Page 171 of Beautiful Obsessions
“Close the shutters,” she said.
One of the younger sisters obeyed immediately.
Wooden shutters slammed into place over the windows.
Sister Joanne began working.
“Blankets.Warm water.Scissors.I need light.”
The sisters moved quickly.
I stepped back to give them space as Sister Joanne took a pair of scissors to the woman’s torn dress.The blades slid through the ruined fabric in neat, efficient cuts.
I looked away.
Then I took another step back.Then another, until the door was at my shoulder and the cold iron handle pressed into my palm.
There were things a priest could not allow himself to witness.
There were things a man had no right to see.
So I turned my face to the corridor and let the sisters do what mercy required.
Sister Joanne finished wrappingthe woman’s wrists and pulled the blanket higher.
“She needs rest,” she said.“If she vomits, wakes confused, or loses consciousness again after waking, we will have to risk a doctor.I can do much, but I cannot perform miracles.”
“That is his department,” Sister Marina said, nodding toward the crucifix.
Sister Joanne snorted.“He has been selective lately.”
The woman stirred.
All of us went still.
Her fingers twitched against the blanket.Her lips parted.A rough breath slipped out, thin and broken.Then nothing.
Sister Joanne checked her pulse again.
“She is exhausted.Let her sleep.”
I nodded.There was nothing more I could do here.That should have relieved me.Instead, it left me standing in a room with blood on my cassock and an unfamiliar pressure behind my sternum.
“I should return to the church,” I said.
Sister Marina’s head snapped toward me.
“No.”
I looked at her.“Sister?—”
“No,” she repeated.
“She is safe here.”
The old woman stared at me as though I had said something embarrassingly stupid.
“Safe?”she asked.
