The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [64]
“Welcome,” Barbara said warmly. “Nothing like being twenty minutes late for your own party.”
“Not ours, Barb,” Dalrymple said. “Peggy’s. She’ll be here soon. Wants you to go ahead with whatever business you have.”
“Very well.” Barbara glanced at her agenda. “Meeting’s in order. First, we’ve gotten progress reports from our rural health centers. Patient visits are up almost one hundred percent in both the Kentucky and West Virginia clinics. The nurses administering them assure us that within the year both places will be flying on their own.” The directors applauded the news, and the two seated closest to Tania Worth of Cincinnati patted her on the back. The centers had been her brainchild and had been approved largely because of her commitment to them. Tania beamed.
Discussion moved quickly through other projects: daycare centers for children of actively working nurses, modern equipment for underfinanced hospitals, scholarships for work toward advanced degrees in nursing, efforts to upgrade the function and image of hospital nurses. Susan Berger gave a brief report on efforts around the country to establish living wills, giving each person the right, ahead of time, to limit the life-preserving measures employed on him. To date the efforts, conceived long ago by Peggy Donner, had met with little success.
“Last but not least,” Barbara said, “we’ve gotten a letter from Karen. Some of you never met her, but she was on the board for several years before her husband received an appointment to the American Embassy in Paris. She sends love and hopes that we’re all well. In less than two years she’s made it all the way up to assistant director of nursing at her hospital.” Several of the older women applauded the news. Barbara smiled. “It seems,” she went on, “that Karen has located five Sisterhood members from a list I sent her of those who have moved to Europe. She says they are close to organizing a screening committee, but can’t agree on whether the European branch should name itself in English, French, Dutch, or German.”
“Perhaps we should find out what Sisterhood of Life would be in Esperanto,” one woman offered.
The directors were laughing at her suggestion when Peggy Donner entered. Instantly the room quieted.
In the silence Peggy made deliberate, individual eye contact with each woman. Almost grudgingly, it seemed, the gravity in her expression yielded to pride. These were the most beloved of her several thousand children.
“Seeing you all once again lifts my spirit as nothing else ever could. I’m sorry to be late.” She moved toward the head of the table, but stopped by the huge spray of dahlias. Her lips bowed in an enigmatic smile. Then she lifted a pure, regal white blossom and cradled it pensively in her hands. Finally, with a glance at Barbara, who confirmed that it was time, Peggy took over the meeting.
“It has been nearly forty years—forty years—since four other nurses and I formed the secret society that was to grow into our Sisterhood.” Her voice was hypnotic. “Recently one of those four nurses, Charlotte Thomas, died at Boston Doctors Hospital. She was Charlotte Winthrop when we first met—only a senior nursing student—but so vital, so very special. She remained active in our movement for only a decade or so, but during that time she was responsible, as much as anyone, for our remarkable growth.
“She had a terminal illness, complicated by a cavernous bedsore, and expressed to me her desperate desire for the freedom of death. She expressed that wish to her physician as well, but as too often happens in his profession, he turned a deaf ear and was using the most aggressive methods to prolong her hopeless agony.
“Several days ago, I called an exceptional young nurse in our Sisterhood, Christine Beall,