High Crime Area Read Free Page A

—I mean, the religious orders. Poverty, chastity, service, obedience these nuns swore to.
    To this, I made no reply. Dr. Godai was speaking bemusedly, and may have been thinking out loud.
    Of course, I don’t understand the Catholics, maybe. Are you Catholic, Francis?
    No, Dr. Godai. I am not.
    You are an arrogant young man. I will report you.
    I know YOU. YOU will not get away with this.
    There are two categories of geriatric patient. Those who persist in behaving as if they aren’t elderly; or as if their current condition, inability to walk, for instance, is a temporary one; individuals who shuffle slowly, in obvious pain, leaning against walls, against the backs of chairs, out of pride. And there are those who have conceded that they are not “one hundred percent,” but must use a cane, a walker, a wheelchair. (It’s possible to think that a wheelchair isn’t really “permanent”—it is always expedient, helpful more for the staff.) Each step you think is temporary and you will soon return to your real self, but that’s not how it goes.
    Sister Mary Alphonsus had been in the second category. She may have been elderly but not old-elderly ; and she would resent bitterly your behaving as if she were. Her hearing, like her vision, was impaired, but Sister Mary Alphonsus was more likely to blame you for not speaking clearly, or loud enough, than she would blame herself. In fact, Sister Mary Alphonsus would never blame herself.
    If she spilled food, or dropped something, and you were present—somehow, the fault lay with you . At first I’d thought this was a sign of dementia but later I came to realize, it was the woman’s perception of what is: blame must be assigned, only just not with her.
    Unlike most of the elderly women in the facility, Sister Mary Alphonsus hadn’t been what you’d call frail. Her body was thick, waistless; her skin was leathery; her eyes were suspicious and close-set; her legs remained heavy, especially her thighs, that strained against the polyester stretch-pants she sometimes wore. Her most characteristic expression was a peevish frown.
    Sometimes, Sister Mary Alphonsus seemed annoyed by rain outside her window, as if it had been sent to provoke her . For there was a small courtyard into which we could wheel patients, in good weather.
    Once, I’d wheeled Sister Mary Alphonsus outside into this courtyard and had to go away on an errand, and by the time I returned it was raining hard, and Sister Mary Alphonsus had managed to wheel herself beneath an overhang, by an effort of both hands.
    You did that on purpose! You are mocking me.
    No one considered that it might have been poison that Sister Mary Alphonsus had taken. Poison that was her own soul.
    It was general knowledge in Eau Claire: in recent months the children’s home at Craigmillnar, that had acquired a “controversial” reputation since it had been shut down by state health authorities in 1977, had re-surfaced in the news.
    Now, interest in Craigmillnar was part of a broad investigation into Catholic-run charity homes, hospitals, and organizations following a flood of disclosures of sexual misconduct by priests in the United States, with the complicity of the Catholic hierarchy. A militant group of former residents of the home at Craigmillnar, that called itself Survivors of Craigmillnar, had been picketing the archbishop’s residence in Milwaukee, demanding acknowledgment of what they charged had been “widespread neglect and abuse” at Craigmillnar. The state attorney general was considering criminal charges against some former staff members who, the former residents claimed, had been responsible for a number of deaths at Craigmillnar in the 1950s and 1960s.
    At the very least, the Survivors were demanding financial settlements, and a public apology from the Catholic Church.
    Public apology! — my father laughed, bitterly. The Church will apologize