Read Online In This Small Spot by Caren Werlinger - Free Book Online

Abigail a pain medication and some water. “Do
you feel well enough to go to Chapel? It’s almost time for
Vespers.”
    After Abigail had gone, Sister Mary David
came over to where Mickey was cleaning up. “Michele,” she began, “I
assume you are not a nurse. Are you a physician assistant?”
    “No,” Mickey replied, glancing up. “I was a
surgeon.”
    Sister Mary David just stared at her for a
moment. “But why wasn’t I told before now? There have been so many
times we could have used you…”
    “Sister,” Mickey straightened up. “I didn’t
enter the abbey to be the in-house physician. My being here is
completely separate from my previous profession. I’m going to ask
you not to say anything about this. If there’s an emergency, then
of course I want you to come get me, but otherwise, I’m not here to
practice medicine.” She smiled apologetically. “And I still have an
awful lot to learn about being a nun.”
    Sister Mary David blushed. “Forgive me,
Michele. That was… I understand.”
    A short time later, Mickey was seated in her
stall in Chapel. That was the first time in nearly a year that she
had treated a patient. Granted, it had been a minor injury, but she
was a little surprised at how easily she had slipped back into that
role – surprised and chagrined. The organ startled her. She hadn’t
heard the Chapel filling. Looking around at the faces of these
women, faces that were becoming so familiar, she had the peculiar
feeling that something had shifted today. This is where I
belong , she thought, closing her eyes. This is what’s
real.

 
    Chapter 9
    “This is Dr. Stewart,” Mickey said, rubbing
her eyes tiredly as she answered the page.
    “Hey,” came Alice’s voice over the phone.
“You were supposed to be home three hours ago.”
    “Oh, hon, I am so sorry.” Mickey looked at
her watch. “I got called in on one of Tucker’s surgeries. The idiot
removed a twelve-year-old kid’s scapula before he did a lung
biopsy. The entire left lung was full of tumors. I removed the
lung, but he’s got to have chemo and radiation, and now he can’t
use his left arm. He probably won’t make it,” she finished
quietly.
    Mickey pressed her fingers to the bridge of
her nose as she listened to the silence on the other end of the
phone. “I should have called,” she said. “But he was already on the
table…”
    “The car is packed,” Alice said at last.
“Can you leave if I come by to pick you up?”
    “Yes. I’ll be waiting for you.”
    As Mickey hurriedly changed out of her
scrubs in the locker room, she whispered a prayer of thanks as she
had done a thousand times before over the past ten years. It would
have sounded trite if she had tried to explain it to anyone else,
but she literally felt that Alice was God’s gift to her. She
resolved to focus all of her attention on Alice over the next few
days as they traveled to their weekend house on the Chesapeake
Bay.
    “I’m sorry,” Mickey said again as she got
into the car. “You have every right to be angry.”
    Alice wove through the hospital parking lot.
“I was,” she admitted after a moment. “But how can I measure a
weekend at the Bay against a twelve-year-old boy’s life?”
    “I truly don’t deserve you,” Mickey said,
taking Alice’s hand and squeezing it.
    “I know.” Alice grinned at her. “And I’ll
remind you of that if you complain about the new couch I bought
today.”

 
    Chapter 10
    “In a month, you will have been here a year,”
Sister Rosaria told the postulants in March. “It is time for you to
prepare for the decision as to whether or not you will be entering
the Novitiate.” As part of that process, the postulants were
required to make a seven day retreat. “This retreat will be
conducted in complete silence, except for the daily session each of
you will have with the senior nun assigned to be your spiritual
advisor,” Sister Rosaria explained. “You will move from the
dormitory to cells