asking Mickey to dig ever deeper, going places she didn’t really want to go. Never much of a crier, it seemed a lifetime’s worth of tears had been released and Mickey seemed powerless to stop them.

  “I sense such strong regrets from you,” Sister Anselma said one day. “Do you regret the choices and decisions you made?”

  Mickey considered. “I regret having had to make choices between Alice and my work. I know she didn’t blame me, but it all felt so pointless after she was gone.” Her throat tightened painfully as she said, “We spent so much time planning and dreaming about what we would do after we retired. I kept telling myself, every time I let her down or cancelled our plans to be at the hospital, that I’d make it up to her someday.” Here, tears began to fall again. Mickey tore more toilet paper from the roll she had taken to carrying with her to blow her nose. “I let so many opportunities to be with her pass me by, thinking there would be time later, but…”

  Mickey spent long hours walking outside as she prayed, enjoying the orchard, now in full bloom, but “please don’t wander too far,” Sister Anselma pleaded. “You are not fully recovered and Sister Mary David will never forgive me if you get ill again.”

  All around Mickey, the abbey moved in its unalterable rhythm. “Even in the midst of a crisis,” Sister Rosaria had told the postulants, “the death of an abbess, for instance, the work of the monastery, the Office, all must go on. This transcends all else.” She had seen other members of the community, of course, and they acknowledged her with silent nods, leaving her to her prayer. Twice, small nosegays of spring flowers had been left in her stall in Chapel with little notes. One note was inscribed with part of Psalm 46, “Be still and know that I am God.” Mickey tucked it in her pocket and carried it with her everywhere. She could feel the community lifting her, supporting her, even if they didn’t know the specifics of her struggle. “We don’t need to know the details; we are with you,” they would have told her.

  As the voices carried from the Chapel, singing the hour of Vespers, Mickey sat on the bench she had adopted under the cherry tree, now bursting with pink blossoms, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine as she read from Jeremiah, “I have loved you with an everlasting love, so I am constant in my affection for you.”

  “What is it?” Sister Anselma prodded the next day.

  “How do you keep coming up with these?” Mickey asked in frustration. “Aren’t we done yet?”

  Sister Anselma looked at her with a bemused expression that clearly said, “Apparently not.”

  Mickey expelled a pent-up breath. “I told you I almost entered a convent after high school. I was,” she held up a thumb and forefinger a hair’s breadth apart, “this close to entering. They would have sent me to college, probably nursing or teaching, but something held me back. Cold feet, I guess.” She fingered the cover of her journal, tracing a pattern with a finger as she continued, “All through college, I had a kind of guilty feeling that I was ignoring that call. And then, when I met Alice, and was so incredibly happy with her, I absolutely did not want to consider the possibility of a vocation.”

  Here, Mickey had to pause and take a drink of water. Sister Anselma waited patiently until she was able to continue.

  “I’m realizing… part of my struggle since she died, and this all started again – entering St. Bridget’s – should I have just gone when I was eighteen? Did Alice have to die for me to wake up and listen?”

  Mickey’s eyes filled with tears again as Sister Anselma leaned forward. “Listen to Jeremiah,” she said. “You may have been chosen long ago, but that doesn’t mean the work you did, the life you lived wasn’t part of that call – and that includes your love for Alice. We’ll never understand why loved ones are taken from us, not while we’re here on earth anyway. Maybe we’ll understand one day. But God’s love doesn’t work like that. His love is everlasting and his time is not our time. Everything comes together as it is meant to.”

  Mickey looked at her through red-rimmed eyes. “You really believe that?”

  Sister Anselma sat back. “With my whole hear
t.”

  Inevitably, in the fourth week of the retreat, Sister Anselma said, “You told me in one of our early sessions that you didn’t know how to answer when I asked you if you were a good physician. If you can exclude Alice from that question, how would you answer?”

  “I guess I’d say I was a good doctor,” Mickey replied hesitantly.

  “I’m sure you’ve been asked this many times,” Sister Anselma’s eyes probed Mickey’s, “but why abandon something you were gifted at? Are you running away from the responsibilities and inevitable failures of practicing medicine? Are you turning your back on an entire way of life out of anger? Or are you truly feeling called to a life of prayer?”

  Mickey stared at her without answering.

  “I want you to ask yourself those questions as you pray with these Scriptures.”

  ╬ ╬ ╬

  Finally, the last day. Rather than giving Mickey new readings to pray with, Sister Anselma had asked Mickey to read back through her journal and see if particular entries stood out.

  “The whole period around the fever stands out in my mind,” Mickey told her when they met, “but it’s almost non-existent in the journal. I feel like I was being held to a flame – parts of me burned away in the heat, other parts became translucent, and yet other parts weren’t even touched, like wet leaves on a bonfire.” She shook her head. “I don’t believe that fever was caused by any bacteria or virus,” she looked at Sister Anselma suspiciously, “and I wouldn’t be surprised if you arranged it.”

  To Mickey’s surprise, Sister Anselma actually laughed. Mickey had never even seen her smile.

  “Believe me, Michele, I don’t have that much influence.” Her expression became more serious. “How do you feel about requesting entrance to the Novitiate? Do you feel that you are being called to continue on this path?”

  “Yes, I do,” Mickey responded. Then she grinned, “At least until the path forks again.” She looked down at her hands. “I want you to know that I am fully aware of how much trouble I’ve been. I’m sure you had no idea of what you were letting yourself in for when you agreed to direct my retreat. I don’t know how to thank you.”