The Greatest Evil

by William X. Kienzle

  “‘Grant, O Lord God, we beseech Thee, that this Thy ill servant may enjoy continued health of body and soul. And through the glorious intercession of Blessed Mary ever virgin, be freed from her present sorrow and enjoy eternal gladness. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.’”

  He traced the sign of the cross over her. “The blessing of God almighty, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost descend upon you and remain with you always. Amen.”

  She nodded, and whispered, “Amen.”

  “I’d better let somebody up here to take my place,” Koesler said. “I don’t know whose turn it is.”

  “They’re taking turns?”

  “Uh-huh. They seem to think that having one visitor at a time is easier on you. I think they picked up this routine from a hospital … seems hospitals are always real concerned about the number of visitors. How do you feel about it?”

  “Hmmm. I think it’s better on them. I’d just as soon have all my kids with me. But don’t tell them that, Father: They’ll feel better doing it their way. Besides, I am awful tired. It’s probably better I don’t have a crowd now. Just let whoever’s next come up. I’ll try to keep track of them.”

  He smiled and briefly held her hand. “Remember, I’ll be down there if you need me. Otherwise, I’ll see you when my turn comes around again.”

  It reminded him of wrestling’s Australian tag team matches, where a beleaguered contestant tags his partner, who, in turn, enters the ring a bit fresher for battle.

  When Koesler reentered the living room, Lucy stood up. Evidently, she was next to be at her mother’s side.

  That left Koesler, Vincent, and Tony in awkward silence.

  “The Tigers are on TV,” Tony announced. He looked from the priest to his brother. “Any objections?”

  There were none, at least none stated.

  Van Patrick was saying that the score was Chicago White Sox 4, the Tigers 2, in the bottom of the fifth inning.

  Somehow, to Father Koesler, watching a game seemed inappropriate with Louise so ill just upstairs. On the other hand—life goes on.

  But the first few minutes appeared to have reached Vincent, who retreated into the dining area. He sat at the table and buried his head in his hands. He was praying, Koesler knew. And, while affecting interest in the ball game, Koesler joined, in spirit, the praying Vincent.

  His prayerful thoughts were interrupted by Lucy’s appearance at the living room door. It seemed to Koesler only moments since she had gone upstairs. He checked his watch: fifteen minutes. Lucy seemed startled at the televised ball game, but seeing how absorbed Tony was, she said only, “Your turn, Vinnie.” Her tone carried wonder that he would need to be reminded.

  “Oh … oh, uh, sure.” He rose and headed for the stairs.

  “She seems to be taking little naps,” Lucy said. “When she comes out of them, she kind of looks around to see if anyone’s with her. So, don’t go to sleep.” Seemingly, the latter remark was intended as humor.

  If so, Vincent didn’t get it. Somberly, he climbed the stairs.

  Koesler glanced at his watch: He would time the upstairs visits.

  He was somewhat surprised to see Lucy seat herself on the couch next to Tony and gaze at the television. She must need the distraction, he thought.

  Her admonition for Vincent not to doze reminded Koesler of the Good Friday liturgy when, in the Garden of Olives, Jesus is disappointed in His specially selected Apostles when they cannot watch, with Him for even an hour.

  With nothing better to do, and feeling “prayed out,” Koesler became interested, if not absorbed in the ball game.

  Someone of the Tiger persuasion hit a home run. Koesler missed the name, but Mr. Kell was waxing poetic about the batter’s “extension of his arms” and how he had gotten the ball high into the wind that was blowing toward the right field stands.

  Koesler got into a conversation with Lucy about the salaries paid to baseball players, as well as to professional athletes in general.

  Suddenly he became aware that Tony appeared distracted; he seemed to be paying no attention to either the conversation or the game. So focused was Koesler on Tony’s state that he didn’t hear Vincent enter the room; he was startled when Vincent spoke. “She seems a little worse. She’s slipping in and out of consciousness. I don’t know …” His voice trailed off.

  Tony rose and without a word climbed the stairs.

  Koesler checked his watch. Vincent had been with his mother a little better than fifteen minutes. He wondered if the kids had an understanding on the timing of their visits. He hadn’t checked Lucy, but he thought the length of her latest visit mirrored Vincent’s.

  Vincent took Tony’s place on the couch. But it was immediately evident that he would pay even less attention to the TV than Tony had been.

  Koesler and Lucy continued their observations on the state of payment for services rendered according to vocation. It was, they agreed, a crime that teachers and nurses were paid so much less than working actors and many athletes.

  They were interrupted again, this time by Tony’s hurried footsteps descending the stairs. Koesler checked his watch. Fifteen minutes. It had to be an agreed time.

  Because Tony had come down the stairs so rapidly, they all stood and turned to him.

  “I think … I think …” His voice betrayed near panic, and he was breathing hard—unusual for a conditioned athlete. “I think you’d better come—all of you.”

  He and Vincent led the way, followed closely by Lucy and Koesler.

  None of them would ever forget what they saw.

  Louise’s eyes were closed. But her mouth was stretched open as if that were the only way she could breathe.

  Both her forearms were lifted while her elbows rested on the bed. Her hands were pointed at the ceiling.

  “She wants … she wants someone to hold her hands. That was the last thing she said before she … before she got like that.” There was no doubt that Tony was over his head. He had never seen anyone in such a state. And it was his mother. He was not going to be part of her wish to have her hands held.

  Quickly, Lucy knelt on one side of the bed, Koesler on the other. Each of them took one of her hands in theirs. Each held it tightly. Her hands were almost icy and she did not return their squeezes.

  Tony sank down in the doorway, as far from the bed as he could get and still be in the room. He could not nor did he attempt to hide his bewilderment.

  Vincent nearly collapsed at the foot of the bed and grasped both his mother’s ankles, to let her know he too was there. He murmured something. It sounded like “Now.”

  Koesler assumed Vincent was calling for the miracle. It was, Koesler was all too willing to admit, time. This, the brink of mortality, would clearly be recognized as well beyond what could be expected from human nature at its strongest. Koesler had never beheld such a scene. Yet instinctively, he knew Louise was on the threshold of death.

  Without taking his eyes from her, Koesler said, “Tony, call the doctor. Ask him to come. If he can’t come immediately, tell him forget it. We need him now.”

  No one could be sure what good the doctor might do. This was it: either a miracle or death. And if he were more calm, Koesler would have admitted it. He wanted the doctor there at very least to certify death. If it came to that.

  Koesler’s gaze was riveted on Louise’s face. Her expression was frozen. To him it seemed she was half here and half … where? In transit to eternity?

  “I think she can hear,” Lucy said softly. “I read that someplace. Let’s say the Rosary. She always loved the Rosary. You lead, Vinnie.”

  Silence.

  “I said lead us in the Rosary, Vinnie! Come on!” She would be obeyed, even by her elder brother.

  Absently, Vincent felt around in his pockets. From one, he pulled a plain black, much used rosary. “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. I believe in God …”

  And so the familiar prayers followed’ one another, with
the others joining in. He chose to meditate on the sorrowful mysteries, those events that immediately led to the crucifixion and death of Jesus.

  He announced the first mystery: the agony in the Garden of Olives. He began the “Lord’s Prayer.”

  Koesler continued to study Louise’s face. Suddenly, there was a subtle change in her expression. Hitherto it was as if she were carved from stone. Now she seemed to wince as if she was struggling for another breath but could not find one.

  He thought of the etymological origin of “expire”: to breathe out. To breathe one’s last breath. To die. Louise had done just that. And he had witnessed this solemn moment. “I think … I think she’s …”

  Without rising from her knees, Lucy reached to the night table and pick up a hand mirror. She pressed it to her mother’s lips. After several moments, she turned the mirror and studied it. There was no sign of condensation. She looked at Koesler and shook her head.

  Vincent, who’d had his eyes closed, started to recite the “Hail Mary.” But there was no response. He opened his eyes and looked at his mother. She had not changed in any external way. Tears streamed down Lucy’s face and Koesler was draping the stole around his shoulder.

  Vincent seemed bewildered.

  “The doc is on his—” What Tony saw from the doorway told him the story. He turned on his heel and went back downstairs.

  Lucy made no effort to stop him—or her tears. She said only, “Keep going, Vinnie. Maybe she can still hear us.”

  Now tears were flowing down Vinnie’s cheeks as well. He stumbled on. “… the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”

  “Holy Mary, mother of God. Pray for us sinners now, and at the hour—” Lucy choked, “—of our death, Amen.”

  Almost in counterpoint with the rosary prayers, Koesler read from his ritual. “‘Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Holy Mary, pray for me. Mary, mother of grace, mother of mercy, protect me from the enemy, and receive me at the hour of my death. St. Joseph, pray for me. St. Joseph, in company with thy spouse, Mary, open to me the bosom of divine mercy.

  “‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul.

  “‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, assist me in my last agony.

  “‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, may I sleep and rest in peace in your holy company.

  “‘Depart, Christian soul, out of this sinful world in the name of God the Father Almighty who created you; in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, Who suffered and died for you; in the name of the Holy Ghost, who sanctified you; in the name of the glorious and blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God; in the name of blessed Joseph, the illustrious spouse of Mary; in the name of the angels, archangels, Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Cherubim and Seraphim; in the name of the Patriarchs and Prophets, of the holy Apostles and Evangelists, of the holy Martyrs and Confessors, of the holy monks and hermits, of the holy virgins and of all the saints of God. Let peace come to you this day, and let your abode be in holy Sion. Through the same Christ, our Lord. Amen.’”

  18

  During the prayers, Lucy gently closed her mother’s mouth. The eyes were already closed.

  After the prayers, Father Koesler and Lucy stood. Vincent remained kneeling at the foot of the bed, clutching his mother’s ankles.

  “Do you want to stay with her?” Koesler asked Lucy.

  “I think we’d better find Tony,” she said.

  It occurred to Koesler—and not for the first time—that of the three offspring, Lucy by far was the rock.

  Vincent seemed in another land.

  “We’re going to find Tony and be with him, Vinnie,” Koesler said. “Do you want to come?”

  No response.

  “Vinnie—” Lucy said sharply.

  “No,” Koesler said. “Let’s leave him alone. He wants to be with your mother. Besides, the doctor should be here any minute.”

  They found Tony standing in front of the darkened TV screen, hands thrust deep in his pockets. Wordless, they stood on either side of him for what seemed a much longer time than actually transpired.

  “Damn Vinnie and damn his damn miracle!” Tony said bitterly.

  “It’s not Vinnie’s fault,” Lucy said quietly.

  “No? Whose idea was it not to try therapy?”

  “It doesn’t matter whose idea it was originally,” Lucy shot back. “The point is once it was proposed, we all agreed to skip a treatment that stood almost no chance of being effective. All of us, that is, with the possible exception of you. You lost that vote. We couldn’t ask some hospital to give Ma one fifth of a radiation treatment because you wanted it and I and Vinnie and Father and Doc didn’t.”

  “So, okay: You won.” Tony was almost snarling. “The point is, without therapy Ma lasted about a month. With treatments, she could have watched you and me graduate. She could’ve watched St. Vincent get ordained. Now she’s not going to be here at all. Now,” his voice rose, “she’ll miss everything.”

  “This is no good, Tony,” Koesler said. “You can Monday-morning quarterback from either side. We agreed it would be better to skip radiation. Even your mother agreed.”

  “What chance did she have of disagreeing? The vote was four to one before Ma could speak her piece.”

  “Try and look at it this way, Tony: We tried going without treatment. We know now that had its expected result: She passed away. The only real surprise is that it happened earlier than we anticipated.

  “Imagine,” Koesler continued, “that we had agreed to have the radiation treatments. We—the doctor, all of us—were quite sure they could not cure her—not with the cancer she had. But suppose we had gone with the radiation. We know she would have been pretty miserable and uncomfortable. Much more so than if she hadn’t gotten them. So then, when she inevitably died, we would’ve been second-guessing ourselves … wondering what her quality of life would’ve been like if she hadn’t had to undergo the treatment. Her quality of life was much better without than with.

  “What is quite certain is that with or without, she had a terminal illness. But as I said: One could argue either side. No one could claim that each and every one of us didn’t want what all considered best for your mother.

  “And as for the miracle that Vincent worked and prayed for almost alone, it really was the only possible solution to this tragedy. At times, just based on Vinnie’s investment of prayer and sacrifice, I actually expected it to happen.

  “The big thing is: It’s over. With or without treatment, and without a miracle, it’s over. Sooner or later it will be over for all of us. Your mother has gone from here to eternal life. The challenge you two have is to live up to your mother’s standards. And one quick way to do that is for you to love each other and forgive each other whenever forgiveness is called for.

  “I mean, picture your mother here, now, as well she may be. You wouldn’t want her to see you bickering and, in effect, blaming one another for her death.

  “With your mother gone, you’re all going to have to be closer than ever.”

  For a minute, there was neither sound nor movement. Then, tentatively, Lucy moved to Tony and embraced him. He returned her hug.

  Typical, thought Koesler in his growing admiration for Lucy; typical that she would be the first to make a gesture of reconciliation.

  The doorbell broke the silence.

  Having been summoned to an emergency call and seeing the three of them in the living room instead of upstairs with Louise, Dr. Schmidt knew immediately. “She’s gone.” It wasn’t a question.

  “We think so.” As far as Koesler was concerned it wasn’t official until the doctor confirmed it.

  They followed Dr. Schmidt up the stairs, but remained in the hall while he entered the bedroom.

  After some minutes, he called them in.

  He had pulled the sheet over Louise’s small body. He was writing on what seemed to be a document and was, in fact, the
death certificate. “Do you want me to help make arrangements?” he asked of no one in particular.

  “No. Ma and I talked this through,” said Lucy. “I know what to do.” She left the room and they could hear her firm footsteps going down the stairs.

  Tony stood near the doorway, not knowing quite how to react.

  “This was fast,” Schmidt said. “I certainly didn’t expect her to go this quickly.” He turned to Koesler. “How long have you been here, Father?”

  “I came right after noon Mass.” Koesler studied his watch. “About an hour and a half, I’d say.”

  “Did she seem in any distress?”

  “No … I don’t think so. Mostly she was resting. I talked with her for a while. That was right after I got here. We all took turns”—he looked around at the other two—“of about fifteen or twenty minutes each. It was during Tony’s watch that she … well, began to die. We prayed for her. Her … agony lasted no more than half an hour … although,” he added, again looking at the other two, “it seemed a lot longer. She seemed to be trying to breathe and finding it more and more difficult. We all were with her when she passed.”

  “Not all of us,” Tony said bitterly.

  “I asked you to call Dr. Schmidt,” Koesler said, in explanation of Tony’s absence at the end.

  “I didn’t come back.”

  “This is never easy,” Schmidt said. “Don’t blame yourself.”

  “My sister stuck it out!” The statement reflected a chauvinistic spirit; Tony had not lived up to a demand answered by a “mere girl.”

  The priest and the doctor let Tony’s charge stand. Both felt that in time the young man would have a more mature attitude.

  Schmidt turned his attention to the medication and supplements on the nightstand. “You said that until near the end she exhibited no apparent pain?”

  “No,” Koesler responded. “Tired … she seemed very tired. But no pain that I could detect.”

  “Well, this probably is the answer.” Schmidt held up the small morphine bottle. It was empty. “For the life of me, I couldn’t get her to use a painkiller. I don’t know why. Well, evidently, she changed her mind.”