Chapter 53: Interrupted Storytime
"Yes, they are, aren’t they?" Viviana took a deep breath.
With a smile, she looked at Lionel. He had a neutral expression, and she wondered if he was writing the script in his mind. She would say that her "origin story" does have a great dramatic quality.
"Father Patrick brought the baby first thing to the hospital. The full-term baby didn’t even weigh four and a half pounds and had bad lungs and a weak heart. No wonder her mother abandoned her. The medical treatments are expensive and even then, the baby didn’t have a high chance of survival. Maybe that’s what she was thinking...her mother... To leave her at the church to have her first and final day on earth surrounded by the love of many..."
Viviana took a sip of wine. That’s how she used to think. But that woman never returned to the Church to check what happened to the baby. Maybe she cried herself to sleep thinking that her baby was resting peacefully.
"Maybe..." Lionel agreed. That is a beautiful way of thinking. He expected bitterness from her for the mother who abandoned her.
She indeed is different from the women he knows.
"The All Saints Church had an orphanage and they enrolled her in it. Unlike some children, she knew her birthdate. Maybe that was the one thing she knew about her for sure—her birthdate. Apart from the charity funds they receive, Father Patrick used his money for her treatments. For some reason, he felt attached to that dark-haired girl he picked up from the wet stone floor on the Feast Day of the Archangels. He named her, he fed her, he hugged her to sleep... And in his embrace, the baby survived. And she grew up..."
"This is interesting so far," Lionel gave his contribution. "She got the love she so much deserved from him. And maybe it was his love that healed her."
Viviana nodded. She loves Father Flanagan very much. He is the one who loved her when she had no one else.
He must have gotten very old these days. She missed him.