How could that stupid old woman believe? How could she think that Devin could find comfort in the empty dronings of some sexually repressed priest? “God’s will.” Devin would have resented the woman for that, if she weren’t feeling so very tired. Tired and unhappy. Just like Christopher.
* * *
How often did it actually snow on Christmas eve? Well, it was snowing out there now, but she was in here. Not home. But what was home these days? Peter long gone. Her father dead and her mother remarried to that dick Phil, both in Florida for the winter. She hadn’t called her mother. Didn’t want to spoil her holiday. Didn’t want to talk about Christopher. This was her private ordeal. She was glad all the doctors were gone, all the nurses inattentive. She wanted to be alone. Still, she saw colored lights glowing out there beyond the dozing dark parking lot with its few cars, shrouded like old furniture. There were children in those homes, dreaming of the morning.
She missed that stupid little TV lady. TV. That’s what she needed—distraction. Hopefully something really mindless; a Kung Fu flick, a Godzilla movie. She pulled the hovering set down closer to her, turned up the volume a bit. Six-twenty; early enough for some dumb old Christmas cartoon, maybe. Ah; on the special movie station they were playing a Christmas movie starring that redneck Ernest guy. Perfect.
A nurse brought dinner. It was better than she would have thought. Another nurse came to read her blood pressure, take her temperature. Devin told her she was fine, just to get rid of her, but afterwards regretted that she’d forgotten to ask what would be done with her baby. She considered buzzing, decided not to. She still wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She hadn’t wanted to know what became of her cat Sting last year after he had to be put to sleep. If only she had him to come home to. Not even that…
After the Ernest movie, Devin clicked through the channels again, and paused out of mild curiosity when she reached channel Eight. Taped religious music played softly as a background to the one static camera angle of the St. Andrew’s Hospital chapel. The camera was apparently close to the ceiling, pointing down toward the altar. No lights were on in the chapel, but for one candle just to the left edge of the screen, its glow more visible than the flame itself. The scene was so dim, so grainy, that Devin watched it a few moments if only to discern what she was seeing. She saw the first two or three pews at the bottom of the screen but had no idea how many there might be altogether. An aisle between them led to a slightly raised dais, where a block shape must have been the draped altar table. In back of that were three thrones, as Devin thought of them, the one behind the table particularly tall. That was all she could be sure of. There seemed to be a podium set off to one side and a door in the corner, but it was just too murky. It was as lonely a place as this hospital room with its one occupied bed.
Though she was not religious, and though her musical tastes ran more toward The Cure, Devin liked Gregorian chants and medieval music, so the background of very old Christmas music was agreeable to her. She left Chapel on while pulling toward herself a rumpled woman’s magazine someone had left in the top drawer of her side chest.
* * *
Devin awoke to silence. A glance to the wall clock; it was ten-fifty. She’d slept for hours, but given her day, she was surprised it hadn’t been longer. The lack of music finally registered, and she looked to the TV. Chapel was still on, but the taped music had ceased. No sound came from the television.
Off down the hall somewhere, a baby cried. This was postpartum recovery, and a woman must have had her baby brought to her for nursing. The nursery was down the hall, but the babies in there were few tonight and quiet behind their glass wall. Devin was glad for that.
Out the window, the snow had become thick, muffling the world under a caul.
Devin was thirsty, and buzzed the nurse’s station. No reply after five minutes. She didn’t ring it again, reluctant to spoil their Christmas eve down there. If she got thirsty enough there was a bathroom in here, although she knew getting out of bed was discouraged.
She switched through the TV channels. Jimmy Stewart was praising Clarence. A stupid dating game of wall-to-wall innuendoes. On the movie channel, Dances With Wolves, which she’d already seen twice. Peter looked like a prematurely bald Kevin Costner. Dating Peter was dances with werewolves, she reflected.
Searching, she passed channel Eight again, on to channel Nine, but she switched abruptly back.
Was that a person seated in the front pew, on the left?
Devin frowned. Yes, had to be, though the dark shape’s stationary pose didn’t help her much. Some old patient gone into the chapel for a bit of comfort? Must be. It looked as though the person was a woman wearing a kerchief on her head…unless that was a nun’s habit.
Well, this development hardly made channel Eight any more exciting. Devin moved on…
A nurse came in to take Devin’s vitals again. Once more, Devin did not inquire about her baby’s whereabouts. The young woman asked, “Can I get you anything?”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Devin said. “Lonely in here tonight, huh?”
“It’s real nice and quiet up here, but I hear there was a horrible scene down in emergency. This young woman was brought in…dead on arrival. Somebody strangled her.”
“Strangled?”
“Yeah. Horrible. They said the cord cut right into her neck. They don’t know who did it. Scary. Glad I don’t live in this town.”
“I guess.”
The nurse left, and Devin frowned at the doorway after her. Strangled. Yes…horrible.
It was now eleven-fifteen, and Devin again grew restless with the meager offerings on TV, jaded as she was by cable. She switched around the dial. In so doing, she grew curious about whether that woman was still praying in the chapel.
There were several figures in the pews now. Three? Four? Devin wasn’t sure in that grainy gloom. But at least two of the newly-seated people seemed also to be nuns. Well, it was St. Andrew’s Hospital. Was there to be a midnight mass, after all?
Even as Devin watched, that indistinct door in the corner opened and a figure moved out of it, a shadow against shadows. It drifted to the altar. The priest, no doubt. But when were they going to put the lights on? Maybe this was yet another nun, judging from the conical look of the head. Well, whatever…Devin lost interest again, flicked forward to Eleven.
The news was on. A space heater fire had killed three children. Merry Christmas. Devin hurried onward. Where was Ernest when you needed him?
A distant baby wailing again. Devin was tempted to get out of bed to go close her door, but she had had an episiotomy to facilitate delivery and the pain-killers had diminished. Soon enough, however, the crying faded away.
God, even the poor offering of channels conspired to narrow her world, aggravate her sense of isolation, of being trapped in this bed. She clicked through the selections, impatiently going in circles. Seven again, Eight…
Pious assholes, she thought; something was indeed up tonight. She watched the silent scene. Where was the sound? What comfort was watching services if you couldn’t hear them? Might a microphone be on but the people in the chapel so quiet that their movements were inaudible?
A few new shadowy forms were gliding out of that vague door in the corner, slipping into the pews. The priest or nun was now sitting at his throne behind the altar, resting perhaps until everyone arrived. Was that the bottom of a great cross above his head? Was it an all-denominations chapel? Devin hoped so; where would Jews, Buddhists, Muslims take their comfort, otherwise? Only because it was Christmas eve and this a hospital founded by Catholics did she assume it was a Christian service.