by Darcie Chan
“No.” The younger priest’s low reply was barely audible to Father O’Brien, even with his hearing aids. “At least, not with respect to someone else being assigned to help out down here. You won’t be forced into retirement, though, not so long as you’re physically and mentally capable of serving. You’ll be the pastor, and you can keep or delegate responsibilities as you see fit. They wanted me to emphasize that. You’re somewhat of a marvel to the administration and to the bishop. I think they’re convinced that the good Lord Himself has wanted you here all these years, and they’re not about to interfere with that now. They just want to make sure there’s a transition plan in place.”
“When?”
“The administration was thinking early in the New Year.”
Father O’Brien closed his eyes. The faces of the people in the pews at St. John’s, of his neighbors, of the other wonderful people in town, of children he had seen grow up and have children and grandchildren of their own, began to parade through his mind. How many weddings had he performed? How many funeral Masses had he said? How many confessions had he heard? How many people had he counseled, embraced, and prayed with or for? Hundreds, maybe thousands. In this one little place for nearly his entire adult life, he had been enmeshed in their humanity, doing the best he could to help the best way he knew how. If he couldn’t continue to do that, there would be nothing left for him to do.
Through the swirl of faces dancing across his eyelids, one became clearer and larger than all the others. It had been several weeks since Mary’s face had appeared to him so vividly in his mind’s eye. Usually, he remembered her quiet voice and her distinctive appearance best when he was experiencing strong emotion of some kind, and this time was no exception. Her expression was calm and soothing. She gave a barely perceptible nod, the kind of reassuring gesture she might have offered him during one of their long conversations. It was as if she were telling him that things were fine and would be fine. He didn’t have to worry.
“All right,” Father O’Brien said. He opened his eyes and nodded at the younger priest. “All right.”
—
On Monday morning, Karen awoke suddenly five minutes before her alarm clock was due to go off. She sat up in bed and smiled. She’d slept soundly for the first time in many nights, and Ben hadn’t needed to wake her in time to get ready for work or to say goodbye before he left for school. She chose not to think about the fact that her thirteen-year-old son routinely got himself up and out of the house without her involvement, or what that meant with respect to the quality of her parenting.
No, today was the first in nearly two weeks that she would have entirely to herself, and she wanted it to be a good day. Having time to herself presented its own difficulties, but since she’d spoken to Father O’Brien and he’d sprung into action, a day hadn’t passed without someone in the community coming by to visit or take her out or bring her dinner. It had been wonderful at first. Knowing someone was scheduled to drop in had given her something to think about and look forward to. It had helped keep her from focusing on Nick’s absence and her own tenuous mental state. But now, her refrigerator was a wasteland of partially eaten casseroles, and she was starting to feel like a child designated for constant supervision. The ideas of cooking a meal from scratch or having some time to spend as she wished were newly appealing.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stretched. Ben was still asleep. It had been a long time since she’d worn makeup, but after she’d dressed and wrangled her hair into order, she applied a bit of blush and lipstick. The color made a huge difference.
Feeling energetic, she went into the kitchen and started pulling things out of the fridge for breakfast. She heard the muted beeping of Ben’s alarm clock through the wall, followed by the sound of footsteps and water running in the bathroom. Her teenager emerged in the kitchen a short time later. “You’re up?”
The surprise on his face put a damper on her mood. She tried to ignore it. “Morning,” she said, holding a plate out to him. “I made you a breakfast sandwich. Scrambled eggs, ham, and cheese on wheat toast, just the way you like it.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Ben said. He grabbed the juice on the counter and poured himself a glass, which he chugged before taking the plate. “You put on makeup,” he observed with his mouth full of the sandwich. “How come you’re all dressed up? You don’t go to work on Mondays. You usually don’t even get up on Mondays.”
“I don’t know. I guess I just felt good this morning,” she said. “Thought I’d spruce myself up for a change and do some shopping, maybe go see your grandpa.”
“Good, that way I don’t have to go.”
His relief took her mood a notch lower, and she gave him a look of disapproval.
“What? I’m just being honest.”
“Maybe so, but it’s insensitive of you to say things like that. You haven’t spent much time with your grandfather. I know you don’t feel all that close to him. But try to think of how it is for me, Ben. He’s my father, and I love him very much. Imagine how it would be if your dad were sick like your grandpa is.”
She hadn’t meant to bring up Nick, but once she had, she felt her mood sink again.
Ben chewed a mouthful of his sandwich with a sullen expression. “Okay, Mom, sorry.”
Karen doubted that he really was sorry, but she didn’t want to lose what was left of a good start to her day by pressing the issue further. “You better take what’s left of that and get out to the bus stop,” she told him.
“There’s nothing left, see?” he said before cramming the last biggish piece of the sandwich into his mouth. “Bye, Mom. See you after school.” He gathered up his backpack and coat and rushed out the front door.
She took her time with her own eggs and toast and watched the morning news while lingering over a second cup of coffee. When she picked up her purse and headed outside to her car, she ran into her neighbor, Jean Wykowski, dressed in scrubs and heading for her car as well.
“Hi, Karen,” Jean called to her with a smile. “You doing all right this morning?”
“Yep. You?”
“Doing fine. Well, about as fine as going to work gets. Any word about Nick?”
“No, nothing new for a while now.”
“No news is better than bad news,” Jean said, and Karen nodded in agreement. “By the way, Ron and I were talking, and we wondered if you and Ben would like to join us for Thanksgiving dinner this year. We’re not having any other company, so it’d be just us and the boys, but we’d love to have you both.”
“Oh, I hadn’t even thought of Thanksgiving, but…Sure, that would be really nice. Let me know what I can bring. Better yet, maybe you and I can join forces in the kitchen and make it easier on ourselves.”
“That would be great! I’ll call you when it gets closer to the date. We can plan out the menu and decide who will make what.”
“Sounds good,” Karen said. She reached down, feeling for the handle on her car door. She was desperate to get inside and shut the door. “Have a good day.”
“You, too,” Jean called.
Quickly, Karen slipped inside her car, buckled the seatbelt, and started the engine. Rather than pull out of the driveway, she took her phone from her purse and stared at it until well after Jean had driven away.
How can we celebrate Thanksgiving without you, without knowing where you are? she thought. Please, please ring. Please call me and let us know they’ve found you and you’re okay. Please.
To her great surprise, as she sat clutching the phone in her trembling hand, it did ring.
The name of the caller flashed across the screen: Maple Manor Assisted Living.
Still reeling from a good shot of adrenaline, Karen answered the call.
Thirty seconds later, she peeled out of the driveway. As she gunned the engine and headed north to Rutland, the words of the nurse supervisor rang in her ears again and again.
It’s your father, Mrs. Cooper. We need you to come to the facility
right away.
When she arrived, she ran inside, not bothering to stop at the information desk. There was a small group of people wearing scrubs gathered inside her father’s room. Some were nurses and aides whom she recognized, but a few of the faces were new. Her father lay in bed with his eyes closed while a woman in a white coat leaned over him, a stethoscope pressed to his chest.
“I’m Karen Cooper, his daughter. What happened?”
“Mrs. Cooper.” The woman with the stethoscope straightened up and extended her hand. “I’m Rebecca Martin, the physician on call. The staff paged me a little while ago because your father seemed to be having some trouble waking up. His pulse and blood pressure are very low, and while I’ve been here, his respiration has become irregular. Am I correct in my understanding that your father has a do-not-resuscitate order in place?”
“Yes, he does.” Karen wiped at her eyes. How can this be happening right now? “I also hold medical power of attorney for him. Do you have any idea what might be wrong?”
“It’s difficult to tell without a thorough evaluation in a hospital, especially in a patient who’s uncommunicative. One of his pupils is dilated. That, as well as his abnormal breathing pattern, are often symptoms of a stroke, but I can’t make any definitive diagnosis without running some tests. In a case like this, absent a DNR order, I’d normally recommend that we rush the patient to the emergency room. We can transport your father there, if you’d like, but given his instructions, our treatment options would be very limited.”
“No breathing machines, no shocking his heart or life support,” Karen said softly. “He was always adamant about that, especially after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.”
For a moment, nobody in the room spoke, and Karen could almost feel a blanket of finality descend over them.
Dr. Martin gave a slight nod, her eyes heavy with sympathy. “If there’s anyone else you’d like to call, now would be a good time.”
“My brother, George, in Seattle,” Karen whispered. “I have his number in my phone.”
“We’ll give you some privacy,” one of the nurses said, stepping forward to usher several others toward the door. “We’ll be right down the hall at the nurses’ station if you need anything.”
Once Karen was alone with her father, she dialed her brother’s number, but the call went straight to voicemail. “Georgie, it’s Karen. It’s a little after eight-thirty my time. I’m at the center with Daddy. They called me this morning. He’s not doing well, and they think he may have had a stroke, and the doctor said he might not have much time left. I think you should get a flight as soon as you can. Please call me back when you get this.”
She placed her phone in her purse and pulled a chair up beside her father’s bed. He lay on his back with his eyes closed. One of his hands rested on the sheet before her, and she took it gently, holding it between her own as she spoke to him. “Daddy, can you hear me? It’s Karen, your daughter. I’m right here with you. Right here.”
For a moment, her tear-blurred eyes could no longer maintain their focus on him. She paused, bowing her head, willing herself to hang onto some semblance of composure while she was in his presence.
The sound of his breathing seemed to confirm the prognosis at which the doctor had hinted. He would take several deep breaths, followed by increasingly shallow breathing, when his chest would rise and fall rapidly. Then there would be a period of fifteen or twenty seconds when he didn’t breathe at all before the cycle repeated. As the minutes and cycles passed, his breaths seemed to grow weaker, and the periods of apnea increased in duration. She took comfort in the feel of his warm hand, large and well padded as it had always been.
“If you can hear me, Daddy, the doctor said you might not have much time. I want you to know that I called Georgie. He’s on his way here right now. And I want you to know how much I love you. Nick and I, and Ben, and George and his family. We all love you so much.”
She stroked his hand with one of her thumbs and took a few seconds to breathe, to steady herself enough to say goodbye. “I’ve told you before, but thank you again for everything you’ve given me and done for me. You were the best father, Daddy. The best father I could have asked for. My protector when I was little, my friend once I was all grown-up, and even now there isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think of you, or something you taught me, or something we did together in the past.
“You’ve been sick a long time, Daddy, but you’re going to be in a better place real soon. I just don’t know what I’ll do without you. I’m sure Mama will be waiting for you. She’s been waiting a long time to dance with you in heaven. Give her a hug for me and tell her I love her, okay? I love you, too, Daddy, so much. I’ll think of you every day, I promise. Every day for the rest of my life.”
Chapter 24
May 31, 1934
Early on a Thursday morning, Michael rose and put on one of his nicer pairs of trousers and his best shirt. Downstairs, the house was quiet, although a glass of milk and a small paper bag containing two egg sandwiches—one for breakfast and the other for lunch—had been set out for him, probably by his grandmother. His mother’s bedroom door was closed, and when he looked out the window toward the barn, he could see that the heavy wooden door had been propped open, as was his grandmother’s habit when she went to do the milking.
Michael smiled to himself. His grandmother knew he had special plans for today, and in addition to the pre-packed sandwiches, she had given him the rare treat of a morning off from milking duty. How wonderful it was, starting the day in a good mood and knowing Onion wouldn’t have a chance to ruin it!
On the kitchen table, tucked gently between the salt and pepper shakers, was the most recent letter from his father. Michael slid the letter from the envelope and began to read it silently, even though his mother had read it aloud the previous evening.
May 21, 1934
Dear Anna, Mother, and Michael,
I read your most recent letter with great relief. I am glad to know you are doing well and that things at home are fine.
I’ve not much news to report since my last letter. Seamus and I are both as well as can be expected. He is still behind bars, on account of my being unable to raise the funds to make his bail, and we are both anxious for his case to proceed. The prosecutor offered a plea bargain after the arraignment, but his lawyer advised him to reject it because it would require some jail time and would keep a felony on his record. The lawyer also believes the government’s case is weak on a charge of attempted murder and that Seamus will be found not guilty at trial, if the case proceeds that far. It is possible that the charges will be dismissed or reduced once the prosecutor understands that Seamus has capable representation and is willing to go to trial. Unfortunately, his trial date has been set for the sixth of August, so we have another two months to wait.
I’ve been working long hours to be able to pay the lawyer’s fees and have enough left to live on. One good thing is that I’ve applied to join the ironworkers. If I’m accepted, I would be working on the actual bridge structure, and for higher wages. It’s difficult work, but I’d welcome it, as it would mean I’d have money to send home to you. I worry about all of you, and I’m ashamed that I’ve not been able to provide what I should for you…
Michael folded the letter back into the envelope, guzzled the milk, and grabbed the bag of sandwiches before leaving the house. He would eat his breakfast on his walk into Burlington.
The past month had flown by. His mother had spent another three days in the hospital during a relapse of her sickness, which had added another eighteen dollars to the hospital bill. Finally, though, her health seemed to have stabilized. She still struggled daily with feeling nauseated, and she ate and drank less than what she should, but she rarely got sick. Her expectant condition was starting to become visible—a slight rounding of her belly.
Although Michael dared not speak of it, he wondered what might have happened had recent medical advances been available to his mothe
r in the past. It was amazing to think that doctors could now nourish and hydrate a person by inserting fluids into the body through a needle. It was expensive, yes, but the treatment had kept his mother from losing the baby she carried, he was sure. It might have saved her life as well.
If only intravenous therapy had existed five, seven, ten years ago, there might have been a houseful of siblings at the farm instead of a somber ring of stones in the pasture.
Not another stone this time, he thought. True, his mother wasn’t due to give birth until early December. Months stretched out before them as a separated family, months in which his father might be unable to send them money, in which they would have to make do on their own. Michael was determined to do his part, to see his family through. And when his father returned home for the holidays, hopefully with Seamus, he would arrive to the joyous discovery of a new baby.
Michael walked quickly up the driveway to the main road. Somewhere in Burlington, or along the way, he would find a job. There had to be someplace that needed help for the summer. He didn’t care what the job was—he was willing to work hard for whatever wages he could get. Anything was better than nothing.
He made it to the edge of the city after walking for an hour, and several minutes later, he stood at the intersection of Main Street and Church Street with the city’s business district stretched out before him. There were shops and restaurants of all kinds, punctuated by dark storefronts of businesses that had failed. Those that had managed to survive the poor economy were just opening for the day. Store owners and employees were out sweeping the sidewalks in the mild fresh air. Ignoring a bout of nervousness, Michael focused on the corner coffee shop nearest him.
He removed his cap and stepped inside. There were some customers already seated inside, and the air was scented with coffee and bacon and warm maple syrup. Even after the egg sandwich, his stomach rumbled.
