Changing Habits

  “How can I help you?” Kathleen asked, opening the door a crack.

  “I need to talk to Sister Angelina.”

  “I’m sorry, but the sisters have all gone to bed.”

  “It’s important!”

  “I’m sorry,” Kathleen said again. She was sympathetic, but there were strict rules about admitting visitors, and she didn’t have any choice. “Come back tomorrow and Sister will speak to you then.”

  “No—I have to talk to Sister Angelina now.”

  “I’m truly sorry,” she said and without waiting for him to argue further, she closed the door.

  29

  SISTER JOANNA

  At ten, Joanna had another hour to go until the end of her shift and already she was exhausted. Normally she didn’t drink coffee this late at night, but she needed a jolt of caffeine to help her adjust to her new schedule. Working in the Emergency Room was exhausting—periods of boredom alternating with bursts of frantic, high-adrenaline activity.

  With only a couple of days until the national election, all the talk around the hospital was of Nixon and McGovern.

  “McGovern hasn’t got a chance,” one of the nurses, Gloria Thompson, said as she added sugar to her coffee.

  “Have you checked the price of bread lately?” another complained. “You can thank Nixon for that. He sold our wheat to Russia, and fifty cents for a loaf of bread is the result.” She rolled her eyes and nodded when Joanna strolled past. “Good to have you with us, Sister.”

  “Thank you,” she said. It would take time to adjust, not only to this schedule but to the staff. She missed Sylvia Larson, Lois Jenson, Julie and the others.

  And she missed Dr. Murray with an ache that refused to leave her. Countless times each day, her mind drifted to him, despite her efforts to discipline her thoughts.

  When she’d finished her coffee, she returned to the Emergency Room. It’d been a slow night, with several minor injuries and one serious situation—a teenage girl who’d been brought in by her boyfriend. The girl had apparently been to a backstreet abortionist and was hemorrhaging badly. Dr. Barlow, the attending physician, was working on her while Gloria and two other staff members rushed to meet his demands.

  “Sister Joanna,” Dr. Barlow called out when he saw her. “Would you find out what you can from her boyfriend?”

  “Right away,” she said. She’d just started toward the waiting room when a tall, solidly built teenage boy came barreling through the swinging doors.

  “I want to be with her,” the boy said belligerently. “Let me see her!”

  Two orderlies restrained him from advancing farther.

  “Will someone shut him up?” Gloria yelled.

  “Where are the parents?” one orderly asked.

  “Corinne. Corinne! It’s going to be all right, baby.” The youth strained against the two men holding him back. “Hang on, Corinne. Hang on.” His young face was twisted with torment as he struggled. When he caught sight of Joanna, he went slack. “Sister! Sister.”

  “Can I help?” Joanna asked.

  “Get me Sister Angelina,” he pleaded. “Corinne begged me to get her. She needs to talk to her.”

  The young man didn’t know what he was asking. “That’s impossible.”

  “That’s what the nun at the door said, but Corinne wants to talk to her. Please, Sister. They’ll listen to you.”

  “You went to the convent?”

  The boy nodded, tears brightening his eyes. “Corinne says she has to talk to Sister.” The tears came in earnest now, washing down his pale face. “She was bleeding so much and she was afraid… I didn’t know she was pregnant. I didn’t even know.”

  The orderlies released him and Joanna took him into a vacant cubicle. The young man collapsed onto a stool and sobbed openly. Joanna laid her hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him.

  “She never wanted me to use any protection—she said it was against the Church and Corinne wanted to be a good Catholic.”

  Joanna sat with him for several minutes and let him talk. She couldn’t imagine how a teenager could rationalize not using birth control and then decide on abortion. How desperate this girl must have been.

  “Sister, find out what’s happening. I need to know. Please, Sister, please.”

  Joanna left him for a moment and learned that Corinne Sullivan had been rushed into surgery in an effort to stop the bleeding.

  “It doesn’t look good,” Dr. Barlow said as he peeled off his blood-smeared plastic gloves. “She waited too long to get here. Are the parents on their way?”

  A knot in her stomach, Joanna nodded. “Admissions called them.”

  “Make sure they have privacy when they arrive,” he said, and with sadness in his eyes, he turned away.

  Joanna recognized that forlorn, hopeless look. It was too late. Nothing more could be done. She wanted to shout at the injustice of it all, to scream how terrible it was that a girl so young would waste her life. Didn’t she realize how precious life was? Hers and that of her unborn child.

  About ten minutes later, as Joanna passed the Emergency Admissions desk, a middle-aged couple hurried in, looking shaken and unsure. “I’m Bob Sullivan. Where’s our daughter?” the man asked.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan.” The teenage boy went over to Corinne’s parents.

  “We’ve been so worried,” Corinne’s mother cried. “She didn’t come home after school. We’ve been phoning everyone, and no one knew where she was.”

  “None of that matters now, Sharon,” the father said. “For the love of God, tell us what happened!”

  “Yes, Jimmy, tell us what happened,” Sharon echoed. “The hospital phoned but they wouldn’t give us any details.”

  “She was—she was pregnant,” Jimmy said in a faltering voice.

  “Pregnant?” Bob Sullivan grabbed the teenage boy by the shirtfront and rammed him against the wall. The boy’s feet were suspended two inches from the floor before Joanna could get the older man to release him.

  “Shall we discuss this privately?” she said, steering them to an area the hospital had set aside for families. Once inside the room, the parents huddled together on the sofa and Jimmy stood by the door, as though ready to flee. Joanna sat in the remaining chair.

  “Is Corinne suffering a miscarriage?” The question was directed to Joanna by the girl’s mother.

  Joanna shook her head. It was hard to even say the words. “Apparently Corinne decided to…abort the baby.”

  The blood drained from the mother’s face. “An abortion? Corinne decided to get rid of the baby?”

  Joanna nodded reluctantly.

  “You arranged this?” the father asked Jimmy, his eyes narrowed and his face reddening.

  “No! I swear I didn’t know anything about it! Corinne told me she was going to see a friend and had me drop her off at a street corner downtown.”

  “You didn’t know what she was doing?”

  “I didn’t have a clue. How could I, when she didn’t even tell me she was pregnant.” He hung his head and his tears dripped onto the tile floor.

  “Why would she go to a backstreet abortionist?” Sharon Sullivan asked her husband, wringing her hands in shock. “Why wouldn’t she talk to me about this?”

  “How did she pay for it?” Bob asked Jimmy.

  “I don’t know,” he told them. “I don’t know anything.”

  “She was saving her money for Europe this summer,” Corinne’s mother whispered, gripping her husband’s hand. “Where is she now?” she asked. “I want to be with her.”

  “Corinne’s in surgery,” Joanna explained.

  “Surgery?” the mother repeated. “She’ll be able to have other children, won’t she?”

  “I don’t know,” Joanna told them.

  They sat in silence after that. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, the surgeon entered the room. He was dressed in surgical greens, a protective mask hanging around his neck. From the look in his eyes, Joanna knew. The girl was gone. She’d
bled to death.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and exhaled sharply.

  Corinne’s parents and Jimmy stared at him in confusion.

  “Sorry?” Sharon Sullivan repeated. “Corinne can’t have babies?”

  The physician’s gaze sought out Joanna’s and she saw his regret and his sadness at relaying such horrific news to these parents. “Your daughter died on the operating table,” he said. “We did everything we could.”

  A few seconds passed and then came an unearthly wail of anguish and disbelief. Corinne’s mother buried her face in her hands and sobbed loudly.

  “There’s been a mistake. I’m sure this is all a mistake.” Bob Sullivan stood and looked first to the physician and then to Joanna. He clenched his fists at his sides. “Corinne sat at the breakfast table with us this morning. She had a test in her Health class this afternoon. It was the only thing she talked about—this test was important. Now you’re telling me my little girl is dead? No. There’s been a mistake. Something isn’t right. Corinne can’t be dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor said again. “She’d lost too much blood. It was too late.”

  Jimmy seemed close to shock. “She said I had to take her to Sister Angelina first,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. “She should’ve told me, she should’ve talked to me about the baby.” Turning away from them, he slammed his fist into the wall. He howled in grief and pain, then collapsed in sobs, huddled in agony on the floor.

  Joanna felt tears pricking her eyes, unable to bear witnessing their pain.

  “She can’t be gone—this can’t be happening,” Sharon burst out. “Corinne and I are going to Europe this summer. We’ve been planning the trip for months.”

  “She’s only sixteen,” her father said to no one in particular.

  “Is there someone I can phone?” the physician asked.

  Bob Sullivan looked up as if he hadn’t heard. “My baby girl can’t be dead. She sat at the breakfast table with us this morning.”

  “Sister,” Dr. Johnson whispered. “Perhaps you should call the rectory and ask that one of the priests come down to be with the parents.”

  Joanna nodded and wiped the tears from her own cheeks.

  “I’ll phone Father Sanders,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around Sharon Sullivan. If there was any way she could take this pain away from them she would, but that was impossible. Death had struck again like a thief in the night, stealing what was most dear.

  30

  SISTER ANGELINA

  The November morning was clear and crisp, and Angie’s spirits were high. The day before, she had received a letter from her father. His letters were so rare that she cherished each one and read them countless times. He seemed to be doing well and his news, as always, was about the restaurant. Angie had written back immediately. Knowing it would please him, she suggested she fly home to Buffalo that summer if it could be arranged. Her summers were often full of college classes and other commitments, but it had been far too long since she’d seen him.

  That night she’d dreamed she was cooking in the restaurant kitchen, adding spices to a large pot of red sauce. When she woke that morning, she could almost smell the garlic cooking.

  Humming to herself, Angie walked to the high school. She wasn’t inside the building ten minutes before she heard the terrible news.

  “Corinne? Dead?” she repeated, shocked, as Morgan Gentry came to her weeping hysterically. Surely there was some mistake. Corinne couldn’t be dead.

  “It’s true, Sister, I swear it’s true. My mother woke me up to tell me. She’s with Corinne’s mother now. They’re at the funeral home picking out the casket.”

  Instant tears sprang to Angie’s eyes.

  As students filed into her first-period class, Angie noticed that a number of them were crying. Several came to her looking for consolation, but Angie had none to give. She assigned pages to be read and then sat at her desk numb with disbelief and pain. By noon she realized she could no longer teach that day.

  With Sister Alberta’s permission, she returned to the convent and sought out Sister Joanna.

  “She was in your class?” Joanna asked, sitting in the chapel with Angie after they’d prayed together.

  Angie nodded, still numbed by the pure shock of the news. “She was…just a child, with an inquisitive mind. I…can’t accept this.” She listened with horror as Joanna relayed the events of the night before. “Jimmy was there?”

  “Yes,” Sister Joanna said. “He took it hard. It would help if you talked to him,” she told Angie. “He blames himself, but he didn’t know. He would never have let her go through with the abortion if he had, I’m convinced of that.”

  “The abortion…” Even now, Angie couldn’t absorb the fact that Corinne had done this. In class, they’d talked about the physical hazards of such actions, as well as the legal and moral questions. Corinne had voiced her opinions loud and clear, repeating the popular secular cry of a woman’s right to control her own body. Angie had been dismayed by her attitude. The child she’d carried was a precious life. No less than her own…

  “Talk to Jimmy,” Sister Joanna advised again. “He badly wanted to speak to you. He came here looking for you. Apparently Corinne was desperate to find you before going to the hospital.”

  Angie jerked her head up. “He was here? Last night?” she whispered. “Jimmy was the one who came to the door. Sister Kathleen told me there was a young man asking to see me, but I couldn’t imagine who it might be.” She wanted to kick herself now because the answer should have been obvious.

  “I’m sure it was him,” Sister Joanna said, confirming her suspicions. “He mentioned your name and said Corinne had insisted on talking to you.”

  Angie’s heart ached, and this news did nothing to ease that pain. The girl had looked for her, and Angie had been unavailable. The agony of knowing this settled on her with an almost unbearable weight.

  That same afternoon, Angie was able to speak to Jimmy when he showed up at the convent a second time. The boy’s right hand was in a cast, but when Angie questioned him about it, he shook off her concern.

  “Corinne wanted you, Sister. Instead of letting me take her directly to the hospital, she begged me to drive to the convent and get you first. I should never have agreed but I didn’t have any idea she was bleeding so much. She didn’t want me to know.”

  “Oh, Jimmy.” Tears streaked Angie’s face as she tried to understand the reasons Corinne might have wanted to see her.

  Jimmy wept too as he sat with her in the convent’s visitor area. Looking away, he drew in a shaky breath. “I didn’t know she was pregnant. I swear it, Sister!”

  “I believe you.” It seemed important to tell him that.

  “Corinne insisted we couldn’t use any protection,” he muttered. “She wanted to live up to the Church’s rules, even when she didn’t agree with them.”

  “Why would she get an abortion then?” Angie cried.

  Jimmy hung his head and the tears slipped from his eyes. “I don’t know, Sister. I honestly don’t know, but I think it was because of her parents. I…I don’t think she could face her mother or her father. She didn’t want to disappoint them or…you.”

  “Oh, Jimmy.” This was not something Angie wanted to hear.

  “We did try to be careful, Sister….” He lifted his uninjured hand to his face and rubbed his eyes.

  The young man left soon afterward, and Angie sat in shock and grief as she tried to make sense of what she’d learned. Sister Joanna had been so sure that talking to Jimmy would help the boy deal with his sorrow, but it had the opposite effect on her.

  If anything, her own feeling of loss had grown worse. This young girl was dead. Corinne had challenged Angie constantly, forcing her to defend the Church and her own beliefs. But in the end, Angie had let the girl down. Without ever meaning to, Angie had hurt Jimmy, too.

  Angie’s tears began in earnest then. Not knowing where else to go, she went into the chapel, k
nelt at the altar and buried her face in her hands. It felt as if her world was askew, as if nothing was right and never would be again.

  She didn’t know how long she stayed there, but when she raised her head, afternoon shadows loomed against the chapel walls. Angie had grown emotionally numb, unable to feel, unable to react.

  She returned to her cell and collapsed onto her bed. In all her years of serving Christ she had never experienced anything like this sense of emptiness. Corinne had asked Angie if she’d ever questioned authority. The girl had challenged Angie to reconsider Church decrees against birth control. She’d bombarded her with questions and when she didn’t like the answers, she’d scoffed at what she saw as outdated views.

  To Corinne it was ridiculous that priests couldn’t marry and have families. She’d startled Angie once by suggesting that nuns should be able to celebrate Mass. Such thinking was sacrilegious. Angie couldn’t imagine a nun being allowed to administer the Holy Sacrament.

  Lying on her side on the bed, Angie saw a shadow outside her room. She’d assumed she was alone in the convent’s sleeping quarters. She sat up. Perhaps someone had come looking for her.

  Standing, Angie went to the doorway and glanced in both directions. “Sister Kathleen,” she called when she saw the other nun who wore her coat and carried a small bag. Her veil was missing. Alarm bells rang in Angie’s head.

  Kathleen turned to face her, dropping her suitcase at her feet. “Sister Angelina,” she said in a rush of sympathy. “I’m so sorry.”

  Angie bit her lower lip in order to keep fresh tears at bay. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You’re…leaving?”

  Sister Kathleen nodded. “Yes, Sister. I’m going away.”

  “But where?”

  Sister Kathleen leaned against the wall and searched her pocket, pulling out a tissue. It took Angie a moment to realize the other nun was weeping.

  “What happened?” Angie asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Kathleen straightened. “It doesn’t matter now… I’m going to Seattle. My brother lives there, and he told me years ago that he’d help me if ever I decided I had to walk away from this life. I phoned him.”