Sister Mary Christopher refuses the ambulance. She wants to stay put. "They can give you morphine there." She shakes her head, so much smaller without her habit. A wren, fragile and beakish.
"Baptism is a little exorcism," she says. "Did you know that? So is Extreme Unction."
I know she wants the priest.
Sister spiders her fingers out of the sheets, asks again if she can hold the baby. "When I was little," I tell her, "I thought it was called Extry Munction. One more Munction!" I can hear the kids from the parochial school in the social room, giving their recital for the nuns. "Morphine is just like a dream, Sister. It's really nice. In the hospital they'll give you all you want." She kicks off her blankets. Her toes are curled tightly. "The baby. . ." she says. She'd made the Sign of the Cross over my belly. She wanted me to name the baby Mary Margaret, but I had something else in mind. "Listen," I say. "Do you hear the children?"
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