Where the Light Enters
Page 1
ALSO BY SARA DONATI
The Gilded Hour
THE WILDERNESS NOVELS
Into the Wilderness
Dawn on a Distant Shore
Lake in the Clouds
Fire Along the Sky
Queen of Swords
The Endless Forest
BERKLEY
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Copyright © 2019 by Rosina Lippi-Green
Readers Guide copyright © 2019 by Rosina Lippi-Green
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Donati, Sara, 1956– author.
Title: Where the light enters / Sara Donati.
Description: First edition. | New York: Berkley, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019008855 | ISBN 9780425271827 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780698140684 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Women physicians—New York (State)—History—19th century—Fiction. | Women—Social conditions—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Historical. | FICTION / Sagas. | GSAFD: Historical fiction
Classification: LCC PS3554.O46923 W48 2019 | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019008855
First Edition: September 2019
Cover design by Sarah Oberrender
Cover photographs: Couple on the Brooklyn Bridge © akg-images / Waldemar Abegg; Brooklyn Bridge, c. 1912 © GRANGER/GRANGER
Maps and interior art by Rosina Lippi
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
For my cousin Mary Reardon Travis, who remembers.
CONTENTS
Also by Sara Donati
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Primary Characters
Family Tree
Stuyvesant Square Map
Part I: Weeds and Roses
Part II: Journey HomeChapter 1
Part III: Stuyvesant SquareChapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Readers Guide
About the Author
The wound is the place where the light enters.
—RUMI (attributed)
PRIMARY CHARACTERS
Verhoeven Family
Sophie Savard Verhoeven, physician
Peter (Cap) Verhoeven, a lawyer; Pip, their dog
Conrad Belmont, Cap’s uncle, a lawyer
Bram and Baltus Decker, Cap’s cousins, lawyers
On Stuyvesant Square
Minerva Griffin, widow, philanthropist
Nicholas Lambert, Minerva’s grand-nephew, a physician and head of forensics at Bellevue Hospital
Quinlan Household on Waverly Place (Roses)
Lily Quinlan, artist and widow of (1) Simon Ballentyne and (2) Harrison Quinlan. Originally Lily Bonner of Paradise.
Henry and Jane Lee, her household staff
Elise Mercier, medical student
Bambina Mezzanotte, art student
Mezzanotte/Savard Household on Waverly Place (Weeds) & Associates
Jack Mezzanotte, detective sergeant, New York police
Anna Savard Mezzanotte, physician and surgeon
Eve Cabot, their housekeeper; Skidder, her dog
Oscar Maroney, detective sergeant, New York police, Jack’s partner
Ned Nediani, family friend
Weeksville, Brooklyn
Delilah Reason, widow
Sam Reason, her adult grandson, a printer
Staff at Various Hospitals and Dispensaries
Laura McClure, physician, New Amsterdam Charity Hospital
Maura Kingsolver, physician and surgeon, New Amsterdam Charity Hospital
Gus Martindale, physician, New Amsterdam Charity Hospital
Sally Fontaine, medical student, Woman’s Medical School
Margit Troy, nurse, New Amsterdam Charity Hospital
Marion Ellery, nurse, New Amsterdam Charity Hospital
*Abraham Jacobi, physician, pediatric specialist, Children’s Hospital
*Mary Putnam Jacobi, physician, faculty, Woman’s Medical School
Martin Zängerle, physician, Switzerland
Manuel Thalberg, physician, German Dispensary
Pius Granqvist, physician and director, Infant Hospital
Nicholas Lambert, pathologist, forensic specialist, Bellevue
In the Vicinity of Jefferson Market
Nora and Geoffrey Smithson, Smithson’s Apothecary
Rev. Crowley, Shepherd’s Fold Orphan Asylum
Mrs. Crowley, his mother, a widow
Grace Miller, housemaid at the Shepherd’s Fold
Thaddeus Hobart, Hobart’s Bookshop
Kate Sparrow, Patchin Place
Louden Family
Jeremy Louden, a banker
Charlotte Abercrombie Louden, his wife
Leontine Reed, Charlotte Louden’s lady’s maid
Minnie Louden Gillespie, their married daughter
Ernestine Abercrombie, Charlotte’s mother
Mezzanotte Family & Associates
Alfonso and Philomena Mezzanotte, florists, Manhattan
Ercole and Rachel Mezzanotte, floriculturists, apiarists, Greenwood, New Jersey; their adult children and children’s families, including
Leo and Carmela and family, Greenwood, including Rosa, Tonino, and Lia Russo, orphans
Jack and Anna Savard, Manhattan
Celestina, Brooklyn
Bambina, student, Manhattan
*Asterisk indicates historical character
LEGEND
1. Hummel
2. Frankel
3. DeClerck
4. Baumgarten
5. St. George Flats
6. St. John Baptist House
7. Webster
8. Verhoeven
9. Fish
10. St. Giles Roman Catholic Church
11. Griffin
12. DeVelder
13. St. George’s Episcopal Church
14. Rectory
15. Saloon
16. The Parlor
17. Dr. Cox
18. Friends’ Seminary
19. Friends’ Meeting House
20. St. James Lutheran Church
21. NY Infirmary for Women & Children
22. Woman’s Medical School
PART I
Weeds and Roses
January 1–March 24, 1884
January 1, 1884
Dear Auntie, Dear every one of you,
The Swiss greet each other on New Year’s Eve with this saying: “Rutscht gut rein ins neue Jahr!” If I understand correctly this means “I wish you a good slide into the New Year,” which I suppose makes sense, given the snow and the mountains and the amount of schnapps consumed during New Year’s Eve celebrations. For some reason no one can explain, pigs are considered good luck at the New Year, and thus this small offering in India ink rather than pink marzipan.
Aunt Quinlan is not, I trust, sliding anywhere, but sitting snug in the parlor wrapped in the blue shawl that brings out the color of her eyes, with the rest of you gathered all around. How we would like to be there with you to wish you good health and happiness in this new year 1884. With all my heart I wish those things for you.
Cap was especially sad to miss Mrs. Lee’s traditional New Year’s Eve turkey dinner. Apparently that particular bird is unknown in the Alps. But do not fear: we are served good food in abundance. Mrs. Fink is not quite so talented as Mrs. Lee, but still we are eating regularly and very well.
All is calm just now, as Cap is napping. Pip is tucked up against Cap’s shoulder with his nose pressed against the pulse point just below the left ear, an attentive little dog with the instincts of a nurse. This means that I have a short while to write without pauses for cross-examination.
Do you remember how Cap told us he wouldn’t miss practicing law? As it turns out, he could only make that claim because he knew he would still have me to practice on. Whatever I write, to whomever I am writing, if I don’t send it off to the post before he realizes what I am up to, he insists that I read every sentence to him. His contribution to my letters consists of suggestions for alternate phrasing and, on occasion, challenges to my reasoning, memory, or grammar. More than once I have been tempted to throw the inkpot at his head (this seems to be a family tradition, established by Aunt Quinlan shortly before her first marriage when she hit Uncle Ballentyne in the forehead with some kind of pot, if I remember the story correctly). Fortunately Cap always stops just short of inciting me to violence. And then he finds some way to make me laugh.
We might have known that a stay in a sanatorium, no matter how secluded and hemmed in by alpine glaciers, would not put an end to his curiosity. Even the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacillus has not accomplished so much. He is still working his way through the clinic’s medical library and every publication that deals, however peripherally, with diseases of the lung. At this point I believe he knows as much about tuberculosis as I do. Luckily Dr. Zängerle is better informed than I.
If Cap is not strong enough on a given day to hold a book, I am pressed into reading aloud. Even when he can read and write for himself, my assistance is required for interrogation on medical terminology (though that happens less often as his studies progress). This frequently involves forays into Latin and Greek etymology and anatomical texts and illustrations. His lungs are failing but his mind is as acute as ever.
Your letter dated December 9th arrived this morning, taken down so diligently by Mrs. Lee in her careful script. Today we also had a letter from Conrad about the custody hearing. The news is distressing, to say the least. If only I had something useful to say or contribute beyond the letters I write. Until there is some decision from the court I will assume that things will take a reasonable and just end, and the children will stay on Waverly Place with Anna and Jack, where they belong.
I’m sorry to say that my weekly report on Cap’s condition is also not what I would hope. A few days ago his right lung collapsed. In an otherwise healthy person, a collapsed lung will often right itself in time, with bed rest and breathing exercises. In advanced pulmonary tuberculosis it is quite common, far more critical, and rarely resolved. In Cap’s case the collapse was not fatal because Dr. Zängerle was so quick. With Dr. Messmer’s assistance he inserted a drainage tube between Cap’s ribs and into the pleura, with the end result that his lung did reinflate. The tube remains in place despite the fact that there are serious complications that could arise from this artificial opening, but as you are aware, medical science is an exercise in constant juggling of risks and benefits.
What all this means, as I think you will know, is that he is not improving. I can admit to you that I never believed that alpine air and fortified nutrition would reverse the damage to his lungs, but I did hope that it would slow the progress of the disease. As it may have done. In any case, I am where I belong, here with him. He will leave me too soon, but until that day I will make the most of every moment.
Cap is stirring. It is a relief when he is able to fall into a deep sleep; for that short time he looks more like the boy I first met when I came to Waverly Place almost twenty years ago. He was so alive, I could never have imagined him like this. Now I must close this letter before he demands that I read it to him.
With all my love and affection, your devoted niece, cousin, auntie, and friend
Sophie
Post Script: We have had some long and chatty letters. Margaret wrote from Greece where she is still with her boys. Travel does seem to suit her very well. More surprising we had a letter from Cousin Carrie, who wrote about the new clinic they are building in Santa Fe.
Post Script for Mrs. Lee: The sight of your handwriting on an envelope gives us both such pleasure. Most of all we look forward to the small notes and observations you provide in the margins. It is almost like hearing your voice, which might be the thing I miss most. Please give our love to Mr. Lee and your family.
And for Lia: To answer the question added to the end of Auntie Q’s last letter, yes, the housekeeper’s name really is H
annelore Fink. In German “fink” doesn’t mean the same thing that it does in English.
QUINLAN
18 WAVERLY PLACE
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
January 11, 1884
Dearest Sophie and Cap,
Today we received your express letter dated the first of the year, which we all enjoyed very much.* Please pardon this short reply, but I write in haste to make you aware of impending unhappy news. The enclosed article from yesterday’s New York Herald will make the situation clear. We expect word on the court’s ruling at any moment. Maybe even today.
After talking to Conrad, it is my sense of things that Anna and Jack’s guardianship will be revoked and the children will be remanded to the custody of the Catholic Church. I may be wrong†—I hope I am wrong—but in case I am not, you are bound to hear from Anna and perhaps Rosa in short order. Anna will be devastated, Rosa will be inconsolable, and both of them will pour their hearts out. You do not need advice from me on how to respond to them, but I thought it would be useful to have an extra day or two to consider and prepare.
Please keep in mind that if the ruling does favor the Church’s petition, Conrad is prepared to file an immediate appeal and request that the children not be sent back to the orphan asylum until that is resolved.‡ He believes that this request would be granted.
You should know that Anna and Jack have been surrounded by well-wishers and friends and family. Of course they miss you. We all miss you, but there is no lack of support. Jack’s parents and all the Mezzanottes have been diligent about attending the hearings. They were interviewed by Judge Sutherland in private, which can only help, because they are such responsible, attentive, and loving people which the judge will see and weigh against the lack of traditional religious affiliations. I insist that it be so. In addition, there have been letters of support from many colleagues including the Drs. Jacobi and hospital directors and police department captains.
Things may be in turmoil here in the days to come, but I will write as soon as possible.