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Julienne noticed immediately that Phyllis had left. She let the nurse have some space and then went out to see if Phyllis needed anything.
Julienne sat down on the step next to Phyllis and put her arm around her shoulder; words in that very moment were superfluous.
“Let’s go inside; we will freeze out here”
It was late November, and winter was coming full force in the East End of London.
“I don’t care!!!” snapped Phyllis through tears.
Julienne waited a bit and then said, “Come on…” and offered the nurse her hands.
Under the dim light of the street lamp, Julienne noticed that something wasn’t right and said, “Do you think you can stand without help?”
Phyllis' colour had turned from red to an alarming green-yellow colour: “I feel sick”
Julienne jumped to her feet and held her poor soul while she was vomiting in a draining grate.
“Deep breaths and then we can go inside”
Julienne’s presence felt like a balm for Phyllis, and she felt so safe knowing that she was taking care of her and everything else.
“We are going to my office, so you can have some privacy and you can catch a bit your breath”
Julienne sat Phyllis on a chair, poured some water into a glass, and said: “I’ll give you a couple of minutes alone”
Julienne went to the clinical room to get some milk of magnesia, the chloral hydrate, a basin, and the blood pressure cuff.
As soon as Julienne arrived back in her office took a better look at Phyllis under a good light, and she looked even more pale than before.
She had cried so hard, and it left her breathless.
Julienne put all the supplies on her desk and said, “I think you might need some chloral hydrate, if you agree, of course. But to my judgment, you are too distressed.”
Phyllis knew that Julienne was right; the nun clocked her wrist, and it was above 100.
Julienne poured the lowest effective dose of medicine in the glass and hoped with all her heart that it was going to help Phyllis relax a bit.
About 45 minutes later, Phyllis was almost knocked out, so Julienne made sure nobody was around and walked upstairs with Phyllis, hoping the nurse wasn’t going to pass out on her.
Under normal circumstances, Phyllis would have undressed herself, but that night she was so done with the world that she let Julienne undress her, put on her nighties and lead her to the bathroom to wash her face and teeth. Julienne tried her best to put on rollers on Phyllis’s head.
Julienne was very grateful for the drug when Phyllis was finally sleeping. The nun allowed herself to feel tired at that point; she was tired and sad. But there were things that needed to be done; in fact, she had taken with her some paper and a pencil. She had to write a letter to Barbara’s father and another to the Board of Health. But in that very moment, she felt the need to pray. She sat on the other bed, she removed her veil and her shoes, she prayed while looking at the sleeping figure, then she tried to write a bit, but she was too tired and too sad. She just dozed on and off for a while.
The chemical-induced sleep wasn’t peaceful, nor restful. Phyllis kept tossing and turning until she woke up crying.
“I’m in pain…” said Phyllis, clutching her lower abdomen. Julienne got up from the other bed and sat next to Phyllis.
“Phyllis, don’t worry… I’ve got you…” That night, it was the first time Julienne called her by her first name.
Phyllis’ stomach let out another sickly growl,l and Julienne put a bowl on Phyllis lap and waited for the other round of vomit to pass, rubbing soothing circles on her back.
“I am sorry,” said Phyllis in a very low voice, wiping her mouth.
“You are grieving; the visceral responses you are experiencing are very similar to the ones we see in mothers when they lose a child”
Suddenly, out of nothing and nowhere, Juliene missed Evangelina so much she wanted to cry, but she couldn’t lose it in that moment; Phyllis needed her.
Phyllis leaned against Julienne’s chest, just breathing into her scapular was helping her.
Nuns didn’t wear scents, just some cold cream against the wind when the weather was very cold.
Phyllis didn’t believe in God, but that night, that woman of God was holding her and comforting her, even if Julienne must’ve been dead on her feet, since she hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours in the past two days.
“She was the closest person to a daughter I’ve ever had. She wasn’t my flash and blood.”
“You know, Barbara has always spoken so highly and fondly of you. She had lost her mother when she was very young, and in you she’s found a mother figure and a good friend.”
“I can say with certainty that she had a mother figure in you, too…”
Phyllis remembered while on the ship back from South Africa how high she had spoken about Sister Julienne.
Julienne didn’t expect such a fond statement, and she was quite touched by it. She wiped the tears from her cheek and said, “I’d better check your pulse and try your blood pressure”. The nun took the clammy wrist, and Phyllis felt dizzy and mildly sick, and she had a very uncomfortable pain in the pit of her lower abdomen.
Phyllis took a deep breath; she was pretty sure that her blood pressure was all over the place.
“You are 100 over 60… sip water”
Phyllis didn’t want to drink; she was pretty sure the water wasn’t going to back up.
“Tom, I should see how Tom is”, said Phyllis out of nothing.
“Fred is with him, and he is taking the best care of him.”
The night was fading into a new day, and Julienne left Phyllis alone and half asleep again to go to the kitchen to get some water and some tea. The idea of taking some sleep was out of her mind completely.
Julienne took her time to get upstairs, because the sleepless night was starting to take a toll on her balance. As soon as she approached the door, she saw Phyllis once again hunched over the basin. Julienne wwonderedwhat she still had to bring up in her system.
Julienne shook her head, gave Phyllis a cool cloth and said, “Maybe it’s better if I call the doctor in a couple of hours. You might need a strong sedative and for sure something to settle your stomach.”
Phyllis’ mind wasn’t in the right place in that moment. She couldn’t process what the nun had just said, but she just said, in a very low voice, “Would you come to the chapel with me?”
Julienne glanced at her watch; it was time for Lauds anyway.
Julienne helped Phyllis in her dressing gown, removed her rollers and gave her another cloth to wipe a bit of her battered face. She looked very pale.
They didn’t talk on the way to the chapel; Phyllis just leaned on Julienne. The short walk felt like a hike up a mountain.
Julienne sat on a chair, and Phyllis sat next to her and said, “I need to be in a place of peace. Where you sing and pray when I come home from a long night of work. I love your singing, you know I don’t believe in God, but your singing gives me peace.”
Julienne opened her breviary and tried to pray as quickly as she could so she could focus on Phyllis’ well-being.
Phyllis reached to clasp Julienne’s hands and said, “I know it’s silly, but would you sing Come, Holy Ghost?”
Julienne squeezed Phyllis’s hands, and she started singing without saying anything.
As Julienne sang the hymn, Phyllis was crying again, but she felt a strange sensation of peace, and in that very moment, she believed in God and foremost in Heaven and that Barbara was there, watching over them. Phyllis’ collapsed again on Julienne’s shoulder.
At 7, Julienne managed to lead Phyllis to the sofa, and she was finally asleep, very probably totally exhausted by that awful night. She’d fallen asleep with her head in Julienne’s lap.
“How was the night?” asked Lucille, giving Julienne a well-sugared cup of tea. She hadn’t had to ask. Julienne looked a state, and she was in need of some fuel.
“As you can imagine, far from well…”
“Are you taking this morning off? We can change the roster…” said Lucille, thinking that Julienne wasn’t in any shape to go to work.
“Do not worry about me. Would you give me a pillow? If she wakes up, give her some hot cocoa, some food if she can face it and then back to bed”
“You should go to bed too, precious”
Julienne knew that Lucilla was right, but she had to go.
She had the good idea of rising very slowly to let her blood pressure settle.
Julienne let Phyllis in Monica Joan’s hands, with very clear instructions and left for rounds.
Phyllis woke up at 9, and the low blood sugar from all the vomiting and the lingering effect of the sedative made her feel like hell.
Monica Joan took a look at her and said, “Doctor Turner is coming to take a proper look at you”
“There’s no need to disturb the Doctor, I am fine”
The old nun caressed her clammy face, squeezed her freezing hands and said: “You can’t fool my old sight. I can see that you are grieving. Neither your soul nor your body is well. You are in need of nourishment, and also you need someone to take care of you… I was instructed to give you some hot cocoa if you feel up to it”
Monica Joan put a basin in Phyllis’ lap before offering her some steaming cocoa.
Patrick arrived at Nonnatus, and he could feel the grieving in the house. He looked at Phyllis, and he could see how poorly and how much she was suffering.
He tried her blood pressure and tried with a very low dose of a stronger sedative adn he also gave her a medicine to settle her stomach.
“I can understand how you feel… I was the same when I lost my Marianne.”
Phyllis barely acknowledged what Patrick was telling her and soon drifted iintoa chemical induced sleep.
Julienne arrived back at 3 in the afternoon. She had attended a birth with Lucille, and as soon as they reached the front soothe nurse said: “Sister, forgive me, but you look grey… food, tea, maybe we should try your blood pressure and then bed for at least a couple of hours.”
Julienne couldn’t deny that she wasn’t fit for anything but bed. She had almost fainted during the birth, but Lucille had the presence of spirit to have Julienne sit while they were waiting for the placenta to be born.
Julienne couldn’t stop thinking that she’d hoped for months that Tom and Barbara would have had a baby. She had always thought they would have been amazing parents. That thought made her very sad. So sad and angry, she almost started sobbing in the bathroom.
Julienne didn’t have time for her well-deserved rest.
Tom arrived at Nonnatus with Fred, the poor curate, who looked grey, and Fred looked like a lost puppy. He had such a gold heart.
Monica Joan didn’t tell anything; she just hugged the young man, whispering words of comfort.
Fred looked at Julienne and said, “Tom needs your…”
The older man led Tom to Julienne’s office, they sat down, and the curate said: “Would… would you call my mum? I just can’t say out loud what happened.”
Julienne squeezed his clammy hands and said, “I’ll call her. Would you like something to drink or eat?”
“I fell sick, and my mouth tastes like sandpaper.”
Julienne made the phone call and gave Tom some privacy to have a chat with his parents.
“He is coming home with Violet and me and Violet. We don’t like him to be alone.”
“You are a very good man, Mr Buckle. If he can’t face food or if he is very sick, maybe have a chat with the doctor”
“Yes, Sister”
Phyllis was fast asleep on the sofa, and Julienne sat on the armchair, just to let her back and legs rest for a second.
Phyllis woke up at 8:30 in the evening, and Julienne helped her upstairs and thought that the best idea was to sleep with her that night.
Phyllis was quite unstable on her feet, but at least she had slept almost all day. Sometimes the best cure for grief was sleeping.
As soon as they reached the room, Phyllis was fully lucid for the first time, took a look at Julienne and said: “Sister, how long since you’ve slept or eaten…”
“Don’t worry about me..”
That night, Julienne slept on and off, while Phyllis slept, just exhausted and grieving.
The following two days were a long sequence of crying people, skipped meals and moments of prayer at odd hours for Julienne.
Barbara’s funeral was held under the first snow of the season. Barbara would have loved a day like that.
When everything was over, they all gathered at Nonnatus House. Tom was in the chapel with Monica, Joan and his parents, while Julienne went upstairs to check on Phyllis, who had left the gathering as soon as the door of the house was closed behind them.
She was on her bed, still fully clothed, and she was sobbing into her pillow. She didn’t remove her hat, either.
“Phyllis, you should take a warm bath, and then you should get in bed…”
“Everything is over…” said Phylli,s turning on her side and trying to ignore the pain in her lower back.
Julienne helped Phyllis out of her coat and hat, led her to the bathroom, and helped her out of her clothes.
Phyllis had asked Julienne to stay, but on the other side, she felt exposed. Even if their job meant that they were seeing their fair share of naked people, she hadn’t been seeing naked for a very long time, years maybe.
Julienne didn’t judge. What would she have judged? The body of a woman of her same age? Absolutely not.
“Can I say that you shouldn’t have?” said Phyllis “You are too kind to me”
“You have to care for each other, and right now you need all the care you can get.”
Phyllis felt cold, even if the water was hot. And she felt dirty, even if she was takinga bath. She almost felt guilty to be alive, while Barbara wasn’t going to experience any of it ever again.
Julienne gave Phyllis some space to get washed, dried and dressed and went downstairs.
“Where’s Monica Joan?” asked Julienne, getting into the kitchen. Around the table were Val, Lucille, Shelagh, Patrick and Winifred.
“She went with Fred, Violet, Tom and his parents to Fred’s place, to have Tom catch his breath.”
“You should have a seat”, said Val, offering Julienne a chair.
“You look very tired. You can rest, and I’ll take care of Phyllis,” said Shelagh, hoping that Julienne was going to stop for a second.
“I’m going back upstairs. Would you prepare a tray with some soup? Nurse Crane needs some proper food”
Julienne got up from her seat, and she saw black. She put a hand forward and said, “I just need to reset myself for a moment.”
Shelagh looked at Patrick while the older woman was walking out of the room.
“Do you think she’s going to make it up upstairs?”
“I hope so…” said Patrick, looking at the women around the table.
Julienne stopped on the steps and waited for her head to stop spinning, and at the end, she made it to the room.
Phyllis finally looked human again, while Julienne looked like she had just come out of a sanatorium.
“Sister, I am sorry, but you don’t look well.”
Jullien sat on the bed opposite Phyllis, and she finally lost it, all the grief she had kept inside for days. She kept thinking of Tom in the chapel, telling her that Barbara’s name was still on the call board, since chalk was quite hard to erase.
She just cried, to the point she was breathless, and Phyllis got up from her bed and just held her.
“You gave us so much in these days, now it’s our turn to give you support and care. Have a good cry, lass…”
Shelagh arrived in the room with the tray, and she was quite moved by the two women, two of the strongest women she knew, crying while holding each other.
Shelagh tried to be unnoticed, but both women turned around and said: “Thank You”