“She seems to be an exceptional girl,” Doyle said.
Tip used his good arm to push himself up to sitting, then he slowly dropped his feet over the side of the table. “Tell them I’m ready to go,” he said. “We should all go upstairs with her, wait for her mom to get back to her room.”
Doyle started to form his objection, but then, in a similar moment of maturity, he thought better of it. Tip was right. They should go and be with Kenya. “Let’s get you dressed,” he said.
It had been a very long time since Doyle had threaded arms into sleeves or worked out another person’s buttons. In this case it was all a pretty makeshift process that in the end left Tip looking like he was extremely broad chested and one arm short. Doyle went into the hall and found a wheelchair. “Tell the doctor we’ll be back,” he said to a nurse walking past. “We’re going up to check on someone.”
It wasn’t until Teddy and his uncle were safely in the back of the taxi that he started to feel the weight of his mistake. There was Sister Claire standing in the snow without so much as a sweater, not waving goodbye but biting her lip, her arms wrapped around her waist. They had very nearly killed Father Sullivan just getting him dressed. Again and again he had buckled against them and asked to sit down, losing his breath the way another man his age might lose his train of thought—it was there, and then, just as quickly, it was gone. “Maybe another day,” Sister Claire suggested, kneeling in front of the old priest and rubbing her thumbs across the tops of his hands. “When it isn’t so cold.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, losing his credibility when he had to stop and pant. “Just ask Teddy.”
“I’ll take perfect care of him,” Teddy promised. “I’ll bring him right back.”
“I don’t think this is what’s best.” She looked at Teddy very directly now.
But Father Sullivan waved her off. “Don’t scare the boy to death,” he said. “I’m making the decision myself. No one’s going to say I’m not old enough to make up my own mind. I can manage this fine. Everyone needs a little adventure now and then.” He had made his commitment, after all, and now he was settled on his decision. He had found that it was only uncertainty that made him anxious.
They couldn’t get his shoes on because his feet were swollen. wrestling and coaxing, nothing went on. In the end they put him in heavy socks and the sheepskin slippers that came up high on his ankles like Robin Hood boots and Teddy made promises to keep him out of the snow. Teddy had bought him those slippers for his birthday just two months before. Now Sister Claire wouldn’t look at him at all as she got on her hands and her knees on the floor and tugged them up.
“Look how pretty the snow is!” Father Sullivan said in the backseat of the taxi as they pulled away from Regina Cleri, Sister Claire growing smaller and smaller behind them. “I get used to seeing everything from one vantage point and I start to forget, the world does not take place from a fourth floor window.”
“Could you turn the heater up?” Teddy asked the driver. Immediately they passed Mass. General. If only last night’s accident could have taken place near a hospital that was so close to them.
Father Sullivan exhaled heavily and leaned against Teddy’s shoulder. “I don’t want to close my eyes. I want to see everything. There hasn’t been a snow like this in years.”
“Get a minute’s sleep if you can.”
The back wheels of the taxi lost traction and slid sharply to the left so that Teddy was half crushing his uncle with no warning at all. Then they found their grip again and they slid forward without comment. Giant, errant clumps of snow kept falling out of the branches of the trees overhead. They slammed into the windows in startling attacks and made the driver curse and swerve. That was one possibility Teddy had not considered: an accident. What would he do if he had to take his uncle out of the car in the middle of Storrow Drive? He could carry him, certainly. He could get him into a coffee shop, someplace warm, until he found another car.
“I didn’t realize this would be so hard,” Teddy said, his heart cut in half by his own miscalculation.
Father Sullivan remained adamant in his good cheer. “At least we’re going to a hospital. If anything happens to me I’m covered.”
Teddy closed his eyes. He had propagated a disaster, possibly even a murder. He put his arm around his uncle and his uncle slipped down farther in his seat. Even the sitting, the riding, was a kind of cruelty. Hadn’t Doyle looked at him directly and assured him that a visit would be a bad idea for everyone involved? Mother or not, Teddy didn’t know Tennessee Moser, and while he was sorry she’d been hurt he could not understand what would have possessed him to risk the one person he could least afford to do without. Everything was going by them so fast. It set Teddy’s heart racing. “What if we went back now?” he said.
His uncle pushed himself up straighter to get a better look out the window. “We’re at the Citgo sign already,” he said. “We’re more than halfway there!”
Teddy used his sleeve to wipe the condensation from the glass, but still the river and streets and banks of snow looked all the same: damp and gray. “The roads are still bad.”
“That’s why there isn’t any traffic. That’s why this is the better day to go.”
By the time they finally arrived at Mount Auburn, Teddy had about decided they would never be able to leave. He wrestled the wheelchair out of the trunk of the cab and then wrestled his uncle out of the backseat while the driver stood by impassively, waiting for payment.
“Looks like you made it just in time,” the driver said, casting an eye to the pale uncle who was shivering inside the folds of his outsized overcoat. Teddy shelled the money out fast and ignored his change in favor of getting Father Sullivan inside. Once they had sprung through the electric doors and into the waiting rush of warm air his bad idea suddenly didn’t seem so bad after all. There in the waiting room sat his entire immediate family: Doyle and Tip, Sullivan and Kenya, all together. The four of them turned their faces towards the gust of wind coming in through the open door and smiled. Neither Doyle nor Sullivan had ever been to visit him at Regina Cleri, and Tip had only come one time and then left after five minutes. To Father Sullivan it was as if this part of his family, these people whom he loved, had all packed up and gone to Africa. Now in the waiting room of the hospital they were returned to him. The joy swept across him like a wave of electricity. Teddy could feel it passing through him, the joy at seeing those very faces that Teddy had been unable to beg or cajole into a visit all these years. Whatever the price for bringing them all together to see the old man so close to the end of his life, it was worth it.
“Tip, Tip,” Father Sullivan said, trying to put some boom into his voice to cover over the tremor that was there. “What a good man you are, getting yourself a chair so I wouldn’t feel out of place.”
“I fell especially for you,” Tip said, and reached out to touch his uncle’s hand.
“And my own namesake.” He put his hands on the armrests of his chair and made an attempt at bringing himself to standing but Sullivan leaned forward instead and kissed him on his cold cheek.
He loved them, each of them, for being themselves and for being part of his favorite niece and for being the family of Teddy, whom he loved above all others. “Such a long time,” Father Sullivan said.
“A long time,” his great-nephew agreed. “Now you’re the famous one in the family.”
“Don’t believe everything you read,” Father Sullivan said. “Doyle, son, tell me who this is.” He pointed to Kenya, who was standing halfway behind Sullivan.
Doyle made the introductions, putting a hand on the shoulder of his wife’s uncle. To see him like this, a small sack of bones in a chair, could only make him think what a long time ago it was that Bernadette had died. When she was alive John Sullivan was a tall man. He played softball with the boys in the street and smoked cigarettes on their front steps in the last hot days of summer.
Kenya stepped forward, hesitated for an inst
ant, and then held out her hand. It was not because he was old, she didn’t mind old, it was because he was familiar to her and her inability to remember him made her feel suddenly shy. Why should she remember? She must have seen everyone the Doyles ever knew at one point or another, in mass, at a rally, in the park. He put both of his cold hands around the warm one she offered him and held her there. It struck her how much his hands resembled certain pale, misshapen fish she had seen earlier in the day.
“It’s your mother I’ve come to see, isn’t it?” he asked.
Kenya nodded her head politely. She didn’t know who he was coming to see but she would have thought it must be Tip. The one thing she was not feeling inclined to share at the moment was her mother. She assumed that once her mother was safely awake, all the Doyles would just go home and leave them there, and then this long and interesting foray into the other side of the glass would come to its natural conclusion.
“Teddy just wanted me to say hello,” Father Sullivan said.
“It’s fine.” Kenya worried that her face had betrayed her. “I just don’t know how she’ll be feeling.”
The group came to a unanimous agreement that since they were all together now it would be best to do whatever waiting that was left up on the surgical floor. That way Kenya would be sure to be there when her mother came back to her room. They went to the elevator in pairs, Teddy pushing Uncle Sullivan, Doyle pushing Tip, and Sullivan steering Kenya lightly by keeping his thumb on her shoulder. Kenya wanted to run up the stairs. There was no reason in the world to wait for an elevator when there were perfectly good stairs to be devoured. She was tired of so much holding back, pretending that she was as slow as everyone else. She would be slow when the time came to crawl into bed beside her mother. She would be careful and gentle then. She would stretch her thin frame down the length of her mother’s side, bury her face beneath her mother’s arm. She would not go away from her again. This time she would know better. In the hallway her legs jangled while they tried to stay still. Sullivan leaned forward, whispered in her ear. “Wait.”
It took a bit of calculated arrangement but they all made it in. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been together like this,” Teddy said. Now that his fear had left him he remembered it only as overzealous caution. He was proud of his accomplishment, bringing everyone together, making his uncle so happy. Even if nothing came of Father Sullivan’s visiting Kenya’s mother, and Teddy had let go of all of those expectations in gratitude that his uncle didn’t die in the taxi, the trip would still be counted as a success. Kenya pushed the button for the third floor.
“I can’t even remember the last time we were together,” Doyle said.
While everyone else was thinking about communions and confirmations, Father Sullivan came up with an answer. “It was Natalie’s funeral,” he said, and nodded his head as if agreeing with himself. “That was a lovely service. A Jewish service, wasn’t it?”
And with that question they ended the short trip up in silence.
“Who’s Natalie?” Kenya whispered to Sullivan when they stepped into the hall. But Sullivan only put his finger to his lips and shook his head. The old man was wrong, anyway. They weren’t together that afternoon. Sullivan himself, the key player in the story, was missing. He had spent the day of her funeral in his own hospital bed, fast asleep.
What an entourage they made coming down the hall, Father Sullivan in his slippers, Tip in his boot and one empty sleeve, the long-legged black girl who walked with the redheaded man at her shoulder pulling out into the lead. It would have been impossible for anyone who saw them to know that they were all visiting one person. The two men in wheelchairs, one old and one young, both looked like they were patients being returned to their respective rooms. They glided past the nurses’ station and, despite the size of their group, drew no attention. They knew where they were going.
But when they got to the room and found the door halfway open, they saw a woman sleeping in the bed and realized they were late rather than early. Everyone stopped but Kenya. She broke from them without word, as if they were people she had never seen before. While they each considered their own private hesitations, she went to her mother in her bed, asleep. As far as Kenya was concerned there was only one person in the entire world to see, and now that she was there right in front of her she was washed over in relief. Her mother didn’t look too bad at all, a little swollen on the left side of her face, a bandage taped to her forehead, but she was completely whole and herself and the sight of her lying there brought Kenya to tears. She cried from happiness, a concept that had previously never made any sense to her at all. So strong was her love at that moment she felt her heart knocking wildly against her chest as if the heart itself was leaping forward to the woman in the bed. Two heavy white sheets and a thin green blanket with nearly all of the color washed out sat high up on her mother’s chest. Kenya pulled back one side carefully, carefully to take her hand. “Are you sleeping?” she said in a hopeful whisper, and thought of all the times she had said that before, only to have her mother open one eye and peer at her. “Let me sleep,” she would say, and then open her arms for Kenya to crawl in beside her. Kenya wasn’t expecting that now, not really, so when she got no reply she contented herself with her mother’s hand. Ever so slightly her mother’s hand squeezed back, a call as clear as if she had said her name. Kenya leaned forward to kiss that hand and then pressed it against her cheek.
Teddy stuck his head in the door. “Is it okay if we come in?”
Kenya looked up at him, nodded, but she hadn’t meant all of them at once. By the time they’d pushed in, the room was too small. They were lucky there was no one in the other bed.
“How’s she doing?” Tip said.
“I think she looks good. Don’t you think?”
Tip looked at her and he felt a chill pass over him. Teddy at the top half of her face, himself around the mouth and jaw. “She does,” he said.
“She does what?” Tennessee said very quietly, and the members of the party all let out a collective Hey! Kenya’s head pitched forward to the mattress and shook the bed. “Careful, baby,” her mother said, her voice so light and low that only Kenya heard it.
“Awake!” Kenya said. She would not lift her head from her mother’s side.
Dear God there was a pain in her stomach. Hadn’t she said that to someone once? She would not be able to hold herself awake for long. It was like suspending a chin-up. She was too tired now. She wanted to see her baby but she wanted to swim back down into the darker water where she had been, where it was quiet.
“How are you feeling?” Teddy asked. He felt more comfortable there now than he had this morning.
Tennessee cracked open her eyes. All of them were there. Too many of them. It was more than she could imagine. “Okay. Fine,” she whispered.
Tip knew he should say something, thank you or hello, but he only sat there holding on to the arms of his chair. His shoulder felt like someone was rooting around the joint with a paring knife and he moved it back and forth slightly to exaggerate the pain. The pain somehow forgave him for his silence.
“You’re tired,” Kenya said to her mother, and when she didn’t answer she said it to the room. “She’s tired.” She didn’t want to be rude but she couldn’t see the point in their staying now. They had seen her, she was sleeping, there couldn’t be any more to it than that.
But Teddy had come too far to feel so easily discouraged. A prayer, on the chance that it could be beneficial, was certainly worth a try. He pushed Father Sullivan forward in his chair and since Kenya didn’t make any effort to move he stayed down at the end of the bed near her mother’s feet.
“I brought my uncle to see you,” Teddy said, his voice a fraction too loud.
Doyle shifted uncomfortably near the door. “Maybe I should step into the hall. We’re probably taking up all the oxygen in the room. Sullivan?” he said.
Sullivan looked to Kenya, who nodded her head at him. “Okay,” sh
e said.
“I’ll go out, too,” Tip said. “Just for a minute.”
Doyle was backing out of the room at the moment Father Sullivan leaned forward and for the first time got a closer look at the woman in the bed. “Wait a minute,” he said. Doyle thought he was speaking to him and so he stopped, his hands on the back of Tip’s chair. Kenya turned to face Father Sullivan and he looked at both of their faces together. “I know you,” he said. “I know you both. Teddy, don’t you remember?” He looked at his nephew and then back to the woman in the bed. It wasn’t his imagination. He was sure of it. “This is Tennessee Moser. She worked at Regina Cleri years ago. We were close then, we were friends.”
“The priests’ home,” Kenya said, nodding, because now she could place him as well. “You lived there.”
“Tennessee,” the priest said.
Tennessee knew that voice and for that voice she opened her eyes. They had brought him out to her? In this weather? “Father,” she said. “My God, you shouldn’t have come.”
“How do you know her?” Teddy said. “I never saw her there.” He panicked at the thought. He couldn’t have missed her at Regina Cleri! He felt that he could not endure such a failure, that he missed his own mother in the place that he went to day after day.
But Father Sullivan wasn’t looking at Teddy now. He was so pleased to have found his friends again, to have found everyone in so unlikely a place. “You came to see me a couple of times,” he said to Kenya. “But you were so much smaller then! You’ve gotten so tall I didn’t recognize you.”