The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [31]
Christine glanced at her watch impatiently. They had only five minutes before report. “Oh, it was nothing, really. Just that the flowers in the last vase were lilies, and the card attached to them said something like ‘Best Wishes from Lily,’ that’s all.”
“Oh,” Janet said with a flatness not mirrored in her eyes. She scratched absently at the scar beside her nose, then suddenly changed the subject. “Are you thinking about submitting this Thomas’s wife to the Screening Committee?”
“I’ve already done it.” Christine felt off balance.
“And?”
“And nothing, Janet. I haven’t heard yet whether she’s been approved. You see, Charlotte and I have grown very very close to one another—”
“Well, I say, ‘Bravo for you,’ ” Janet broke in.
“What?”
“I hope she’s approved.”
“Janet, you don’t even know the woman … or the situation. How can you possibly say …”
“I may not know her, but I know Huttner. Of all the pompous, conceited, self-righteous bastards who ever hid behind a goddamn M.D., Huttner is the worst.”
Janet’s outburst was totally unexpected. For a time Christine was speechless. Certainly it was the overzealous, at times ego-based aggressiveness of physicians that had spawned The Sisterhood, but to Christine it had always been a conflict of philosophies, not personalities. “Wh … what has Huttner’s conceit got to do with Charlotte?” She felt confused and strangely apprehensive.
Janet calmed her with a wide smile. “Whoa, slow down,” she said, patting her on the knee. “I’m on your side. Remember?” Christine nodded, but uncertainty remained. “I believe in The Sisterhood and what we’re doing the same way you do. Why else would I have recruited you? All I was trying to say is that in cases like this Mrs. Thomas we get a … double benefit. We get to honor the wishes of the woman and her husband by reestablishing some dignity in her life, and at the same time we get to remind a person like Huttner that he’s not God. Yes?”
Christine evaluated the notion, then relaxed and returned the smile. “Yes, I … guess we do.” She rose to leave.
“If support is what you need,” Janet said, “you’ve got mine. I think you did the right thing in presenting this woman, and now it’s up to the Screening Committee to do its part.”
Christine nodded her acknowledgment.
Janet continued as she reached the door. “You know, Christine,” she said, pausing to study the younger woman’s face, “it’s quite all right to benefit from doing something you believe in. The goodness of any work isn’t diminished by the fact that you might, in some way, profit from it. Do you understand?”
“I … I think so,” Christine lied. “Thanks for talking with me. I’ll let you know what the Committee decides.”
“Do that, please. And Chris? I’m here if you need me.”
Still uneasy, Christine hurried to the nurses’ lounge. She paused outside the door, trying to compose herself. Janet’s explosion on the subject of Wallace Huttner had been startling, but it wasn’t as disturbing as it had at first seemed. Janet had been part of The Sisterhood for years; surely she had handled a number of cases. Proposing and carrying out a death, even a euthanasia death, was an emotionally charged, gut-wrenching business. Over the years the necessity of facing the same decisions again and again was bound to take its toll in some way. In Janet’s case, Christine decided, it was a bitterness toward those who made such awesome choices necessary.
She glanced down the hall in time to see Janet step into the elevator. The woman was an excellent supervisor and, even more important, a nurse dedicated to the truest ideals of the profession. In the moment before she entered the nurses’ lounge, Christine felt a resurgence of pride at the secrets she shared with her “sister.”
CHAPTER VI
Carl Perry steeled himself against the pain he knew would knife through his throat, then, as gingerly as possible, swallowed. Pain, almost any pain, was better than the goddamn drooling he had been doing since the