An Unholy Mission Read online

  It was on the day of his confirmation in the Lutheran church of his childhood, Christ the Redeemer, in rural Pennsylvania. At the moment the bishop laid his hands on his head, he knew he had been called to serve God. The silver cross that he always wore had been a gift from his grandparents. That was another sign. From that day on he was never without it, displaying and proclaiming his faith as a Christian for all to see; but it wasn’t long before the intensity of his faith began to be of concern to his parents. They tried to counsel him into waiting until he was at least out of high school before making such a profound and lifelong commitment. Even then, he knew they would never understand that this was a covenant between him and God, and there was no turning back. In order to avoid further pressure and misunderstanding, he entered the pre-med program at Penn State and stopped going to his home church altogether. He began attending meetings at a nearby storefront fundamentalist church that welcomed sinners to be washed in the ever-present blood of the Lamb and give their lives to Jesus.

  Eventually, he grew beyond them as well and began to understand that his ministry was to be greater than a single denomination and that interfaith ministry was his true calling. It was in those pre-med years that he witnessed his first patient death. It was a woman who had been on life support for three years with no hope of recovery. That’s when he first realized that it was the medical profession that needed redemption. When doctors and nurses extended the life of a human being that God would have taken long before, it was doctors and nurses who were the ones playing God when in truth, they were in league with the devil.

  Didn’t God tell us that we were to have no other gods but Him? If left alone, humans would die when they normally would have and not be left to linger and suffer as a direct result of medical science and research. That’s why Luther dropped out of college altogether and went to work as an aide in a nursing home, and that’s where he eventually learned about hospice. People in hospice care died as God intended they should—peacefully, often free of pain and never alone. Here was his ministry, to release these poor, suffering souls, victims of the godless curiosity of the medical profession, and to be there with them when they went home to the Father.

  It was all falling into place just the way he had envisioned it. That was surely another sign. He had managed to find a way to remain at Mercy and not be questioned and still do God’s work. A wave of pain crested and subsided in his midsection, leaving him breathless and reminding him that his own time might be short. This, too, was God’s will, and Luther Stuart had accepted it long ago. He smiled in gratitude for his many blessings. It never ceased to amaze him how easy it was for him to convince people of his holy mission. That was another of God’s gifts—the power to persuade, just like Jesus.

  There was only one thing that could possibly get in his way now, and that was Olympia Brown. If that happened, he knew what he had to do. She might be a challenge, like all of the other challenges that God had set out for him to surmount. It was all part of the divine plan, God’s way of testing him; but he knew that along with the challenge, God always provided the solution. Why else would God have given him access to so much medical knowledge?

  Luther picked up his Bible and checked his watch. He should probably go back and look in on Mrs. Frances again. By the look of her, it was almost time.

  The next day Olympia went directly to her supervisor to say that she’d seen Luther in the underground walkway the night before and to describe the nature of their conversation. Sister Patrick thanked Olympia and said that it was not uncommon for people to behave like that when they couldn’t handle saying goodbye. She went on to say that she would continue with her own efforts to reach him and Olympia should let her know if Luther attempted any further contact with her. Beyond that, she was to concentrate on her work as a chaplain and leave any further investigation to her supervisor.

  With Luther gone, the four remaining chaplains continued to fill their days according to the established routine. They visited with patients in the morning and, when they could, sat together for lunch in the cafeteria. In the afternoons they presented their verbatims, held discussions and sometimes had guest lecturers or special presenters from different departments in the hospital.

  Sister Patrick reported that her efforts to reach Luther had been unsuccessful. Although there was an acknowledged discomfort about his sudden departure, without his cooperation they were powerless to do anything about it other than acknowledge it. Therefore, she concluded that they should hold him in prayer but get on with the business at hand. She added that Thanksgiving and the winter holidays were almost upon them, and although their hours wouldn’t change, their work was going to be twice as intense.

  What Sister Patrick didn’t report was a second conversation with the Director of the School of Interfaith ministry, who had told her that yes, Luther Stuart had been a student there but had been asked to leave. When she asked the reason, the Director said only that after considerable discourse it had been decided that perhaps ordained ministry was possibly not the best choice of a potential career for a man with so many difficult issues to deal with in his own life. When Sister Patrick asked what those issues were and why all of this wasn’t in the transcript Luther had to submit to be considered for the program at Mercy, the Director became even more evasive and noncommittal. He stumbled around, saying something about confidentiality and potential legal issues and the difficulty of coming to a mutually acceptable reason for his resigning from the program, and maybe she should talk to him herself.

  None of this was in the least bit comforting. The more she thought about it, she realized that it was really very troublesome, but what more could she do? The answer was nothing, but Patrick was too wise a woman to think this was a closed issue. She had experienced people like Luther before and knew it was only a matter of time before he would resurface. She wondered briefly if his meeting up with Olympia the night before really had been an accident or if it had been planned. There was no telling.

  A true paranoiac, which is what she suspected he might be, could lay in wait, sometimes for years, until the time was right or until he received a sign. He could also convince you black was white if he wanted to. She tried to think how in the world all of this had escaped her when he had come in for the interview, then wondered if his transcript coming late had really been accidental. The good news was, he was out of the program. The bad news was, he was out of the program, and she couldn’t keep an eye on him. But she needed to put this out of her mind, as well. She had four very promising chaplains to work with, and they deserved her full and uncluttered attention. For now, anyway, she had done all she could do.

  Nineteen

  On the Monday before Thanksgiving, the four remaining chaplains were seated around the table. They were now almost four weeks into the program, and despite their familiarity with the routine, each day offered them new learning and new challenges. Sister Patrick asked Joel Silverman if he would care to present his verbatim and was visibly taken aback, as were the rest of them, when he respectfully declined.

  “I have it here, Sister, but I simply can’t do it. I just learned that my patient died last night, and it doesn’t feel right to me to be describing a conversation we had when she was still alive and I’d be able to go back and see her and talk with her again.”

  “Was this expected?” asked Sister Patrick.

  Joel shook his head. He was clearly upset. “That’s what so troublesome to me. I knew she was probably going to be transferred over to the hospice unit, but I was sure she had some time left, good time. She must have taken a sudden turn.” He held out his hands. “I’m a doctor. We can sort of tell. You know that, Sister. That’s why it came as such a shock.”

  Patrick nodded, the mutual understanding of shared experience evident in her dark, compassionate eyes. After waiting a few moments she turned to Jenny Abelard. “Jenny, I know this is last minute, but I wonder if you have anything you might like to share with us?”

  Jenny respo
nded by clapping an open palm against her forehead and shaking her head. “I don’t have a verbatim, Sister, but I would like to talk about something that happened over the weekend.” Jenny shot a questioning look in Olympia’s direction, and Olympia winked and smiled in response.

  “What would you like to tell us, Jenny?”

  Jenny leaned forward and put both hands on her knees. She looked like she might be getting to spring off her chair, but she was smiling. It was clearly a happy tension.

  “I gave my first sermon yesterday. It was in the chapel at the shelter. I was so scared, I thought I was gonna … uh, well, let’s just say I was really nervous. I’ve never done that before, and I have to thank Olympia here. Otherwise, I never woulda.”

  All eyes turned to Olympia, who shook her head. “This is your story, Jenny, you tell it.”

  Jenny wiggled in her seat. She was half little kid with a new toy and half newly minted almost minister with both halves trying to speak at once. “A coupla weeks ago someone at the shelter asked if I’d give the sermon at one of our Sunday services. When I said yes, I didn’t know she meant that week, but by then I’d given my word, and I couldn’t back out. So I panicked and nailed Olympia and asked if she’d help me with it. All she said to me was, ‘tell your story and speak your truth,’ and if I could, I should make some sort of connection to holy scripture. Hell … ooops, I mean heck, I didn’t know it was gonna be that easy. Well, it wasn’t easy, but I wrote it out and showed it to her one day when we were having lunch, and she said it was okay.”

  Olympia held up her hand. “Actually, I said it was very good and corrected a few spelling errors, but other than that it was all Jenny’s own words.

  “What were those words, Jenny?”

  “It’s funny, Sister, but I pretended I was writing a letter. That’s what Olympia told me to do to get started, and then it all just sorta came out. It was about David and Goliath and how the little guy took out the big guy with just a couple of stones and a homemade sling shot. Well, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to talk about how we don’t need real weapons to protect ourselves. Maybe all we need is something that acts like stones that we can use to help us when we’re in a fix—stones like God and good friends and telling the truth and trusting number one, that kind of stuff. Man, I really got into it.” Jenny was punctuating her words with rapid-fire hand gestures.

  “Then I said that even if you think you are so far down you’ve totally forgotten there ever was an up, you still got your stones, ‘cause they’re inside you, and they never break down. And you know what? When I finished, they all started clapping. I don’t mind tellin’ you, that’s when I almost lost it.”

  “No,” said Patrick, “I think you found it. You found the last stone.”

  Jenny looked perplexed. “Whaddya mean, Sister?”

  “In your sermon you mentioned four stones, God, friends, truth and trust.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “I think the fifth stone might be self, meaning you, Jenny. You trusted yourself to do this, and you didn’t let yourself down.”

  “Holy …”

  “I get the point.” Patrick held up her hand, not bothering to hide a knowing grin. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I wasn’t born yesterday. I grew up on the streets of Boston’s West End before they tore it down to put up those fancy river-view apartments and condos. I heard it all, saw it all and said most of it, but I appreciate your restraint, Jenny. I think you are going to be a wonderful minister.”

  That’s when Jenny burst into tears. “Ya really think so?” was all she could snuffle.

  With the long Thanksgiving weekend approaching, Sister Patrick told them they had from midday Wednesday until the following Monday off, and she would be the emergency on-call chaplain. When both Joel and Timothea offered to come in anyway, she declined, saying she actually missed being on the floor. She added that this gave her a way to reconnect with staff and rock some babies in the nursery, if there were any that were in need of it. By the look on everyone’s face except Olympia’s, this was the first they’d heard of Sister Patrick’s fondness for newborns.

  “So I hope you’ll all have a lovely time with your families or however you choose to spend the time and will come back on Monday morning, refreshed and five pounds heavier.”

  Olympia and Timothea groaned, Joel smiled, and Jenny looked troubled.

  “Jenny, is something wrong?” asked Sr. Patrick.

  “Um, yes and no, Sister. You said the holidays are hard on people—you know, people without families and stuff. Well, multiply that by a thousand, and you get what it’s like where I live. It was pretty rough when I was in prison, but at least there we knew we weren’t going to be invited anywhere. My women come in cold and lonely, knowing they have families somewhere but nobody wants them, because they are such an embarrassment. A lot of them have mental illness along with their addictions. Talk about a lose-lose situation.”

  “I know it’s kind of last minute, but is there anything we can do? We’ve still got a couple of days,” said Joel.

  Jenny shook her head, “Thanks, Rabbi, but I don’t think so. Maybe if I’d thought of it sooner. We’ve got turkeys and mashed potatoes coming in and people to serve it out, but these women are hungry for more than food. They want somebody to listen to them and not turn away because they smell bad and talk ragtime.”

  “Well, think about it,” said Joel, “and if not this time, then maybe later in December. We Jews don’t celebrate Christmas, and Chanukah is really a very minor holiday in our calendar, so I’ll likely have more time than the rest of you.”

  “Thanks again, Rabbi.”

  “I’m not a Rabbi yet, Jenny.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  When Sister Patrick dismissed them for the day, Olympia stopped Timothea in the hall and asked her what she was doing over the holiday weekend and if she would be seeing her son.

  Timothea shook her head. “Too far for both of us, Olympia. He’s down in Texas, and I’m up here. Actually, I thought I might see if there’s anything I can do to help out at Jenny’s shelter. Street people aren’t all white, you know. It might help to have a sister down there doin’ some o’ dat listenin’.

  Impulsively, Olympia threw both arms as far as they would reach around Timothea’s ample frame. “You have the biggest heart.”

  “And I gots the biggest be-hind to go with it.”

  When the two stopped laughing, Olympia told her friend that if she didn’t go to the shelter and if she didn’t have another invitation for Thanksgiving, she was invited out to Brookfield to join her own diverse assemblage. Timothea thanked her and said that she’d talk with Jenny first and then let her know. If she did come, she’d bake a pecan pie that could raise the dead and make a blind man see, and in Jesus’ name, she’d bring it.

  Olympia’s ribs were still sore from all the merriment when she walked into the parking garage. She had begun driving into Boston again. It was far easier than public transport, considering how many changes she had to make; but in deference to everyone’s warnings to be careful, she had requested a new parking space that was closer to the entrance and far better lighted.

  As she opened the car and slipped in, her thoughts went back to her friend. Timothea was one funny lady, and the more she got to know her, the better she liked her. It had been a long time since she’d had a girlfriend.

  Olympia turned the key in the ignition and heard only a metallic click, the dreaded sound of either a dead battery or a defunct starter. Crap! She tried a second time, and after a few throaty growls, the engine turned over and started. If she made it home without mishap, the time had definitely come to have this taken care of. With luck they might be able to fix it over the weekend. Driving Frederick’s ancient yellow pickup was not her idea of suitable transportation. On the other hand, if they couldn’t fix it, she could always go back to taking the bus.

  Inching along, bumper to tailpipe, in the rush hour crawl, Olympia turned her thought
s toward home and mused for a moment on her good fortune in having found herself an antique New England farmhouse with more character, and characters, than an English TV costume drama. Home was good, and it was getting even better now that Frederick, uncostumed but as English as any character in Upstairs Downstairs, was there waiting for her.

  She had one more heart-stopping moment when the car stalled out at a light, but she was able to get it going and this time made it all the way back to Brookfield without further incident.

  After supper she and Frederick sat at the kitchen table, going over the logistics of what was shaping up to be a fairly eventful holiday weekend. As usual, Olympia had her calendar and her to-do list on the table in front of her, and she was adding things to it as fast as she was crossing them off. In addition to the daily list was the Thanksgiving dinner list and beside it, the expanding menu. Added to all of that was Jim’s arrival. He said he was planning on moving in on Wednesday, the day after tomorrow.

  Both Olympia’s sons, Malcolm and Randall, told her they were coming just for the day and bringing their girlfriends. Now, maybe Timothea would join them. She added a question mark to the right of her name. This made a total of eight. Piece of cake.

  The only person not on the calendar or any of her lists was her daughter Laura and baby Erica. As much as she would have rejoiced in having her there and showing off her daughter and granddaughter, she didn’t want to make things awkward. The two women were still coming to terms with where they might fit into each other’s lives, and both knew that it would take time. Olympia hoped that one day she would have them all together, but that hadn’t happened yet. Her sons had not met their sister, and when she suggested it, they expressed interest but not enthusiasm. She knew in her heart they, too, were adjusting to the fact that they had a sister and their mother had given birth to her out of wedlock.