LEARN: St. Catherine's Sister Dies
by Jenny duBay
“Caterina. I need you here. Let go of your sister’s hand.” I’m unable to move. I don’t want to obey. Let go? How can I? How can I desert Bonaventura...I stroke her forehead, begging for time. Maybe if I wait, just one second or a few, the baby will come out.
“Bonaventura?” My voice is barely more than a whisper, but she must have heard because she turns her head slowly. Her lips are white, cheeks wheat-colored, forehead soggy with thick, murky sweat. “Caterina,” her mouth says, but no sound comes out...
“Turn, turn. Turn! Come on, turn. Turn, per amore di Dio!” Chiara’s voice remains calm, but the softness has been replaced by an edge so firm it makes me shudder. She reaches inside again, but Bonaventura doesn’t scream.
“Caterina!” I try not to listen to Chiara. I refuse to move. It’s better here, next to Bonaventura’s head, looking into her face, exhausted for even her shallow breaths. “Are you all right?” I ask, and she smiles—so slight, such an insignificant look that I’m not at all comforted. Terror rises from my hollow belly and into my chest...“What can I do for you?” I whisper.
“Caterina, I need a second pair of hands!”
Only my lips have motion, and I know what they must say. “Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum ...” Bonaventura reaches over to clasp her other hand against mine, both of them fixed together, pressing my palm in the middle, a trinity of flesh in prayer. Her whisper is pale, yet she begins to recite long with me. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven ...” And then my voice is solo, carrying the prayer forward as tears gather in my throat. They climb to my eyes, descend into my heart. Bonaventura’s belly heaves, then stops. Her eyes flutter but don’t close. The clammy palm resting against my hand loosens and seems to turn cold in just that instant…
“... lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil ...” The tears are coming too fast now, I can’t finish, I can’t say the final, most important part. What if I never finish? Will God accept an incomplete prayer? For Bonaventura I try, I gather my breath for the final words, but my voice hurts too much, they won’t come out ... I cannot speak. I’m mute. My prayer has been lost in the chaos. Yet through it all, through the anguish of my soul and my own knowingness, I hear the redemptive word. “Amen.”
Want to read more? Buy Jenny duBay’s novel on the early life of Caterina of Siena.
