Her assignment for this evening is Sister Mary Agatha. She isn’t old, but was declared palliative the day before yesterday. Bone cancer that spread everywhere.
When she enters the nun’s room, she sees it’s dimly lit by a lace-covered lamp on the small bedside table. A narrow single bed juts out from the wall, where a crucifix hangs above the sleeping woman’s head. Nancy creeps over to the small wooden guest chair. It’s stifling in here. She unlatches the window and pushes the casement outward, locking it in place. A merciful summer breeze wafts in. This room looks out onto the back garden, which is much quieter than the street side. Nancy can smell the roses on the air, still fragrant from the afternoon heat.
It’s her last day volunteering at St. Sebastian’s. After some dedicated effort to get her grades back up where they needed to be, she was accepted to library school and was offered a position in the university archives. Between her studies and the job, her schedule won’t allow for overnight visits to the nursing home, but Nancy is ready to move on, anyway—she has other emotional burdens to bear right now.
Her mother was diagnosed with brain cancer three months ago, though she didn’t tell Nancy until last month. Well, I didn’t want to worry you, dear, she said. It’s unclear whether her history of migraines played any part in it, but regardless, Frances is undergoing chemotherapy, and sitting with palliative patients will do nothing to alleviate Nancy’s dread.
One bright spot is Michael. She met him at the hospital the first time her mother allowed her to drive her there for treatment. He was slinging coffee in the cafeteria and he made her laugh. With how miserable Nancy was feeling at the time, that’s all it took to get himself a date. They’ve only gone out twice, but she likes him.
Nancy turns her back to the window now and sits down, extricating a book from her satchel—The Stone Angel.
Sister Agatha’s face is pale and thin, and much younger than most of Nancy’s charges. Her hair falls in a neat braid down her shoulder, rests delicately on her sunken chest. Nancy suspects a nurse has kept Agatha’s hair tidy. It’s the little things that add up in these last few days, the seemingly minor details that help a person maintain their dignity and remember who they are. Or at least, who they once were.
Nancy lets out a sigh of sympathy and settles in to read, setting her bookmark down on the bedside table.
“What are you reading?”
Nancy’s eyes flash up to meet Agatha’s, whose lids are heavy with sleep.
“Oh, hello,” Nancy says, closing her book. “I thought you were asleep. I’m so sorry. I’m Nancy.”
“Hello, Nancy. I’m Sister Agatha.”
“It’s nice to meet you. How are you feeling?”
“Oh, you know. It’s cancer. They tell me I haven’t long. My priest has been here already for the rites. But I don’t mind, my dear. God comes for all of us in his own time.”
They’re both quiet for a moment. The breeze flutters the curtains of the window. Nancy can smell fresh-cut grass in the heavy haze of summer air.
“What are you reading?” Sister Agatha asks again.
“Oh, it’s, um…” What a stupid choice.
Sister Agatha waits, unblinking.
“It’s The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence. It’s about, well…” Nancy can feel her face growing hot as she stumbles on the words. “A woman at the end of her life—”
“I know what it is, child.”
Nancy slides the book back into her satchel.
“You needn’t hide it. Don’t be silly. I know I’m dying.”
“How about we talk? Or I can just sit with you, if you want to go back to sleep, Sister. I’m here for whatever you need.”
Sister Agatha considers Nancy for a moment. “Let us talk, then, my dear. Come sit closer to me. My eyes are not what they once were.”
Nancy obeys, shifts the chair closer to Agatha’s bedside.
“My goodness,” Agatha says, her brow suddenly tight. “You are so young. What is your name, child?”
“Nancy.”
“Nancy…” Agatha trails off, taking in Nancy’s face. “You remind me of someone I used to know.” She thinks for a moment. “She was young, too. They all were.”
Nancy isn’t sure what to say to this. “Is that so?”
“Mmm,” Agatha says, nodding. “A long time ago, now.”
A beat of silence as the intervening years fill up the empty space between them.
“Where did you meet her?” Nancy asks.
“Here,” Agatha says, waving a papery hand at the walls. “It was full of girls for years. The home, you know.”
“For wayward girls?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Sister Mary Anna told me once. The nun at the desk downstairs. She gets chatty.”
Agatha grins, her dry lips pulling against the bones in her sunken face. “She does. Sweet girl.”
“What did that mean back then, anyway? ‘Wayward girls’？ I figured they were petty criminals. Thieves or something.”
Agatha holds Nancy’s gaze. “Not criminals, no,” she mutters. “Though they were treated like it sometimes. No older than you are now. I could tell you stories, my dear.”
“Why were they treated so poorly?” Nancy feels a lick of foreboding swirl around in her chest. She’s unearthed something.
“Oh, well—” Agatha begins before a coughing fit sets in. Nancy reaches for the plastic cup of water on the bedside table and waits for Agatha’s cough to subside. The woman takes a few shaky sips.
Agatha rests her head back on the pale green pillowcase. “What was I saying? I get so confused.” Her breathing begins to quicken, her chest rising and falling under the quilted coverlet. “What was her name? The one who died?”
“I don’t—I don’t know.” Nancy takes Agatha’s cold hand in hers and holds it between her own warm ones, young and strong, the fingers free of calluses and scars.
Agatha takes a moment to focus. Nancy can see the truth developing in Agatha’s eyes, floating to the surface like photographs in a darkroom. But this time she finds she doesn’t want to hear it. She doesn’t want to carry it with her.
“I can hear them crying. The girls and their babies,” she mutters.
Nancy has to lean in closer to hear the older woman, and her long brown hair swings low over her shoulder, tickling her cheek.
“We stole their babies,” Agatha whispers. “And she sold them. Even the ones who’d been raped. It wasn’t their fault. And I lied to that poor girl. I told her that her baby had died. But it didn’t. It didn’t. I thought it was best. I thought it was a mercy, she was so terribly sad, but I was wrong. I was wrong. I thought it was best…”
Nancy’s hand flinches in Agatha’s cold grip. “You… you sold babies?”
Agatha doesn’t seem to hear her. “Their faces are here sometimes. But the baby never died.”
Agatha’s glassy eyes stare at a spot behind Nancy and she whips her head around, but there’s nothing there but fading wallpaper. Of course there isn’t. She mentally shakes herself.