Chicago General Hospital, April 11, 2009

Previously…

Jack rested his forehead in his hand as he recalled the dreadful details of the day of Charlie's funeral. A few days after that event, he had stepped through an event horizon, expecting never to return alive…

He was pulled abruptly from his thoughts by the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. Looking up, he saw Dylan's son, Robert, hurrying toward them. Jack was on his feet by the time the younger man reached the table. "Robby?" he demanded.

Rob reached for Jack's arm. "Aunt Ellen's awake, Jack. She's asking for you."

Jack was gone before the last words were out of Rob's mouth.

Chapter 10

Family members were gathered outside Ellen's room when Jack arrived. Father Nick took Jack's arm and ushered him toward the door.

"She asked for you, Jack."

Something in the priest's voice told Jack this wasn't necessarily a good thing. "Nick?" he asked.

Nick shook his head. "I don't know."

Jack felt Sam's hand slip into his—she had been only a step behind him. The firm feel of her palm against his gave him courage.

The door opened and Aaron stood there. "Come in, Jack," he said quietly.

He squeezed Sam's hand, then let it go and stepped forward. He sensed Betsy and David moving into the room behind him.

Ellen lay still and quiet, an oxygen cannula was in the place of the mask and her eyes were closed. Jack came closer to the bed, and she must have sensed him, because her eyes fluttered open and after a moment of uncertainty they found his face.

He lowered himself to the bedside chair and reached out to take her hand.

"Jon…" she whispered weakly.

"Shhh… don't try to talk," he said. "Save your strength."

She gave a very slight shake of her head. "No. Nothing to save. I only want… to see you one more time…"

"Ellen…" He choked on the word. Her fingers tightened slightly on his, as if in comfort. "I love you," he said, taking her hand in both of his and ignoring the tears that slid down his cheeks.

Her lips moved, but he couldn't hear her. He knelt off the chair, onto the floor to put his face near hers, so that he could hear her words. "I love you, son."

Her eyes closed then, and her fingers relaxed in his. "Ellen…" he said urgently. She didn't answer. He drew a sharp breath and raised his gaze to meet Aaron's.

Aaron put his fingers on Ellen's wrist, and then checked the readings on the machines and replaced the oxygen mask. "She's unconscious again," he said quietly. "I'm sorry, Jack. I don't think it will be much longer."

It was several minutes before Jack released Ellen's hand and rose to his feet.

~x~

"Uncle Jack?"

He startled at the sound of his name, and looked up to meet Sandy's eyes. Lost in memories, he'd forgotten where he was, and he glanced around almost in surprise at the waiting room. He'd come here after he left Ellen's room a little while ago. Sam was sitting beside him, and Betsy and David were nearby.

"Yes, sweetheart?" he responded to his niece after a second.

"How long has Aunt Ellen been a nun?"

"Well..." He thought for a moment. "She was serving her novitiate when I came along. I was just a few weeks old when I came to St. Cat's."

"How old are you, Uncle Jack?"

"Fifty-six," he answered.

"So Aunt Ellen's been a nun for at least 56 years," Sandy concluded. "She was young."

"Actually, she was very young when she decided that was what she wanted," her Uncle David put in. "Da said that she was eleven when she told him. But she knew before that."

"That's right," Betsy said. "She made that decision on the day that the telegram came..."

Chicago, July 1942

Eight-year-old Ellen McNamara headed out the front door of their house with her three younger siblings. Carrying two-year-old Brendan, and herding Molly, and Joseph, four and five respectively, ahead of her, she hurriedly closed the door behind them, shutting out her mother's cries from upstairs. Now that the doctor was here, she could get the younger children out of the house and reassure them that Mama was all right. Molly was sniffling, and Brendan was crying outright at the sounds of distress from their mother.

She herded her little crew in the direction of a nearby park, talking quietly all the while to them. "Mama's fine. You'll see—in just a few hours she'll be smiling, and happy to see us all. And we'll go up and meet our new sister or brother..."

"I hope it's a sister," Molly sniffed. "Mama said she would call her Pegeen if it's a girl."

Ellen smiled, and devoutly hoped the baby would be a boy, for its own sake!

Ellen wished Da was home. He was in the Navy, and right now he was on a ship somewhere out in the South Pacific Ocean, fighting the Japanese. She had only the vaguest notion of where the South Pacific might be, but she knew what war was, and she worried about her father constantly. She remembered December 7th, last year, when the news came over the radio that Japan had attacked a place called Pearl Harbor, which was in Hawaii, a part of the United States. She'd listened with her parents to President Roosevelt's speech. The beginning words still echoed in her memory;

Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

Ellen hadn't understood a lot of the whys and wherefores of the President's speech, but a statement near the end still stuck in her mind;

... we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Those words had evidently struck a chord with her father also, because later she heard him quote them when he told Ellen's mother that he was joining the Navy. The argument that ensued between Dylan and Bridget McNamara had caused Ellen to cringe in the hallway outside her parents' closed bedroom door, and then hurry to distract her brothers and sister from the raised voices.

Her Da had been gone for five months now, and Ellen missed him terribly. She prayed every night to the Virgin Mary and the Baby Jesus to keep her father safe. Unlike her mother, however, Ellen understood why her father had to go. She knew he felt that fighting for his country was the best way to protect his family.

The baby was a boy, healthy and strong, and Bridget named him Dylan.

Chicago, August 1943

Thirteen month old Dylan McNamara took his first steps on the day the telegram arrived.

Bridget had gone to the market and taken Molly and Joseph with her, and Ellen was home with Brendan and Dylan. When there was a knock on the door, she thought it was her mother with her arms full, so she ran to throw the door open.

A Western Union delivery man was standing there, his bicycle lying on the steps of the row house. He held a yellow envelope in his hand. They stared at each other. The man's jaw clenched. He hated this job, and he especially hated it when kids answered the door.

"Looking for Mrs. Bridget McNamara," he said.

"Mama..." Ellen began, but the word was inaudible, so she cleared her throat and tried again. "Mama's not here. She went to the market." She stared at the envelope.

"I'm sorry," he said, holding it out to her.

It took her a moment to reach for it. "Thank you," she whispered.

He started to turn around, then paused. "Look, I can wait until your Mama gets home, if you want."

She looked up at him. His eyes were kind. But Mama always said to beware of strange men. "That's okay. She'll be home soon. Thanks anyway."

He nodded. "I'm sorry," he repeated, and descended the steps.

She noticed that he limped and wondered if he was wounded in the war.

Ellen brought the envelope into the house and dropped it on the hall table as if it burned her hand. She hurried into the front room. Little Dylan was sleeping on a blanket on the floor, and three-year-old Brendan was playing with a toy train. He looked up when Ellen came in. "Mama?"

"Not yet, sweetie. Do you want some crackers?"

He grinned and nodded and followed her into the kitchen. She sat him at the table and gave him three dry crackers, spread with a tiny bit of the precious honey they got from their neighbor.

All the time she was thinking of the yellow envelope. And praying.

After he finished the crackers, Brendan held up his arms to Ellen. "Wock?" he asked. Carrying him into the front room, she sat down in the only rocking chair. She hummed softly to him and within a few minutes he fell asleep. She laid him down on the pallet beside Dylan.

Back in the front hall, Ellen stared for several long minutes at the yellow envelope. She closed her eyes tight. Please, Baby Jesus, make it all right. Suddenly a feeling of warmth and strength flowed through her body and mind. Without conscious direction on her part, her hand reached out and picked up the envelope. She walked over to the stairs and sat down. With one quick, sure motion, she slipped her finger under the flap and ripped the message open, removing the folded sheet of paper and opening it before she could reconsider.

She read from the top of the page;

"Washington DC, Aug 19, 1943

Mrs. Bridget McNamara, 7865 101st St., Chicago Ill.

Regret to inform you that your husband, Petty Officer 3rd Class Dylan J. McNamara, was, on eleven August, slightly wounded in action..."

Ellen's eyes stopped, retraced.

...slightly wounded...

...slightly wounded...!

She couldn't read any more, because the tears were pouring from her eyes. And she was laughing. "Wounded! Thank you, Baby Jesus!" she whispered.

When Bridget came home a quarter of an hour later, that's where she found Ellen—sitting on the stairs, laughing and crying.

That evening with everyone watching, little Dylan McNamara crawled over to a chair and pulled himself up to his feet. Then with a happy shriek, he launched himself into the void, taking four triumphant steps on his own before landing with a plop on his bottom.

Dylan Senior's injury turned out to be a flesh wound in the arm. He was treated in the ship's infirmary, and was back in action a day later.

Chicago, December, 1945

"I want to be a nun, Da," eleven-year-old Ellen announced at the dinner table one night. Her father had been discharged from the Navy three weeks earlier, and arrived home just in time for Christmas.

Dylan McNamara stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth and looked at his oldest child. "You do? I didn't know you'd ever thought of that. When did you decide, love?"

"The day the telegram came."

Dylan lowered the fork and looked at his wife. "Telegram?"

"The notification that you were wounded," Bridget explained. "Ellie was here with the babies when it came. I had taken Molly and Joe with me to the market."

Dylan turned back to Ellen and reached over to cover her small hand with his. She was very smart, and she would have known what a telegram meant. "Oh, my darlin'," he said softly.

"It was okay, Da," she assured him, with a bright smile. "I asked Baby Jesus to make it okay. And then there was this warm, safe feeling, and I knew it would be fine, and that I should open the envelope. So I did—and it was wonderful, because you were wounded!"

Staring at his daughter, Dylan McNamara fisted one hand over his mouth, not sure if he wanted to laugh or cry.

Chicago General Hospital, April 11, 2009

"Da used to tell us that story," Betsy said. She glanced over at David. "Remember how he always got that look in his eyes..."

"Yeah," her brother agreed. "He was really proud of Ellen. He said she was brave."

"I don't understand about the telegram..." Sandy said.

The older people exchanged glances. David smiled at his niece. "During the war telegrams were used to notify families that a relative had been wounded or killed in action. Back then there wasn't a faster way of communicating," he explained. "There were a lot of casualties. People lived in fear of the Western Union delivery guy showing up at their door."

"Oh." Sandy said softly. "She really was brave."

"Yes." Jack nodded, reaching over to squeeze her hand. "She was."

Chicago General Hospital, April 11, 2009, 2354 hours

Sister Ellen McNamara died just before midnight, eight and one half hours after Jack had arrived at the hospital.

Jack and Betsy were with her when she died. The rest of the family members were in the corridors and waiting rooms, sleeping awkwardly on uncomfortable chairs and couches, pacing, or talking together in quiet voices. A number of the staff members from St. Cat's were there also, along with friends and some of the grown-up children who had lived at the orphanage under Sister Ellen's care.

Aaron had left the room only a few minutes earlier, after bringing coffee for his wife and Jack. Sam had come in and tried to persuade them both to get some rest. Jack had promised to come and join her soon, but she had left knowing he would remain where he was.

The end came quietly. Betsy and Jack were talking softly about their childhood, when suddenly there was a small hitch in Ellen's breathing, drawing both their attention. Betsy leaned forward to touch her sister's hand and Jack placed his hand on Ellen's shoulder. They saw her eyes open, the expression in them clear and happy as she gazed at something they could not see. Beneath the oxygen mask they saw her smile. Then her eyes closed and her breath sighed for the last time. But the smile on her lips remained.

xxxxx

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to finish this story. I've had bits and pieces of it written for quite some time, but could not make them come together the way I wanted. There will be one more chapter. Thank you for reading.