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“How often may we visit?” Mrs. Barnett asked.
“Not at all for the first two weeks of therapy. Reminders of family and home may only confuse and upset him. After that, visiting hours are on Sunday afternoons.” He pushed a little button on his desk. The door opened behind us and the soldier reappeared. “Show them the way out, Private.” The meeting was over. It had lasted as long as it took the doctor to smoke one cigarette.
We followed the soldier down a different flight of stairs to a nurses’ station. “Patient’s name?” one of the nurses asked.
“James Barnett,” his mother replied. She took her husband’s hand again.
“He’s in the common area. This way.” We followed her to a large, sunny room at the rear of the building, facing the river. Patients in hospital pajamas sat around the room, some reading books, some sitting at tables playing cards, some talking to the orderlies, and some simply staring outside at a group of patients playing baseball on a distant field. “You’ll have to keep this visit short,” the nurse said. “Twenty minutes at the most, please.” She gestured to a pale, thin man seated by the door.
I didn’t recognize Jimmy. He had always been robust and vigorous, a country boy who’d grown up in the outdoors, but now he resembled the concentration camp survivors I’d seen in newsreels. He rose like an old man as we approached and let his parents embrace him. “Hey, it’s me—Peggety,” I said when it was my turn. His face showed no emotion.
The Barnetts each took one of his arms and led him outside through the open door. He seemed to like being outside, where the grounds resembled a park with trees and benches and winding walkways. Mrs. Barnett talked about the spring garden she was planting, and I told him about the new racehorses that had been born on Blue Fence Farms. Mr. Barnett described the pickup truck he was still thinking of buying. Jimmy didn’t respond to any of us. He walked like a weary soldier carrying an overloaded pack. I wished he would talk to us and let us carry some of his burden. He suddenly halted in the middle of the path.
“I’m tired,” he said with a soul-weary sigh.
“Do you want to go back inside?” his father asked. Jimmy nodded, and we slowly led him back to the common room. We found a grouping of empty chairs and sat there with him. None of us could take our eyes off him, knowing our time together was quickly slipping away. Would Jimmy even know who we were the next time we came? I remembered his Bible and pulled it from my pocket.
“Here. This is yours. I thought you might want it.” I had to lift one of Jimmy’s hands and fold his fingers around the book.
“He can’t have that,” a voice from behind me said. I turned to see one of the orderlies glaring down at me. “He isn’t allowed to have any possessions until his treatments are finished.”
“It’s just a Bible,” I said.
“Dr. Morgan’s orders.”
Our time was up. The Barnetts bent to hug Jimmy again and we followed the soldier back to the building’s entrance. I could barely see where I was going through my tears. If only we could take Jimmy out of this terrible place. He needed to come home, to the people who loved him. Yet I knew his parents feared he would try to kill himself again if they did.
Mr. Barnett halted when we reached the car and held his wife in his arms for a long time. I heard her sobbing against his chest. “It’s all right, Martha. Everything will be all right,” he soothed. “We have to trust the doctors.” I turned away to gaze down at the shining river, praying that he was right.
None of us spoke until we were on the ferry again. Mrs. Barnett stayed in the car as we crossed the Hudson River, but I got out and stood at the rail with Mr. Barnett, the wind blowing my hair, the boat plowing across the dark, fish-scented river. I had forgotten to ask Jimmy who Gisela was, but maybe it was for the better.
“Do you really trust Dr. Morgan?” I asked, breaking the silence. “Do you think he knows what he’s doing?”
“I honestly don’t know,” he said softly. “But we don’t have a choice, do we? He’s the expert.”
I made lunch for Pop and myself when I arrived home, careful not to rattle too many dishes and wake up Donna. The Crow Bar stayed open until 2a.m. every night except Sunday, and she had worked last night. I brought the sandwiches and a cup of coffee down to Pop’s garage along with a dog biscuit for Buster so we could all eat together. I told Pop about visiting Jimmy at the VA hospital and how he didn’t seem to be any better. “Poor fella,” Pop mumbled. He drained his coffee and returned to the muffler he was replacing.
I changed into my work clothes and walked back across the road to the clinic. Tears rolled down my face as I worked in the barn. I couldn’t forget how ill Jimmy had looked and how we’d had to leave him in that terrible place. “We need Your help, Lord,” I prayed. “Please show us how to help him.” God seemed very far away. My tears fell harder when I remembered that Jimmy had been the one who first taught me about prayer.
We had been feeding the horses in the little corral outside the barn one day when I looked up at him and said, “Can I ask you a question?” Jimmy was sixteen at the time and I was twelve.
“Sure, Peggety.”
“It’s about praying.”
He’d looked surprised. He’d probably been expecting a question about horses. “Praying? You mean like... to God?”
I nodded. He gave me a sheepish grin before shrugging and saying, “Well, okay.”
“The minister prays for sick people every Sunday and asks God to heal them, right? But some of them die anyway. My mama went to Mass every week and lit candles when she prayed, yet she and our baby both died. Why do people pray if God doesn’t answer them?”
Jimmy let out a long whistle. He took off his cap and scratched his head. “I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer that,” he’d replied, “but I’ll tell you what I do know.” He settled his cap on his head again. “Praying isn’t only about asking for a bunch of things on a list. It’s about talking to God the same way you talk to someone you love, telling Him what’s bothering you and thanking Him for the good things He gives us. God really likes hearing what we have to say. And we feel better after talking with Him.”
“But the pastor prays for a whole list of sick people.”
“Yeah, I guess he does. I don’t know, Peggety. But my dad once told me that God knows a lot more about every situation than we do. We have to trust Him and believe that if He doesn’t answer our prayers exactly the way we want, then He must have a good reason for it.”
I couldn’t imagine any good reasons for my mother to die.
