Daddy's Gone a Hunting

46

At 10:30 P.M. on Monday, Kate’s fever shot up alarmingly to 104 degrees. Dr. Patel stayed through the night in the hospital. The nurse told Hannah that he was catching some sleep in a room down the hall but could be back in an instant. Beyond tears and beyond ability to think coherently, Hannah sat in numbed silence in the ICU cubicle beside Kate. Sometimes Kate restlessly stirred, setting off an alarm and causing the nurse to rush in to be sure that she did not pull out any of the tubes that were dripping medications into her arms.

By seven o’clock the next morning, Kate’s fever broke. With a broad smile, the nurse asked Hannah to go into the waiting room while they changed Kate’s gown and the sheets, which were now drenched with perspiration.

When Hannah, weak with relief, entered the waiting room, she found a priest waiting to speak to her. He stood up and greeted her warmly. He was a tall, thin man who appeared to be in his early sixties, with hazel eyes that crinkled as he greeted her. When he took her hand, his grip was firm and reassuring. “Hello, Hannah. I’m Father Dan Martin. The doctor just stopped by,” he said. “So I know Kate is doing better. You have no reason to remember me, but when you were young, your family were parishioners at St. Ignatius Loyola.”

“Yes, we were,” Hannah agreed, thinking with guilt that since Kate had gotten her apartment on the West Side and she herself had moved to the Village, neither one of them had been much for going to church except at the major holidays.

“I wasn’t at St. Ignatius in those years,” he said, “but I was on the altar at the funeral mass for your mother and uncle. I was just ordained then and since the accident I’ve thought so often of your family. You were just a baby but your sister was there. She was only three years old and holding your father’s hand. I’ve attended many sad funerals but that one has always stood out in my mind. I’ve been praying for Kate since the accident and I just wanted to stop in and see if you wanted me to visit her.”

For a moment he paused, then added, “Kate was such a beautiful little girl with that long blond hair and those exquisite blue eyes. The two caskets were in the aisle and she kept trying to pull the cloth covering off the first one as though she knew that was where her mother’s body was resting.”

“There were a lot of reporters outside the church and at the grave,” Hannah said. “I’ve seen the television clips. It was such a horrible accident. The other two couples who died were well-known in the financial markets.”

Father Martin nodded. “I made it my business to call on your father afterward and we became a bit friendly. He was in a terrible state over losing your mother and, of course, his brother and friends as well. The poor man couldn’t stop crying. He was absolutely distraught. He told me that if it weren’t for his little girls, he’d give anything to have died in the accident, too.”

He certainly got over that, Hannah thought, and then she was ashamed of herself. “I know how much he loved my mother,” she said. “When I was about thirteen, I asked him why he hadn’t remarried. He told me that Robert Browning was asked the same question after Elizabeth Barrett Browning died. His answer was that it would be an insult to her memory to marry again.”

“A few months after the funeral, I was assigned to Rome to attend the Gregorian College, and I lost touch with your father. I’d like to give him a call now. Would you mind giving me his number?”

“Of course.” She recited Doug’s cell and home numbers and, for a moment, almost added the business number of the complex but stopped herself. Father Martin jotted them down.

Hannah hesitated, then said, “After twelve years as a student at Sacred Heart Academy, it would seem as though I should have called to have Kate receive the Sacrament of the Sick.”

“I am prepared to offer that now,” Father Martin said quietly. “So often, even to this day, people are afraid that to receive it is a sure sign that someone is about to die, which simply isn’t the case. It is also a prayer that the patient will return to health.”

When the nurse came back to invite them back to Kate’s bedside, they found her lying quietly, now seemingly in a deep, restful sleep.

“She’s under heavy sedation but sometimes she’ll say something,” Hannah whispered. “The doctor said that whatever she says is probably meaningless.”

“I have seen many instances where the person who appears to be in a coma actually is aware of almost everything that is going on around them,” Father Martin said, as he opened the black leather case that he had carried with him into the room.

Father Martin took out his folded stole from the case, kissed it, and placed it around his neck. Then he opened a small jar of sacred oil. “This is pure olive oil blessed by the bishop,” he told Hannah. “Olive oil was specially chosen by the Church because of the healing and strengthening effects that are its characteristics in everyday life.”

Hannah watched as he dipped his finger in the oil and then made the sign of the Cross on Kate’s forehead and hands. Healing and strengthening, she thought as she listened to the words of the prayers Father Martin was offering over Kate. A sense of peace came over her and for the first time she began to believe that Kate might recover fully and be able to explain why she was in the complex with Gus that night.

Maybe I’m being too hard on Dad, she thought. From the beginning he’s been afraid that Kate set that fire. Maybe it isn’t just the insurance he’s worried about. Maybe he’s frantic at the thought that if Kate gets better and is found guilty of setting the fire, she faces many years in prison. Maybe I should give him a break.

When she and Father Martin left Kate a few minutes later, she stopped at the desk of the intensive care unit. The nurse, who by now was on a first-name basis with her, said, “Hannah, tell me you’re going home.”

“Yes, I am,” Hannah said. “To shower and change. The fashion business is fast-moving, and so I can’t stay away from the office for too long. But looking at Kate now, I’m not afraid to leave her.”

Father Martin waited while she retrieved her suitcase and coat from the closet and they left the hospital together. At the door, she said, “I’m going to be honest. I haven’t been very nice to my father since all this happened. It’s a long story but you’ve given me some things to think about and I do hope you get together with him soon. It will make all the difference to him, I know.”