The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [1]
The girl seated to one side of the brass bed tightened her grip, but turned her head away as a tear broke free and glided over her cheek. She wore a heavy, navy blue coat and winter boots that dripped melting snow into a small pool on the linoleum floor.
Five motionless minutes passed; the only sounds came from other patients in other rooms. Finally, the girl slipped off her coat, moved her chair close to the head of the bed, and spoke again. “Mama, can you hear me? Does it still hurt as much? Mama, please. Tell me what I can do to help?”
Another minute passed before the woman answered. Her voice, though soft and hoarse, filled the room. “Kill me! For God’s sake, please kill me.”
“Mama, stop that. You don’t know what you’re saying. I’ll get the nurse. She’ll give you something.”
“No, baby. It doesn’t help. Nothing has helped the pain for days. You can help me. You must help me.”
The girl, more confused and frightened than at any time in her fifteen years, looked up at the bottle draining clear fluid into her mother’s arm. She rose and made several tentative steps toward the door before the older woman’s renewed pleas stopped her short.
Haltingly, she returned to the bedside, stopping a few feet away. An agonized cry came from a room somewhere down the hall. Then another. The girl closed her eyes and clenched her teeth against the hatred she felt for the place.
“Please come over here and help me,” her mother begged. “Help me end this pain. Only you can do it. The pillow, baby. Just set it down over my face and lean on it as hard as you can. It won’t take long.”
“Mama, I …”
“Please! I love you. If you love me, too, you won’t let me hurt so anymore. They all say it’s hopeless … don’t let your mama hurt so anymore …”
“I … I love you, Mama. I love you.”
The girl continued to whisper the words as she gently lifted her mother’s head and removed the thin, firm pillow.
“I love you, Mama …” she said again and again as she placed the pillow over the narrow face and leaned on it with all the strength she could manage. She forced her mind back to the warm and happy times—long spring walks, baking lessons, steamy mugs of hot chocolate on snowy afternoons.
Her body was thin and light, with only hints at the fullness of a woman. Struggling for leverage, she grasped the pillow case and drew her knees up. With each passing scene she pressed herself more firmly against the pillow. Bumpy rides to the lake, picnics on the water’s edge, races to the raft.…
The movement beneath the sheet lessened then stopped.
Her sobs mixing with the rattle of sleet against the window, the girl lay there, unaware of the fragment of pillow case which had ripped free and was now clutched in her hand.
After nearly half an hour, she rose, replaced the pillow, and kissed her dead mother’s lips. Then she turned and walked resolutely down the hall, out of the hospital, into the raw winter evening.
The day was February seventeenth. The year, 1932.
CHAPTER I
BOSTON
OCTOBER 1
Morning sun splashed into the room moments before the first notes came from the clock radio. David Shelton, eyes still closed, listened for a few seconds before silently guessing Vivaldi, The Four Seasons, probably the Summer concerto. It was a game he had played nearly every morning for years. Still, the occasions on which he identified a piece correctly were rare enough to warrant a small celebration.
A soothing male voice, chosen by the station to blend with the dawn, identified the music as a Haydn symphony. David smiled to himself. You’re getting sharper. The right continent—even the right century.
He turned his head toward the window and opened his eyes a slit, preparing for the next guessing game in his morning ritual. Hazy rainbows of sunlight filtered through his lashes. “No contest,” he said, squinting to make the colors flicker.
“What did you say?” the woman next to him mumbled sleepily, drawing