Gaining her bearings, she tried to gauge whether she could stand and get back into the church without doing more damage. She’d be damned if she would let a little Colorado ice show her up. She was a Chi-town native, “tougher than Grabowski.” She could do this.
She sat gingerly on the sidewalk to get her bearings and breathe, as cars passed by without stopping. This wasn’t the busiest street in town, but because the church sat one block from State Street, it got its share of Saturday traffic. Another car went by. Protecting her left wrist near to her torso, she put her right hand on the pavement and thrust her ass into the air to boost her body to an erect posture. Someone, if they even noticed while driving by, would get a butt show.
She slightly bumped her wrist, cried out loudly, “Shit, fuck, and damnation!” and immediately regretted her outburst. Parishioners could swear till the cows came home but let one expletive leave her mouth and it was doomsday. Another of those unhealthy double standards between clergy and laity.
No one seemed to hear her, so, humped over, she slid slowly and carefully on the icy walkway toward the church door, got close enough to grab the latch, and yanked with a grunt at the solid oak door, swinging her whole body around. Why did churches have these humongous oak doors that no one could open?
The door creaked outward and she stepped into the warm vestibule, now realizing how cold she had been without her coat. She should have known better than to make a foray onto ice without her parka. Dumb move, O’Rourke.
Several parts of her body started to throb in her heated office. After she called her church secretary without any answer, hoping to get some help, since she lived only two blocks away, Erin waffled on calling an ambulance. Finally putting aside that idea, she decided to call the clinic. Her damned wrist felt bad but she didn’t think she had broken it. Nevertheless, she needed an x-ray. If she thought she had a headache before, now her head pounded like a herd of rabbits were using tiny jackhammers inside her skull. She touched her forehead and her hand came back bloody. She let out another “shit, fuck, and damnation” in the privacy of her office. While the cursing made her feel a little better, she began to worry whether she would be able to do tomorrow’s service.
Erin drove herself to the clinic in Babcock County, the closest medical facility, a twenty-minute drive on good roads. But the roads were ice and snow covered, so it became a thirty-minute trip instead.
Finally, she reached the clinic. For a moment, she relaxed back against the driver’s side headrest, then got out into the cold wind to hurry to the door. She checked in at the receptionist’s desk and sat on a blue vinyl-covered chair, holding a hanky to her forehead and cradling her wrist against her stomach. She closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing. “Dumb. Dumb,” she huffed to herself.
After only a few blessed minutes, a medical assistant called her back and situated her on the exam table, immediately giving her a gauze bandage to staunch the blood. She then took her vital signs, wrote down Erin’s recounting of her injury, and left quietly, saying the doctor would appear shortly. She had hardly relaxed on the table, when she looked up, and there she was coming through the door, Dr. Take Charge, the good-looking physician who had given her and Maria trouble with Harold. The doctor’s hazel eyes looked even better in the light of day. Her physique seemed muscular but not particularly slim. Probably a gym type, she thought.
“Reverend, how are you today?” Dr. Wester looked down at her tablet. She looked up at Erin with a small smile.
Erin frowned. “Um, just so you know, Reverend is not a title, it’s an adjective. The Reverend Erin O’Rourke. You may call me ‘Erin’, or ‘Mother Erin’, or just ‘hey you’, but not ‘Reverend.’”
Dr. Webster smirked. “Sorry. I didn’t know. Not much for churches myself.”
“S’okay,” Erin said. She shook her head slightly.
The doctor looked at her with concern, getting closer and peering at her forehead. “What happened? You fell on ice?” She pulled a lamp over to observe the damage. “Looks like you hit your head pretty well. You will need a few stitches. Any fuzziness in your vision? Headache?”
“Head hurts, but no blackout or dizziness. My wrist got bunged up too.” Erin pushed up the sleeve of her navy cardigan to show Bobbi the purpling knot on the outside of her left wrist.
Bobbi took it gently in her hands and palpated tenderly all around the injury. “Tell me where—”
Erin sucked in a breath. “Right there.”
“I want to get a picture of your wrist. Do you need something for the pain?”
“I’m good.” Erin looked up into the doctor’s clear eyes and blinked with their intensity. “Listen, Dr. Webster, I need to be able to lead my ten o’clock service tomorrow, okay?”
“I’ll do my best to fix you up so you shouldn’t have a problem,” Bobbi said. “Let’s see about your head first.” Bobbi took a small flashlight from her lab coat pocket. “Please follow my right hand with your eyes.”
She shone the flashlight in each of Erin’s eyes, then moved it up, down, left, and right.
“You didn’t sustain a head injury. I don’t think we need an MRI or CT scan.” Bobbi smiled.
Erin nodded. “Good.”
“Be back shortly to do those stitches. Don’t go anywhere.” Bobbi laid a hand on Erin’s arm, smiled again, and turned to the door.
Erin exhaled and laid back on the exam table. The touch on her arm felt good, as if the doctor cared. Well, she seemed competent enough, but Erin wasn’t sure she trusted her. Why did that doctor have to be working today?
The next thing she knew, the doctor and an assistant surrounded her, one on each side of the exam table. Dr. Webster told her to look at the assistant, a short, gray-haired nurse, with a nametag that said, “Doris.”
“Hi, Doris,” Erin said.
“Hey there.” Doris smiled widely at her. “Here ya go, Doctor.” She handed the doctor something out of Erin’s eyesight.
“The lidocaine will sting a little; make sure to keep your eyes on Doris. We’ll let you lie still a short while to make sure everything is nice and numb.”
An intense, but short, pain streaked through her forehead down her cheek. “Wow.” Erin gulped. “You weren’t kidding. That stung, definitely.” In a minute, she tongued a numb cheek.
Doris and Dr. Webster were talking in low voices at the counter, opening up a package and laying out items on a tray on wheels covered by a green cloth. Dr. Webster had already discarded her first pair of latex gloves and put on a fresh pair.
“Ready for this?” Bobbi prodded Erin’s forehead with a silver stick. “Can you feel this?”
Erin looked at her and shook her head, not quite sure she liked getting stitches. “I’ve never had stitches before.”
Bobbi looked tenderly on her. “We’ll make it as painless as possible. You won’t feel a thing.”
Doris swabbed her cut and put something on it. Dr. Webster bent over, dragged the overhead light more directly onto her face. Erin blinked several times. Doris laid green cotton cloths over Erin’s face below the cut and another one above the cut, or at least Erin imagined that’s where it was, since her eyes were now covered. Occasionally, the doctor asked Doris for an item.
Erin felt some pressure around her head, but otherwise felt nothing. After a few minutes, the doctor said, “I think that’ll do it, Doris. Will you take care of the bandage for me?”
“Sure thing.”
Erin heard the door shut, then Doris’s kind face appeared after Erin’s eyes and head were uncovered.
“You had four stitches, Ms. O’Rourke. I will get this bandaged. I don’t want you to touch it tonight. Leave the bandage on tomorrow. You can stop by on Monday so we can check it over and rebandage it then. No water near it, please, which means no shower, unless you put your head in a plastic bag.” Doris let out a quick laugh, then sobered. “Just kidding. No shower, understand?”
“Got it,” Erin said. All I need, a nurse with a weird sense o
f humor, she thought.
“Okay, we’re done. I have some instructions for you here.” She handed Erin a printed sheet on wound care. “Now we’re going to get you down to x-ray.”
Her head spun a little when she tried to sit up.
“Stay down until I get back, please.”
With that, Doris was out the door and reentered pushing a wheelchair.
“You can sit up slowly now. Don’t want you falling over.” She took Erin’s right arm and helped her off the table and into the chair.
After the x-ray, Doris wheeled Erin back into the exam room. “Dr. Webster will come in after she’s read the picture of your wrist. Just relax here on the table.”
Erin laid back, shut her eyes, and wondered what time it was. She needed to get the church ready for Sunday yet and print out her sermon. And check the stupid sidewalks again before it got much darker. Her anxiety ramped up, hoping this was about over.
Amidst her mind’s wanderings, Dr. Webster knocked and came in.
“You’ve got good bones, Ms. O’Rourke. No breaks, just a bad bruise and a minor sprain. How is your head feeling? Still no blurry vision?”
“Vision good. Head feels pretty good, although it was pounding when I got here.”
Dr. Webster took her right hand, surprising her a little. Nobody’d held her hand for a long time and Erin thought it felt really good. She felt like a basket case, if she were this hard up for physical contact.
“As I said after your exam, I don’t think you sustained a concussion. But if you get nauseous, your vision gets blurry, or you feel faint, give me a call ASAP. Got it?”
Erin nodded. The feel of the doctor’s fingers on her hand sent a wave of warmth through her. Dr. Webster patted her hand and turned to write a prescription. “You can sit up if you feel well enough.”
Erin carefully sat, dangling her legs over the edge of the table. The doctor’s short, dark blond hair, curling messily around her high cheekbones, gave her an informal look. Her eyes warmed Erin, then Erin caught herself. No, she couldn’t like Dr. Take Charge, despite her handsome self being kind to her.
Dr. Webster handed her the prescription. “This is for pain. You may also take ibuprofen with it, but not acetaminophen. We don’t want to ramp up your analgesics. This is enough to get you through a few days. If you need more, call. Also, try not to use your wrist for anything more strenuous than eating, okay? It needs time to heal. I don’t think you’ll have any problems with doing what you need to do tomorrow at church.” Dr. Webster paused and gave Erin a pointed gaze. “Do you have any questions?”
Erin was caught deep in the doctor’s gaze when she registered that the doctor had asked a question. “What? Sorry.”
“Can I do anything else for you?”
“How is Mr. Mendes?” Erin focused in on Dr. Take Charge.
The doctor raised her eyebrows. “Can’t talk with you about another patient, sorry. HIPAA rules, you know.”
Erin frowned. “Really? As a priest, I have always talked with medical staff about my parishioners’ health. I consider it part of clerical confidentiality. You know, information that’s held under the collar.” Despite her warm demeanor through the treatment this morning, was the exasperating physician going to cite her rulebook again?
“I would love to discuss confidentiality some time with you, but I have other patients to tend to right now.” Erin picked up annoyance from the doctor. “Anything else, any questions about your injuries?”
Erin, put off again by the doctor’s attitude, just shook her head and glared at her. “Thank you.”
“See you in two weeks to take out those stitches.” The doctor was out the door like an L train in the Loop. Just when you thought you had one, it was gone.
Chapter Six
Erin made her way home during a setting sun and collapsed on her sofa. As the numbing wore off, her cut started to throb, so she took one of the pain pills Dr. Webster had prescribed, having filled the prescription on the way home. She heated up canned tomato soup, cut up Colby cheese, and picked out five wheat crackers from the pantry, then took it all into the living room on a tray. She still had to go over to the church next door to finish getting things ready for Sunday. She moaned aloud, refusing to swear again.
The hot soup and drugs put her in a sleepy, warm place. She pulled up the afghan slung over the back of the sofa and covered herself, while she watched an old Katherine Hepburn movie on the classic movie channel. She got through the first hour, fighting sleep. She closed her eyes for just a minute and immediately dropped off.
Erin woke to a throbbing in her wrist, the sun sending striped rays through her blinds onto the hardwood floor. Her whole body felt stiff from the uncomfortable couch.
Her heart lurched when she realized it was Sunday morning. She threw the afghan on the floor and hurried into the kitchen. It was only 6:22, but she had to run over to church to set up for Holy Communion, print out her sermon, put salt on the sidewalks, and Lord knew what else she would find.
She shook the fuzzy feeling from her head, grabbed the ibuprofen from the kitchen cabinet, and sloshed it down with half a glass of water. She looked down at her outfit and decided it would do to check the church.
Breathing heavily from anxiety and jogging from the vicarage, when she got into the church, she turned up the thermostat to get the heat started. It immediately clanked through the ancient radiators. She turned on lights all down the hall, opened the sacristy door, and quickly got out the items to set up for communion. Going over the order of Holy Communion in her mind, she grabbed things from cupboards. She took the silver chalice and other items out of a locked cabinet, then carried them into the back of the church to a table next to the altar, panting lightly all the while.
After setting up the rest of the altar cloths and getting her vestments laid out, she scurried into her office to print out her sermon. Finally, with those tasks completed, she felt she could now salt the sidewalks on the way to home next door. Thankfully, no one had taken off with the bag of salt where it still lay on the sidewalk. She sprinkled all the pavement on both sides of the church, then, one-handed, lugged the heavy bag back to the side door, which she locked after herself.
By the time she arrived home at seven-thirty, her heart beat loudly with the subsiding panicky feelings. Coffee would help center her. After she got it started, she ran upstairs to have a shower. Just as she reached the bedroom, she cursed under her breath when she remembered she couldn’t take one. Blowing out her cheeks in frustration, she instead cleaned up the best she could, got her clerical clothes on, and made it back to church by nine.
This hurry and chaos on Sunday morning made her crazy. Definitely not her style. Things ready by Saturday afternoon was her style, so she could spend Sunday morning in more silence and centeredness. She regretted falling asleep in front of the TV last night, but yesterday had worn her out.
A certain doctor had also populated her thoughts since the clinic encounter. She couldn’t decide whether Dr. Webster was a jerk or not. Her bedside manner had been warm and attentive. She certainly wasn’t hard on the eyes, either. Large hazel eyes and short, dark blond curls, a winning combination in Erin’s mind, especially with a body that Erin was sure saw plenty of exercise.
But Dr. Webster’s need to put rules over patients annoyed Erin no end. Didn’t they teach anything but procedures and treatment in medical school? Her mom, a nurse, used to complain about certain doctors she worked with who only wanted to do their specialty procedures and had little time for conversation with patients. Did Dr. Webster always toe the line instead of listening to patients?
Erin prided herself on being a people person, not a rule person. She studied psychology at Northwestern, then did a master’s degree in pastoral care at Loyola of Chicago. While at Loyola, she was shocked when she felt she was being called to the priesthood. By the time she had jumped through all the hoops—committees, meetings with the bishop, and theological schooling—she was thirty years old. That
was five years ago.
Here at Holy Spirit, Erin met her goal to be in charge of a parish, where she chose the weekly hymns and music and the liturgical prayers. But she really was drawn to the pastoral aspects of the priesthood. She gave succor to those in need, and especially liked visiting the shut-ins at home, the nursing home, and the hospital. Her mind and heart went to pastoral concerns automatically, to helping folks deal with the spiritual side of illness. She thrived on helping people with questions about God’s presence or absence in pain and suffering, about whether God cared. Her job, as she saw it, was to represent God’s care in her healing presence with them.
But this morning, Erin did the other, more routine, rote administrative priestly work. However out of kilter she felt, she trudged single-mindedly through the bitter cold over to church an hour before the service started, to set out the bulletins, turn on the lights in the nave, unlock the front doors, and pick up random items left around from the week.
These tasks often pulled her down. Last week, she’d had to call a plumber when she found a plugged-up toilet in the men’s room downstairs. This week it was the ice on the sidewalk, and, earlier in the week, a downspout that had blown off in the high wind of a winter storm. Winter in old buildings like Holy Spirit’s wreaked havoc with her need for tidy schedules and routine. On top of all this, the congregation’s attendance would probably be minimal because of the bitter cold.
Even with all the uninteresting priestly duties that piled up this morning, Erin gave a prayer of thanks when she put on her stole after the duties had been discharged. While sometimes the nitpicking problems of being a vicar buried her, she never lost hope or faith that her priestly vocation was God’s way of allowing her to reach people in need.
Bobbi and Soul Page 4