“And enough,” I said, pointing toward the stairs to her upstairs apartment, formerly the maid’s quarters. “I don’t need any more patients to take care of.”
“Oh? What makes you think you won’t get sick?” She folded her arms in stubborn loyalty, which I’d come to know well. “Because you’re a big tough copper?”
I sighed. “-No – because I don’t have time to. Get some sleep and you can take over in the morning, okay? That’s what I’m going to need.”
She wavered, then gave me a weary but sweet smile.
“You’re not fooling anybody,” Mary Catherine said. “But okay.”
Chapter 3
I moaned along with the kids as the door closed behind Mary Catherine.
It’s not that I don’t love my children. I really do. But I’m the guardian of the kind of brood that would send Mother Teresa doctor-shopping for pharmaceutical assistance.
How’s this for the Bennett lineup? Juliana, thirteen; Brian, twelve; Jane, eleven; Ricky, ten; Eddie, nine; twins Fiona and Bridget, eight; Trent, six; Shawna, five; and Chrissy, four. A total of ten, count them: two Hispanic, two black, one Asian, and the rest white. All of them are adopted. Pretty impressive, I know. Not many families can field a multicultural baseball team, plus a bench player.
It was primarily Maeve’s idea. We started taking in her “stray angels,” as she called our gang way back before Brangelina got into the act. How could either of us have foreseen the nightmare of her death from cancer at the age of thirty-eight?
I wasn’t completely alone, thank God. Mary Catherine had appeared like a gift from heaven while Maeve was dying, and for some unfathomably merciful reason, she still hadn’t fled screaming. My crotchety grandfather-turned-priest, Seamus, was pastor of Holy Name Church, just around the corner. He’d wangled the job so he could help with the kids and disapprove of me, but the disapproval was a small price to pay for his help.