He led Dr. Haas into the bedroom, then knelt beside the bed, wincing at Birdie’s hideous grin that starkly contrasted the fear in her eyes. She lay on her side because her twisted spine made lying any other way impossible.
“These are the specialists I told you about, Ma. They’ll need to examine you before they can use that special medicine. Maybe take a couple of photographs. Don’t be embarrassed. They know more about this disease than anyone in the world, and someday this is going to help a lot of people. Will that be okay?”
She couldn’t speak, only nod.
“Excellent,” Dr. Haas said, then proceeded to take his mother’s temperature and pulse and used a weird-looking device to measure the bend in her spine.
The younger research assistant set the camera near Birdie’s face to take her picture. She couldn’t even change her expression, but Patrick knew she’d be horrified to be photographed like this. She closed her eyes, and a tear leaked out. He grabbed a section of the sheet to blot it.
“Okay, Ma. The picture-taking is over. Now comes the hard part.”
Thank the Lord for Gwen Kellerman. She explained the procedure with a softer approach than the blunt German professor and described how the serum contained antibodies that would fight the tetanus bacteria. In order to get the life-saving serum where it needed to go, they would inject it into Birdie’s spinal cord.
Patrick held his mother’s hand as the knowledge sank in. Once again, there was no change in her expression but terror in her eyes. She began panting and more tears fell, but when Mrs. Kellerman asked for permission to proceed, Birdie nodded.
Dr. Haas and both his students moved to the other side of the bed while the professor prepared a syringe. Patrick was thankful Birdie couldn’t see the size of the needle or the large bottle of cloudy, amber-colored fluid. The professor pulled a lot of fluid into the syringe, and knowing where it was going to go . . . another wave of dizziness hit Patrick, and he struggled to stay calm.
“Mr. O’Neill, would you be more comfortable outside?” Mrs. Kellerman asked.
As much as he’d rather be anywhere else, Birdie’s look of panic made his answer easy. He pulled up a stool and sat beside her bed, reaching down to hold her hand.
“I’m not going anywhere, Ma. I’ll be with you the whole time.”
Dr. Haas said the procedure would take about five minutes, which was plenty of time to say a bit of the rosary. Patrick grabbed the olive-wood rosary draped over the bedpost and laid it across his mother’s hands. One of the research assistants took his position at her shoulders, and the other at her knees. They were holding her in place, because this was going to be bad.
“Are you ready, Ma?”
She squeezed his hand and dipped her chin. It was all the permission Patrick needed. He looked at Dr. Haas and nodded.
Thank heavens for the strong men. They held Birdie braced against the mattress, but she screamed when Dr. Haas inserted the needle, and the keening wail cut straight to Patrick’s heart. He started praying over the scream, hoping his voice might cut through her pain and give her something to focus on. He pressed the rosary into her hand.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” he said. “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 of our death. Amen.”
His mother’s garbled amen almost made him weep at her effort. He moved her fingers to the next bead on the rosary and recited the prayer again. Birdie still whimpered in pain but did her best to stumble through the prayer with him. Now that the needle was in, Dr. Haas was slowly injecting the serum.
“You’re doing well, Mrs. O’Neill,” the doctor said.
His words didn’t make a dent on his mother’s stricken face, so Patrick kept praying the rosary. After ten Hail Marys, they recited the Lord’s Prayer, then began the next round of Hail Marys.
“Halfway through,” Dr. Haas said, and Patrick continued reciting the rosary. They got nowhere close to completing the next decade of the rosary before Dr. Haas mercifully declared the infusion complete.
“All over,” the doctor said. Birdie let out another wail as he withdrew the needle. Then he cleaned the injection site and applied pressure.
Was this going to work? It was in the Lord’s hands now, and Patrick could only pray his mother’s misery would be worth it.
They hadn’t reached the end of the rosary, but Patrick needed to hear the final words, and Birdie did too. He moved her fingers to the crucifix dangling at the end of the rosary.
“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”
Peace settled on him. The horrifying procedure might only serve to make his mother’s final hours even more painful, but people had been born, suffered, rejoiced, and died for millennia. He and Birdie were no different. Come what may, God’s will would prevail.
13
Gwen felt limp as she left the sickroom. Dr. Haas had given something to Mrs. O’Neill to help her sleep, but they would be monitoring her condition closely in the coming hours.
Patrick shuffled forward and dropped onto the parlor sofa. She wasn’t used to seeing such a physically strong man flop down like that, but he seemed completely drained as he braced his head in his hands and stared at the floor.
“I know death is a normal part of life,” he said. “A better Christian wouldn’t be so afraid of it.”
Her heart ached, and she reached for words to offer comfort. “All Christians are human, and it’s normal to fear the unknown.”
There wasn’t much room in this tiny apartment for Dr. Haas and his assistants, but they would move in for several days to monitor the patient’s progress. A neighbor offered to bring over some blankets and pillows to make pallets on the floor for the two medical students, and Dr. Haas would stay in Patrick’s bedroom.
Gwen feared Patrick’s room might reflect a bachelor’s slovenliness, but instead it had a puritanical tidiness. The bed was neatly made, and there was no clutter or knickknacks on the chest of drawers. The only hint of personality was a rosary just like his mother’s, also draped on the bedpost. There wasn’t a single thing she needed to do to tidy it for the professor.
There wasn’t much food in the kitchen other than a startlingly beautiful cake under a glass cover. It looked like the Taj Mahal, with a dome and spires, all covered with vanilla icing and little candies for the finials.
“My mom is a baker,” Patrick said from the other side of the room. “That’s what she made today before she got so sick.”
“She’s quite an artist,” Gwen said.
Hiram, the medical assistant from Brooklyn, hovered close to look. “She’s a Michelangelo!” he said, but their words of praise only seemed to upset Patrick, who remained on the sofa, staring at the cake while he twisted his hands.
His voice was full of regret when he spoke. “I’d offer you a slice, but I dare not touch it. If she dies, that cake will be her last great creation.”
Her heart ached at the anguish in his voice. If his mother died, he’d probably keep this cake untouched beneath its glass dome for weeks. “Nonsense,” she said. “You are her last great creation, and you know that she would agree with me on that.”