Her cap was lying somewhere in the room. She wanted to look for it, but Nurse Peters ran a hand through her hair, pulling it together so it would not get dirty.
"Sweety, do you feel better?"
She shook her head and felt as if her brain was also moving inside her skull. Sometimes in her life she had been sick, but never in this magnitude. She wanted to cry and the tears started before she found the strength to stop them.
"Oh no, don't cry, in a few days you'll be better. It is the body's reaction to treatment, the medications are very aggressive."
She wanted to tell the nurse that she did not need to lie. No one could know when she would recover, or even if she would ever do so.
Helping the nun to get into bed, the nurse covered her with as much blanket as she found, but Bernadette felt that she was dying of cold.
"You feel that way because everything you've eaten has gone down the toilet. I'll bring you a light tea, it will help you to warm up and it will calm your rebellious stomach."
The nurse left, and she closed her eyes in an attempt to pray and calm her pains. She felt a terrible battle inside her body, she could tell that the disease was clinging to her, tearing her apart in its fight against medication.
And she had only been in treatment for two days.
She extended her hand, or so she tried, to reach her Bible. The minimal effort exhausted her in such a way that she wanted to cry again. It was only two days, but she had hardly been able to eat, sleep, or pray. At night the pain seemed to ease with the painkillers, but the nightmares tormented her. They were nightmares where she was an ill little girl again without her mother, or where her beloved sisters suffered something catastrophic, or worse, where he died.
Remembering that he could die made a knot in her stomach, and squeezed her eyelids. Then she opened them, looking for the nurse. She should ask her how he was, if he was better than her with this treatment. She begged God for him and was surprised because for the first time in those two days, she had been able to pray.
"But I could only pray for him." She told herself. What would she do with him? What would she do with this she was feeling, stronger than all her physical pains together? What would she do with that terrible uneasiness of not knowing which way to go?
"Here is your tea." She heard the nurse's sweet voice, which helped her to sit down. "Do you want your cap?"
She nodded several times, unable to find a voice in her dry throat. She looked at the teacup, which promised to take away the feeling of sand.
The nurse came over with the cap.
"Are you really going to hide your hair with this? It's a shame, it's so beautiful!"
The nurse did not put the cap on her as she should, but at least she did not feel unprotected. It was strange, she wanted to walk around the world with her hair free, and at the same time, she was ashamed that anyone saw her.
When she could swallow two tablespoons of tea, she finally looked up to ask.
"How is Dr. Turner?"
"I don't know, I don't work in the men's area, but I can find out. I suppose he will be like you. Oh no, I didn't mean that, sorry."
But the tears had started again. The nurse wrapped her in a blanket.
"You finish your tea, and I'll go straight to find news and I'll bring it to you. But now be a good girl and take all this cup."
This looked like a hotel. He could ask for breakfast in bed, or go for a walk in the beautiful park, or do nothing but look out the window. However, it stank of hospital smell. He should be used to that smell, but he still felt it in everything, in the bed, in the food, in the curtains...The air was impregnated with illness and this time he was not a spectator but a protagonist.
He looked at the medicines he was supposed to take this morning. They were many, and the pills of the night before had given him a terrible nightmare attack that he could control with the effort he had learned over the years. Just by remembering it, his hands started to sweat and he tried to concentrate on something else, like Tim's drawing or what his son would be doing at that moment in school.
But the smell, the damn smell, seemed stronger and stronger, and it no longer reminded him of the hospitals he visited as a doctor, but another. He swallowed the pills in one swipe and opened the window. The park also reminded him of another park. Northfield had been a good place, he did not complain. But he would have preferred never to go through the circumstances that led him there.
He took a deep breath, released it slowly. Something inside him seemed to crack. Before he felt it many times but he thought it would only be tired, now he knew it was the disease. He shook his head, he should not get carried away by these thoughts, he could not fall into that again.
He looked at the park, hoping to see her. In the two days, he had looked a lot, he thought that she would like gardens like this so he hoped to find her, but he never saw her. He wondered if she was feeling bad about the treatment, but discarded the idea. He felt just a little tired, and while she seemed frail, in reality she was strong, maybe stronger than him. In fact he had never seen her sick, only once with a mild cold. He smiled when he remembered that time. She had a red nose and looked cute. Now he knew that maybe it was not just that, that maybe he had begun to love her on the day of her cold.
"No, it was not that day." He said smiling.
It was incredible, but thinking about her could distress him or fill him with peace in equal parts. In that moment, peace invaded him when he remembered one night with a long delivery and the two of them. The baby did not have much enthusiasm to see the world and little by little it was dawning. In a quiet moment, while the mother was gathering strength and he was taking her pressure, Sister Bernadette took her Bible out of her bag and sat on the side of the room next to the fireplace. She opened the Bible on her lap and began to move the lips, praying, although the words were not audible. That dawn, he knew that she was beautiful. The light of the fire illuminated her face focused on praising her god, the fine fingers flipped the pages of the book gently, and for a moment, Patrick thought he was facing an angel and that heaven existed.
He smiled at the memory. Yes, it was that day, the day he noticed her and could not think of anything else.
Suddenly, all peace was erased and he complained of pain. He began to feel bad, to sweat and to lack air.
"Good news! The doctor is very well."
She wanted to hide a sigh of relief, without success.
"Thank you, nurse." She smiled.
"You know, some feel better than others. Correspondence has arrived, do you want me to read it to you?"
She shook her head, extending her hand and sitting up on the bed. A pain like lightning pierced through her.
"You are not well yet, you must rest." The nurse wrapped her again in blankets. "What do you want me to read first? Here is one that says Julienne, another Beatrix Franklin, and another of...Timothy Turner? Is he family of the doctor?"
"Yes, his son, I want that first of all." She said with too much vehemence. The nurse raised an eyebrow, looking at her.
"I think you're full of mysteries, don't you?. Especially in regards to that doctor. Last night you slept and called for a doctor, I got scared thinking you felt bad, but then you said his last name."
The nurse fell silent to see that there was no blush or embarrassed smile on the face of the nun, but a cold and hard look.
"Sorry, I think I should not have said all that."
"No."
The nurse cleared her throat, nervous.
"I'll read Timothy's. Oh look, it's a drawing!" She showed her a sheet of paper full of colors that formed butterflies. "And here behind he says that he misses you very much and that Poplar is a sad place without you. A child poet, huh? I wonder where he got it from."
The nurse's mischievous look managed to undermine her hardness, so she smiled.
"Timothy is a child charm, and he has suffered a lot. Can you...put his drawing here on my bedside table? I want to see it always."
The woman placed the drawing resting on a vase. Then she went on to read the letters of Trixie and Sister Julienne. They were more or less the same, things she was missing, desires for recovery, two of her patients who had given birth.
At night, the pains disappeared magically, so the dinner was her success to achieve eating and retain a little broth. Nurse Peters even praised the color of her cheeks and before sleeping she could say a small prayer before falling exhausted. Just moments before, she had hoped for a good, restful night of sleep, but she was asking too many miracles for a couple of hours.
She dreamed herself in Poplar, in one of its busiest streets, but alone, rejected by all, isolated completely. She had made a decision but could not figure out which, and that decision made everyone hate her. She cried on the ground, it rained on her, and when she awoke, sweating and looking for air, she could still feel the terrible anguish in her chest, the anguish of being alone, completely alone in the world.
"At last you woke up."
She gave a little cry and the light appeared. Nurse Peters handed her glasses, standing next to the bed.
"I was trying to wake you up but it seems you were very happy in your dream."
"Nothing further from that." Her voice hurt her dry mouth. The nurse handed her a glass of water that she devoured.
"Sister, I came because we have a problem in the men's area."
She was used to emergencies so despite her weakness, her nurse side came to the surface. She sat down and dressed in her robe."
"It's about the doctor who came with you."
"What happens to him?" She said desperately, she still had the knot of anguish in her chest from her nightmare and she was not sure if she was still dreaming or not.
"It seems that something happens to him, they can't calm him down, and as you know him I thought..."
She did not wait to know more, she was already walking through the corridors, the nurse said something to her, but she paid no attention to anything, not even to the nausea that threatened to rise in her mouth. Another nurse joined them, guiding them through the dimly lit corridors of the men's area. At last they arrived, and what she saw broke her heart in two.
Dr. Turner was in his bed and in his room, curled up and crying disconsolately and complaining of pain.
"He started this morning." The nurse explained. "I know it's the treatment but now he started saying things about the war or something like that, he doesn't stop raving."
Yes, she supposed he was in the war. All the men she knew had been there, and several times she witnessed similar attacks, but this was more serious. He looked like a wounded animal, desperate. Looking at him, she saw herself in the nightmare she had just had, with that cry born of the most extreme loneliness.
She walked over to the bed, leaned over, and took his hand. It was sweaty and icy, but pressed to her with a deadly grip.
"It's me." She whispered. But it did not work. He released her hand, turned and continued saying incomprehensible words. He was drenched in sweat and even blood came out of his nose.
"Dr. Turner, it's me, Sister Bernadette. You need to calm down." She extended her hand to brush his hair back from his forehead, repeating that she was doing it because he was her patient, and not something else.
"I think if you call him by his name it will be better." Said the nurse.
"I don't know what his name is, I work with him but I don't know it."
"It's Patrick."
Patrick. It suited him, and it was a beautiful name. It meant nobility, what he had in quantity. And he was called as Saint Patrick. According to the legend she heard as a child, he had a woman, who was called...She shook her head, pushing the silly thought away. She should take care of her patient.
She leaned closer so she could speak into his ear.
"Patrick." She whispered. "You must calm down, we are not in war now. You are in the sanatorium and you are going to recover soon."
But nothing happened. She heard that the nurses were going to call the doctor in charge, that if he had a war neurosis, he should not be there. She stopped listening to try again, and this time she knelt on the floor, and touched his forehead burning with fever.
"Patrick."
She felt a change in him, the sobs stopped, and he opened his eyes. He turned to look at her and she could not help but smile with relief.
"You are blonde."
She did not expect him to say something like that. He reached out his hand and touched something: strands of her hair had escaped from her cap. She instinctively pulled away, and tucked them under the cap with fingers trembling with nerves. She took a breath to look back into his eyes and met a look of disappointment that she could not face. She turned to the nurses.
"It's not necessary to call the doctor, it's okay. I'll take care of him."
"Are you sure?" Nurse Peters was confused. "I'll be outside waiting, honey. Remember that you are not very well either."
"I agree. I'll leave but before I'll calm him down."
The women left, closing the door and she looked at him again. He seemed calmer.
"What happened?"
"Doctor, you had a kind of attack. Were you in the war?"
"Oh, yes." He answered without caring.
"Well, I'm glad you're better, doctor." She tried to smile, although what she had just seen still hurt.
"Wait, don't go." He took her hand tightly. "I need to tell you something."
"Doctor, not now, I must rest." She did not know if the doctor, Patrick, was better or continued with his delirium. What she did know was that she should leave him as soon as possible.
"It's about Timothy." Suddenly all her attention was with him. "Sister, he loves you. We all do it. And you're young, and you're going to recover and you're going to get out of here. I still don't know if I will achieve it."
"Doctor, what are you saying?"
"I'm not young like you, I'm older, and it costs more. Please, if something happens to me, take care of Tim. I don't want you to adopt him, of course, but at least guide him. Now he is just a naughty boy but when he grows up...see that he has no bad friends, and that he studies and is honest. Nothing else. Can you promise me that?"
"I don't know why you say all this, you can take care of him because you will recover and..."
"Can you promise me that?"
She smiled. His eyes were still filled with anguish, but there was a glimmer of hope. She leaned closer to him and whispered to him.
"I promise. Now sleep."
But he did not let go of her hand. She tried, but he was already asleep, exhausted by what had just happened. His grip was not strong, but his hand, once freezing, was now warm and she could not let go. So she continued there, on her knees, as if praying to him, and switched off the light with her other hand. He became uneasy, said something between dreams and she feared that everything would start again, so she caressed his forehead.
"He will cover you with his pinions,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
You will not fear the terror of the night,
nor the arrow that flies by day."
She missed singing the psalms a lot, she did not have anyone to do it with, but she sang to him, watching him relax and go into a deep sleep, until she too fell asleep, taken from his hand.
She woke up with a start. Her eyes were almost next to his, her head resting on the mattress. His hand still held hers, but the rest of her body was frozen, on the floor, without any shelter. A cough came to her to inform her that this had been one of her worst ideas. This cooling could only bring bad health consequences. However, that was not what worried her. She had been here, alone with him, who knows how long. The excuse that he was her patient was weak and ridiculous.
She sat up straight away, her legs cramping. She covered him with a blanket and left.
Nurse Peters was sitting in the hallway, half asleep against the wall.
"There you are, honey. You didn't take long."
She shrugged, had no idea about the hour, and whether she had been there for a long time or not.
When she entered her bed, which was also frozen, and the nurse turned off the light and wished her good night, she knew that she could not sleep. This time there would be neither pains nor nightmares. Not even what she had just witnessed. She could not sleep because for the first time, she had awakened next to a man, next to him.
She wanted to smile, but bewilderment seized her mind. What was she going to do with everything she was feeling for him?