Sometimes Things Go Wrong

I was supposed to get my computer back from the shop Friday but, as they say, sometimes things go wrong. In honor of that sentiment, here's a little ditty I entitled:

Sometimes Things Go Wrong

Marjorie sighed. She’d finally found a few minutes to sit down and now she had to convince her weary body to get back up. She’d been at the nurses’ station, writing her notes and sipping burnt coffee when she detected movement at the end of the hallway. A slender woman wearing a long white nightgown had glided into Room 469.

“Someone’s wandering around, I see,” she’d mused, struggling out of her chair to retrieve what she thought was a confused elderly woman who’d lost her way. It was common that patients, especially older ones zonked by unfamiliar medication and the strange fluorescent lighting, left their rooms and got lost on the way back. She kept her eyes on the door in case the woman came out.

Room 469 was unoccupied tonight, thankfully. Marjorie hoped the old lady had just crawled in the empty bed and gone to sleep. It would make it easier to guide the patient back to her assigned room.

When she reached 469, the room was empty. Surprised, she glanced around the patient bathroom. No one was there. She walked to the far side of the room and checked the floor behind the bed. Nothing. Feeling a little silly, she even peeked under the bed and inside the closet. She got gooseflesh when she realized she was alone in the room. There was no way the woman could’ve left without Marjorie seeing. This was a new, high-tech wing of the hospital and the windows were sealed. The woman had simply… disappeared.

She returned to the desk and tried to write her notes, but the vision of the white-clad woman who’d disappeared pushed all organized thought from her head.

At 4 o’clock a.m. the night supervisor swung by on her rounds.

“What’s the matter, Marjorie? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Rosie’s slanted green Irish eyes twinkled at her.

“Rosie, I think I might have.” Marjorie explained the incident. “I know I didn’t fall asleep or anything. I distinctly recall everything about it.”

Rosie’s face took on a sadness, and she said, “That was Sister Margaret.”

“Sister Margaret? But there was no way she could’ve left the room, Rosie. I never once looked away from the door.”

“I believe you. Did you know that years ago the hospital had its own convent here?”

“Yes, I think I heard that before.”

“The nuns lived here. There was a nursing school as well, but the main function was to house the nuns and care for the patients. The nursing school only lasted about ten years.

“Now it’s not discussed in polite company, but every once in a great while a novitiate or more rarely even a nun gets herself in trouble.”

Marjorie nodded. She’d never heard this before, but it made sense to her that people, being people, sometimes make mistakes. Even a nun must have physical longings sometimes.

“Sister Margaret was a young novitiate. They say she was a lovely young woman, no bigger than a ten-year-old girl, and so kind. Everyone loved her. She was wonderful with the patients, had a grand career ahead of her and would eventually move up, or so everyone believed.

“The Diocese brought a younger priest in, a fine man, tall as a tree and strong as an ox. Somehow he and Sister Margaret fell victim to their baser desires. Eventually it was discovered that she was pregnant. Well, it was a scandal of the highest degree, as you can well imagine. Margaret was confined to her room for the duration of her pregnancy. When people asked about her, they were told she’d been transferred to a hospital upstate. Back then people didn’t travel as much as they do now, so it was an effective ruse.

“She was a tiny thing, like I said. The baby was large, like its father, and she couldn’t expel it. The sisters put off calling the doctor – they didn’t want anyone to know, you understand. They believed they could deliver her of the baby and keep anyone from knowing about her disgrace. They’d put the child up for adoption and no one would be the wiser, you see. But sometimes things go wrong.

“Sister Margaret prayed fervently out loud, begging Our Lord to keep the baby safe. Oh, she had terrible pain but never did a foul word escape her mouth. She valiantly labored for three days and nights before she gave in to exhaustion. She hemorrhaged on the third day and they couldn’t staunch her bleeding. The spirit passed out of Sister Margaret, her body too weak to hold it in. But the sisters were able to cut the baby free, and it lived -- a fine boy, strong as an ox, like his father. He was placed for adoption and raised by one of the doctors whose wife couldn’t conceive. He’s a lawyer here in town now.

“They buried Sister Margaret in an unmarked section of the hospital’s basement. It wasn’t unusual for the Diocese to bury paupers like that – there was no Potter’s Field around here. But Sister Margaret didn’t rest after her death. Instead, she wandered the wing where she died, searching for her child. Patients reported seeing a white figure in the hallways. Sometimes she’d enter a patient’s room in the obstetrics department. She’d stand and watch the mother hold her baby. She never spoke, and it frightened the young women.

“People have so many hospitals to choose from nowadays, you see, and no young mother wants a ghost in her room. Public Relations wanted to keep reports of a haunting quiet, but they kept getting out. So a few years ago Administration decided to tear down the old convent wing and build this new section. No one had seen Sister Margaret since then. We all thought she was gone.”

Marjorie looked directly into Rosie’s eyes. “But sometimes things go wrong.”

“Yes, they do.”

© 2006 Clara Chandler - All Rights Reserved