“My dear mother is dead and no one in all of Scotland remembers who I am. It would be a perfect place to die.”
“Little Bird, do you think you should be traveling to a funeral?” her mother asked, holding her newborn baby.
“Colin’s awake and must go. Can I do less?” she asked, but it wasn’t really a question, and Adelaide didn’t understand her logic. It was doubtful that Colin could make it. His legs were crushed from the motorcar accident, and he might yet still lose them. He was so bereft that he had not spoken. They were holding the funeral for his wife, son and unborn baby girl six days after the accident in order for Colin to come.
“I want to go to his ward and find him,” Suzu "Little Bird" said, “I don’t know why, Mama. I want to comfort him,” she said, putting on a dressing gown and asking the orderly for a walking stick. “Perhaps the Holy Spirit has put it on my heart, I don’t know. I’ve felt so far from God since…since Chenny left us. But God is never far from me; the distance is always mine.”
Suzu walked down a flight of stairs and found Colin’s ward. She walked into the long room, over the objections of orderlies and nurses, wondering what she was doing descending stairs in her condition. She paid them no mind and walked down the row of men in beds until she found him. She pulled a heavy, wooden chair over to his bedside and sat. He turned over and looked at her, his expression never changing and blank. She looked in his face a long time, but inside, she was praying.
She put a smile on her face and began, “I held your dear, darling Dougie, and he was fine and smiling when he went with the Angel Michael,” she said, touching his hand. Colin began to blink back tears. Oh, don’t cry, Colin, she thought, or I shall, too. “It was all so fast. Dougie and Florence felt nothing as they were absent from the body and present with the Lord.” She didn’t feel like she was crying, but a tear left her eye as she smiled.
Colin inhaled deeply, and with a dead, emotionless look on his face asked, “Like yer mother, Sally?” She was puzzled at his words but then smiled and nodded. No, Colin thought. He could not take all of the death he felt and heap it on this kind woman, and tell her that he was the cause of her mother’s death. She didn’t deserve that, and he had pledged to Suzu' father Everett to never reveal what he had done to her mother. It would be a burden too heavy for this dear girl to bear, but the dark cloud of this depression was telling lies to him. Again.
“Her name was…Bridget,” he said, speaking of the unborn baby. “The wee one in Florence’s belly was to be named Bridget after my dear mother, if the bairn was a…girl.”
Suzu touched his hand. “’Tis a beautiful name,” she said, smiling as she paused. “Can I get you anything?”
“Scotch whiskey,” he stated plainly. “And a train ticket. I want to leave this place,” he said in his thick Scottish brogue. “My dear mother is dead and no one in all of Scotland remembers who I am. It would be a perfect place to die.”
“Well, I’ll get you on the first train to Scotland, but it will be a wet train ride over the Atlantic.”
“Mrs.!” a woman’s sharp voice behind her snapped. “You need to get back to bed right this minute.” Suzu turned around and looked at the hard face of the large nurse in her starched whites down to her ankles and severe cowl and cap with a large red cross on her apron. Or was she a nun?
“Do not speak to me as if I am a child, Sister. I am giving Christian comfort to this man. Surely, healing the soul is just as important as healing the corporeal.” At that, the nurse stood up straight, turned, and marched away, clearly never having been spoken to the way this young female patient just did.
“You’re full of piss and vinegar, aren’t you, woman?” Colin asked. “Was that a nun?”
“Yes, but you should expect that when you go to a Catholic hospital. But you didn’t have any say in the matter. I’ll be at the funeral Saturday. I expect you’ll be there?”
“If they make a chair with wheels?” he asked.
Attempting to keep the air of conversation light about such a dour subject, Suzu answered, “They do indeed. I’ll push you, if needed. If you can roll yourself, I’ll be the one astride a horse with a papoose on my back,” she said, and Colin nodded at her.
“What are you doing here in your nightclothes?” he asked.
“In the hospital? I had a baby while I was waiting for you to wake up, and they made me stay. Then I came down to comfort you. Would you like me to sing you a hymn? I promise, you’ll be sorry to hear me sing,” she said, and he shook his head.
Colin heaved a great sigh and looked out the window. “Just the whiskey will do, Lass.”
“I’ll see what I can do. All will be well with our souls,” she said, not believing that it would. She stood and retied the sash on her dressing gown.
“Did ye have a girl or a boy?” Colin finally thought to ask.
“A girl and she was already named Sally, or so the wee girl told me. I shall pray for you, Mr. Hall, and God will be delighted to finally hear from me,” she said. At that, she leaned down, kissed his cheek, and patted his shoulder.
She turned, walked into the hall, to the nurses' desk and collapsed, the crimson stain spreading on her white dressing gown.
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