Peace settled on him. The horrifying procedure might only serve to make his mother’s final hours even more painful, but people had been born, suffered, rejoiced, and died for millennia. He and Birdie were no different. Come what may, God’s will would prevail.

13

Gwen felt limp as she left the sickroom. Dr. Haas had given something to Mrs. O’Neill to help her sleep, but they would be monitoring her condition closely in the coming hours.

Patrick shuffled forward and dropped onto the parlor sofa. She wasn’t used to seeing such a physically strong man flop down like that, but he seemed completely drained as he braced his head in his hands and stared at the floor.

“I know death is a normal part of life,” he said. “A better Christian wouldn’t be so afraid of it.”

Her heart ached, and she reached for words to offer comfort. “All Christians are human, and it’s normal to fear the unknown.”

There wasn’t much room in this tiny apartment for Dr. Haas and his assistants, but they would move in for several days to monitor the patient’s progress. A neighbor offered to bring over some blankets and pillows to make pallets on the floor for the two medical students, and Dr. Haas would stay in Patrick’s bedroom.

Gwen feared Patrick’s room might reflect a bachelor’s slovenliness, but instead it had a puritanical tidiness. The bed was neatly made, and there was no clutter or knickknacks on the chest of drawers. The only hint of personality was a rosary just like his mother’s, also draped on the bedpost. There wasn’t a single thing she needed to do to tidy it for the professor.

There wasn’t much food in the kitchen other than a startlingly beautiful cake under a glass cover. It looked like the Taj Mahal, with a dome and spires, all covered with vanilla icing and little candies for the finials.

“My mom is a baker,” Patrick said from the other side of the room. “That’s what she made today before she got so sick.”

“She’s quite an artist,” Gwen said.

Hiram, the medical assistant from Brooklyn, hovered close to look. “She’s a Michelangelo!” he said, but their words of praise only seemed to upset Patrick, who remained on the sofa, staring at the cake while he twisted his hands.

His voice was full of regret when he spoke. “I’d offer you a slice, but I dare not touch it. If she dies, that cake will be her last great creation.”

Her heart ached at the anguish in his voice. If his mother died, he’d probably keep this cake untouched beneath its glass dome for weeks. “Nonsense,” she said. “You are her last great creation, and you know that she would agree with me on that.”