The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [421]
“Oh, Doctor, I know it. I know it. He’s going to die. I was told it last night in a vision.”
“Now, Mary,” Dr. O’Donnell said gently, patting Mrs. Lonigan’s shoulders, “you must wait and be prepared. There is no use jumping to conclusions.”
“Doctor, I’m his mother. Tell me the truth.”
“There’s a great deal of congestion, and naturally the pneumonia infection has sapped his strength. The pulse is bad, and the heart action is unsatisfactory. The greatest danger in a case like this is heart failure with complications, so I’m leaving a prescription to be filled.”
“I knew it, Doctor. Oh, my son, my son,” Mrs. Lonigan said, looking confused while Or. O’Donnell wrote out and handed her a prescription blank.
“Now, Mary, you must bear up. It’s not lost yet,” Dr. O’Donnell said, patting her shoulders.
“Doctor, isn’t there anything else we can do?”
“Well, I could put him in an oxygen tent which would make his breathing easier and help clear up the blueness of his lips and face. But that would be very expensive. If you can afford it, it would be good.”
“I’ll talk to Patrick, and he will telephone you. Patrick has just taken a bad blow, you know, Doctor, the day my son came home to me sick, and cried like a little boy, `Mom, put me to bed,’ that very day Patrick’s bank closed and he’s lost a lot of money, the money he had for the next mortgage payment on our building. Oh, Doctor, it’s hard times indeed. That such misfortunes should be visited upon us in our last years!”
“It’s sometimes for the best, Mary, so you must buck up! Tell Paddy to telephone me at six o’clock and we’ll talk about that oxygen tent.”
“Doctor, I have called the priest.”
“That was wise, Mary. In cases like these, it is best not to wait too long, particularly since you know the patient’s heart is weak and his illness is putting a severe strain upon it. Yes, that was wise, and it might be helpful. The hand of God in a case like this is likely to be of more help than us doctors.”
“Yes, Doctor,” she said, sighing, then facing him speechless.
“The nurse will keep me informed by telephone of Bill’s condition, and you’ll have Paddy telephone me at six so I can talk to him about an oxygen tent. Now, Mary, you’re a brave mother, and I can vouch for it because I tended you when you brought your children into the world. I know you are going to keep up your spirits. You look tired yourself, and I’d advise you to take a rest.”
“Oh, Doctor, I can’t. I can’t!”
“Mary, don’t say you can’t. You just go lie down and take a rest.”
The doctor returned to the sick room, spoke to the nurse, and took his hat from the hall tree.
“Now, Mary, don’t forget. No worrying from you,” he said.
Puffing, he walked downstairs.
V
“Is Bill any better?” Catherine anxiously asked as Mrs. Lonigan admitted her.
“I called the priest. He’s in a bad way. A bad way, I fear,” Mrs. Lonigan said mournfully, looking at the girl as if to drive and wedge into her a sense of guilt because of Studs’ illness.
“Can I see him?” Catherine asked with deference, removing her hat.
“I don’t know. The doctor said there must be complete quiet in the sick room, and he must have absolute rest, and only his mother should see him besides the nurse.”
Catherine was so hurt that she could have cried. She had a flashing impulse of anger. But seeing, as if on second sight, this haggard and tired mother with eyes raw from tears, a natural womanly sympathy stirred her.
They moved to the parlor, and sat down, silent. The girl was suddenly struck with envy, because she thought that now she would never be able to bear the same name as this woman, Mrs. Lonigan. She felt, too, that even though she had hardly begun to swell, Mrs. Lonigan would sense her condition, because women who have been mothers seemed always to notice so much more readily than others.
“You say William is not better, Mrs. Lonigan?”
“He’s a very sick boy, and I don’t think he’ll be able to pull through,” Mrs. Lonigan said challengingly.
“Won’t I be able to see him?” Catherine asked, a beseeching expression on her face.
“Well, the doctor