“Yeah. I caught onto the English just before I almost asked you for a running translation.”
Returning the compliment, Lennon raised her glass to Cox. “And here’s to you, Joe, and the remarkable restraint you showed when the ‘Nitrogen Bomb’ story broke.”
Cox grew serious. “I gotta admit that was a tough decision. Whitaker opened Pandora’s box when he started spouting off about Catholic morality and the ordinary magisterium and the rest of that gobbledygook. If anybody besides Pfeiffer had written that original story, the lid probably would have come off right there. But one thing you gotta say for Whitaker and Pfeiffer: They deserve each other.”
“Still, you knew what Whitaker was trying to say. You knew about St. Vincent’s clinic, the birth control, the ligations.”
“Yeah, I knew. But the only way I knew—what the story really was—was from you. If you hadn’t told me what you found out, I’d never have been able to make head-or-tails out of what Pfeiffer wrote.”
“Still, Joe, it was remarkable restraint.”
“Well, I don’t want to muddle up what we’ve got. It’s our agreement. I’m not gonna bust that up. Besides, the story did break once Haroldson tried to stiff Eileen and got Rosamunda instead.”
Lennon shook her head in sympathy. “Poor Haroldson. Poor Rosamunda.”
“I guess. But Haroldson opened up the gates for you. It’s funny, how in this competition between the
“Pound for pound, Joe, you did a great job, as usual. But you’re right: It was my story . . . only because I was on the damn thing before it got to be a story. I was doing, in effect, a self-assigned puffpiece on St. Vincent’s. So I had the background on all the principals before they became principals. I guess it just went from a backgrounder in the magazine to a who’s who on page one.”
“Virtue is its own reward,” Cox said. “You had the story while you were doing your initial research and you gave it up out of principle. It would have been a first-class rotten break for someone to take it from you.”
“Maybe. But if somebody else had got it . . . well, that’s life.”
The waitress took their orders. After which they silently sipped more champagne.
Pat contemplated the massive concrete and steel of Detroit. “You know, Joe, we’re lucky.”
“Ummm.”
“I mean, our jobs . . . our lifestyle . . . us.”
“Hey, is this a preamble to another try at getting me to go to church?”
Pat snorted. “If you ever darkened a church door, they’d have to reconsecrate the place.”
Cox covered Pat’s hand with his. “You’re right; we are lucky.” He lifted his glass and squinted at Lennon through the remaining champagne. “Here’s looking at you, kid.”
* * *
“How’s it going, Sister?” Dr. Fred Scott asked.
“Oh, I’m a little wobbly. But not bad for an old lady.”
Under her modified veil, Sister Eileen wore a wig while her own hair was growing back. The thought had occurred to her that in the not-so-distant good old days she wouldn’t have had to worry about her hair. The traditional habit would have covered everything.
“You sure you should be up and about?” Scott sat opposite the nun in her office. He had just taken her blood pressure, which was a little high, but understandably so.
“Not much help for it, Fred. So much going on since John . . . well . . .”
“Yeah, everything did pretty much hit the fan. How’d your meeting with the bishop today go?”
Eileen glanced sharply at him. “You knew about that!”
Scott shrugged. “Small hospital.”
“Hmmm. Depends on whose side you’re on. As far as my side goes, not well.”
“How bad?”
Eileen winced. It was difficult to tell whether it was from the occasional pain she still felt or the memory of her episcopal visit.
Scott leaned forward. “You all right?”
“Yes . . . yes. I’m okay. It still hurts once in a while, but not as often. I guess the thought of this afternoon doesn’t help.”
“You see Cardinal Boyle.”
“No. That was last week when we went over my options.”
“Oh?”
“Even in this ‘small hospital’ you didn’t hear about that?
“Well, it was one of those things that had to happen after all this publicity. I can’t really blame His Eminence. I have a hunch he was aware of what we were doing here about family planning and the like. But he was able to pretend he didn’t know, until just about everybody in the country found out. The poor man! He couldn’t really approve of what we were doing—even though he could understand why we were doing it. But in the glare of all that publicity neither he nor I could dodge the issue.”
“Which was?”
“That we were going to have to make some kind of public response. All I could tell him was that I was, in conscience, unable to change the philosophy and interpretation of theology under which we operate. He said he’d take my answer under advisement. And that culminated with my meeting today with Auxiliary Bishop Ratigan. I met with him and our Mother General, Sister Qaire Cecile.”
“And?”
“Bishop Ratigan was nice enough. But he had a job to do. He explained that if this had happened a few years ago, Cardinal Boyle would have resorted to his former custom of appointing a ‘blue-ribbon committee’ to study the matter. And they would have studied it until hell froze over or until the media forgot about it. Whichever happened first.
“But now . . . with the climate in Rome . . . well, there was no getting around it. We had to face up to conforming to the Church’s magisterium. I was to enforce the letter of the law or I had to step down. I told him that left me no alternative.”
“Sister?”
“The next part has got to be just between you and me, even though this is a ‘small hospital.’” She forced a smile. “St. Vincent’s is going to close.”
“No!”
“I’m afraid so. Sister Qaire Cecile said the Board had anticipated this sort of dilemma and had voted that, with my departure, St. Vincent’s would be closed. The only reason they’ve been sustaining it, in the face of serious financial loss, was because I insisted I could make it work.
“But even to keep the poor old place alive, I can’t compromise my principles. St. Vincent’s conforming to the letter of Church teaching would have no meaning here in any case. So John Haroldson got at least part of what he wanted. I will be gone. But so will St. Vincent’s . . . and at what cost!”
There followed several moments of silence. Scott reflected that the closing, as shocking as it was, also solved Dr. Lee Kim’s problem. Under the circumstances, Kim would have no problem transferring to another hospital. And wherever he went, it would be a step or more upward.
“And how about you, Sister? What will you do?”
“Oh, Sisters don’t join the unemployment line. Not even old ladies like me. I talked to Sister Qaire Cecile about it. Well, we’ve talked before about what might come after St. Vincent’s—if that ever happened.
“I’m going to be in charge of a new health-care program for our senior Sisters. Right now, there’s little rhyme or reason to the various scattered houses that care for our elderly and ill. The program needs to be pulled together and coordinated. Without lots of young Sisters out in the field to bring in money, we’re financially pinched as never before. It’s a good program and I’m eager to get into it. It’s . . . it’s the program Sister Rosamunda would have been a part of. But . . .
“Poor Sister Rosamunda.” Eileen shook her head sadly. “A classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She went to the pharmacy to get a supply of Terpin Hydrate . . . the poor dear probably couldn’t sleep a wink . . . all that pressure. She didn’t know I had ordered all the locks changed just so she wouldn’t be able to lean
