by Sara Donati
22
JACK CAME IN late on Friday evening, too tired to bother with the mail or newspapers or the meal Mrs. Cabot had left for him. He and Anna both worked strange hours, and in some ways, Jack supposed, it was a good thing; there was little chance of becoming bored with a routine.
When he closed their bedroom door behind himself Anna gave a half yawn and put aside the journal she was reading. “You look vaguely familiar. Have we been introduced?”
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You’re right, it feels like a week since we’ve had any time alone. I was worried you’d be asleep.”
“Not quite.” She sat up and yawned again, turning her head to muffle the sound against her shoulder and stretching so that the long braid that fell to her hips swung like a pendulum. Then, with her palms on the top of her head she arched her back, a pose that raised her breasts up to strain against the thin fabric of her nightgown, as if she were offering them for his admiration. He never remarked on this when it happened, for fear that she would never do it again. They had been married for almost a year, but it was still quite easy to make Anna Savard Mezzanotte blush.
While he undressed and washed his face and hands and scoured teeth and mouth with dentifrice, she told him about her day. Then she cut herself off in the middle of a case history about a four-quarter amputation and pointed at him, in a way she had told him more than once was considered rude.
“You haven’t forgotten your promise about Sam Reason, I hope.”
“I have not.” He climbed into bed. “And I did as you asked.”
One brow shot up. “When did you—”
“This afternoon.”
“So quickly?”
He shrugged; she considered. “Is it bad news?”
“Depends on your perspective.”
A flicker of irritation moved across her face. “You know my perspective. I want Sophie to have the help she needs.” The line that appeared between her brows said very clearly that what she wanted was far more complicated, and further, she did not want to be challenged on this point.
He regarded her for a long moment as he came to sit on the edge of the bed. “You’re hoping for evidence that will force her to send him on his way, but with a clear conscience.”
Before she could work up a denial he raised a finger and put it on her mouth. “Let me finish. I’m sorry to have to disappoint you, but there are no skeletons in his closet I could find. I spoke to the editor at the Globe, a Mr. Fortune. He had nothing but praise for Sam Reason and vouched for his connections.”
She peeled his hand away from her mouth. “Well, then, I’m glad for Sophie, that she has found someone so capable.”
Jack couldn’t help himself, he laughed. She scowled at him, and he laughed harder, slipped his arms around her, and pulled her up against him. Into her hair he whispered, “You are the worst liar.”
She pushed against his chest, to no good end. “I’m not a liar. I’m just trying to overcome my—” She paused.
“Dislike?”
Her mouth puckered, as if the word tasted sour. “Should I pretend he’s not abrasive and condescending?”
“Hmmm.” Jack scrambled for a way to say what he was thinking that wouldn’t rouse her temper. She reared back to study his expression.
“You don’t find him abrasive and condescending.”
“No,” he admitted. “That wasn’t my experience.”
“You’ve spent all of ten minutes with him but you’re willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, on that basis.”
“I’ve spent more than ten minutes with him. I stopped by Stuyvesant Square just after lunch and spent a half hour talking to him. When he left I had a look at his portfolio.”
She crossed her arms and set her mouth in a firm line, which meant he had no choice: he would have to lay it out for her, and right away.
“Anna. Sam Reason is more than capable of helping Sophie get her charity up and running, he’s actually sincerely interested in it. The editor of the Globe says he’s got excellent connections in education and social services. He may have differences of opinion with Sophie, but he’ll keep that to himself because he needs the work. Conrad approves of him, and you know how protective he is. And don’t overlook this fact: because Reason will be there to take over organizational matters, Sophie is free to do more of what she likes. So for example, practice medicine.”
Anna’s surly expression disappeared instantly. “She said that to you?”
“She has an appointment with the director at the Colored Hospital next week.”
Anna collapsed forward to rub her cheek against his shoulder, like a cat staking a claim. “That is a relief.” She stayed just like that, relaxed against him, the curve of her skull in that spot that seemed to have been carved out for it. The thought of food came to him, but before he could speak of it, and in a gesture that was unmistakable, she pressed her open mouth, warm and wet, to the skin just below his ear.
All thoughts of food left him: it was rare that Anna took the initiative. Rare and arousing to the extreme. He found himself smiling so broadly that his cheeks hurt. “Anna Savard, what is on your mind?”
She wasn’t one to play coy, but now she made a humming noise and buried her face in the crook of his neck.
The silence drew out, an oddity between them. With his hands on her back he could feel that she was trembling.
“Are you unwell?”
She shook her head without raising it. “That’s not it.”
He took her shoulders to hold her away from him. “Then what?”
She chewed on her lower lip, as if what she wanted to say needed to be weighed very carefully. “There’s a problem with my cervical cap,” she said finally. “The rubber has separated at the rim.”
He leaned back and brought her with him so that she was resting on his chest.
“Didn’t that happen just—” He paused to think. “In March? How long is a cervical cap supposed to last?”
Anna let out a soft breath. “That depends how much use it gets.” She wrinkled her nose at his grin. “Braggart.”
Jack tugged on her braid. “Do I understand you don’t have a replacement?”
“I meant to get one today,” she said. “But then I never got over to see Clara. I just didn’t have time—”
She leaned forward again to hide her face against his neck and a shudder ran down her back.
“Anna.”
Another humming noise.
“I’m not a sixteen-year-old hothead. I won’t die of frustration.”
After a long moment she propped her chin on his chest to look at him directly. “But I might.”
Anna was not shy. Once they had found their way to his bed, she had learned very quickly to ask for what she wanted or needed. While she might still blush if he was too exact in the words he used, she didn’t hesitate to put her own preferences into words.
So this new hesitation was something out of the ordinary. He would have expected her to be matter-of-fact and unapologetic: no sex until she had replaced her cervical cap. But she wasn’t saying that.
Then what she was trying to say came to him. Again he took her by the shoulders and held her away so he could study her expression. There was some irritation there, some embarrassment, and not very deep beneath the surface, a determination.
They hadn’t talked about children in any depth, not since they were first married. Rosa and Lia Russo had absorbed every free moment, looking after the girls while searching for their brothers, and bringing Tonino—what was left of Tonino—home. Just when things had begun to settle into a routine the Catholic Church had gone to court to reclaim the Russo children, and that battle had demanded all their free time for months.
After all that he couldn’t imagine how to raise the subject of children of their own. Which meant, he could admit to himself
, that the thought had crossed his mind. All he knew for certain was that she did want to have children. When they had decided to marry she had been certain about that, but also about the fact that she couldn’t say when she would be ready. It seemed now that she was.
“So no cervical cap,” he said finally. “We don’t need one anymore. Is that what you’re saying?”
“If you agree.” Her tone was abrupt, as if he had challenged her.
He stroked a damp curl away from her face. “You know I do, but Anna. I’ve seen you looking into a microscope with the exact same expression that’s on your face now. Confused by what you’re looking at, and unhappy at being confused.”
That got him a half smile. “It’s just that you’ve never raised the subject.”
“Was I supposed to? I didn’t want you to feel pressured.”
She inclined her head, acknowledging his point. “You should know, it might not happen right away, or even soon.”
Jack thought of his brothers and their families, the fact that every time he turned around there seemed to be a new Mezzanotte. His sister Celestina had married nine months ago and her first child was due within weeks. The idea that it might be hard to get Anna pregnant had never occurred to him; he had half expected that the cervical cap would not withstand the challenge and she would fall pregnant despite her earnest precautions.
Now he wondered if the Mezzanottes were unusually fertile, or if the women made sure none of the men heard about it when there was a problem.
Anna’s experience was very different, and of course she would worry. Not just because of her medical training and practice, but because her mother—a physician herself—had died in childbed.
He said, “I like the idea, Anna. How long have you been thinking about this?”
She relaxed against him. “It’s been in the back of my mind for a while, but it was the need for a new cervical cap that brought it all into focus. If you are really prepared—”
“Always.” In two quick moves he pulled her to an upright position and lifted her nightgown up and over her head.
She scowled at him once her face was free. “You don’t know what I was going to say.”
Jack tossed her nightgown away. “But I do. And here’s my response: I accept the challenge.” He ran his hands down her back, exploring. “It might take a while, you said. Let’s see what I can manage before dawn.”
She squawked and cuffed him with the heel of her hand, laughing as he began to unbraid her hair, twisting away from him to do it herself. Her dimples carved deep grooves into her cheeks, but her hands were trembling; now that the decision was made and they were ready to take this step, she was letting her guard down, but she was very aware of the dangers.
There was a humming tension between them, a heightened awareness, excitement edged with anxiety. As it had been the first time on a Sunday afternoon in spring, almost exactly a year ago.
Unbound her hair fell like a rumpled veil around her shoulders to the small of her back. He wound his fingers through the mass of it and pulled her up to him to whisper in her ear.
“You’re shivering, you’re so nervous. I’ll have to think of some way to distract you.”
“Be inventive,” she said. “Surprise me.”
23
ELISE WAS BACK at the New Amsterdam, no longer a nurse but not yet a doctor.
“Medical students,” she heard one orderly remark to another as she passed them on her way to sign in for the day. “Ain’t fish, ain’t fowl.”
“True,” said his companion, not bothering to hide his grin. “But either way, both start stinking three days in.”
They were testing her, because she had a reputation at the New Amsterdam, one that had nothing to do with her skills as a nurse. The little nun has a big temper, the story went. And a right hook to match. When one of the orderlies challenged her to fisticuffs before she gave up her position, she responded by raising an eyebrow, her expression blank, and waiting. It didn’t take long for his smile to falter.
The orderlies might still make comments in her hearing, but none of them would approach her, now that she was a medical student. It was an odd but interesting position to be in: there, but not there. Not fish nor fowl; not yet a doctor, no longer a nurse. It gave her perspective, she realized, as she began noticing things that must have been true all along. For example: everyone complained. Some more quietly than others, but everyone was dissatisfied. Nurses complained about matrons; matrons complained about nurses but most especially about student nurses; student nurses complained about orderlies, matrons, their instructors, their lodging, and the food, but they complained in hushed whispers and only to each other. Unless they were very foolish. Doctors, matrons, and clerks complained about administrators, while administrators were primarily at odds with doctors, and with each other.
Few nurses were brave enough to complain about doctors where they might be overheard, but they loved to complain about the matrons. Elise thought it unfair. If you could prove yourself capable, you earned a matron’s respect and she would treat you like a thinking, responsible adult. Matrons could be irritable and unfair, on occasion, but the worst matron had nothing on some of the resident physicians who supervised medical students.
Elise had promised herself that she wouldn’t complain about anyone to anyone, but after the first morning of her first rotation with Dr. Laura McClure, she knew she would have broken this promise if not for Sally Fontaine.
It was Elise’s good fortune that Sally was the other second-year medical student assigned to Dr. McClure. Sally was irreverent, steadfast, enchanted by the absurd, impossible to offend, hardworking, and by far the smartest person in their class. She was also mysterious and never talked about herself, which aroused suspicions among their classmates. Some thought she must be poor and ashamed of it; others thought she was rich and proud.
After that first morning in Dr. McClure’s company Sally presented her diagnosis to Elise, which was concise and insightful.
“She doesn’t feel right unless she’s got somebody pinned down and at her mercy.”
Elise couldn’t disagree. It was Dr. McClure’s habit to pepper students with sudden questions, to which she expected immediate, thoughtful, concise, but thorough answers. The responses she got rarely met her standards; then again, when she got an answer she couldn’t criticize, her mood got worse. It was Sally’s destiny to run afoul of Dr. McClure, especially once it became clear that McClure was as short tempered with the patients as she was with medical students.
A young boy shivering in fear, a middle-aged woman insensible with pain, a prostitute with a weakness for absinthe and a failing liver who barked right back at Dr. McClure, they were all the same to her. She looked at the patient, did a cursory examination, read the chart, asked questions, criticized answers, and handed the case over to a medical student with very little in the way of instructions.
Sally declared Dr. McClure a bully, and Elise had to agree.
* * *
• • •
ON HER SECOND day in Dr. McClure’s service Elise was assigned Tadeusz Kozlow, a boy of ten with a carbuncle the size of a goose egg in his armpit, inflamed and crusted and weeping pus, so painful that he stifled a scream when she gently lifted his arm to examine it. He was feverish, and Elise didn’t like the way the inflammation had crept along his shoulder and over his chest. It would have to be opened and drained, and as quickly as possible. And that would need to be done by a surgeon.
Before Elise could present the case to Dr. McClure with a proposal that a surgeon be called to evaluate, she had to get a medical history on which to base her reasoning. As a nurse she could have taken things into her own hands and sought out a surgeon, but now that she was a medical student that was no longer an option. It made no sense, but few things did in the way the hospital operated.
Taking the boy’s history would have been
a matter of minutes, if he or the older sister who brought him to the hospital spoke English, but they did not. Whatever they spoke, Elise didn’t recognize it and so she went to find a language placard.
There were two or three in every ward, thick cardboard cards grimy with age and soft at the edges from handling. On it was a list of languages first in English, and then in the target language itself, written by many different hands. The patient would look down the list to point to the language that she recognized—if, of course, the patient could read and write. A good two-thirds of their patients could do neither, and in those cases the person asking questions had to read the names of the languages out loud.
Luckily the boy’s sister could read. She ran a finger down the list and stopped at Polski. Then it took far too long to track down someone who could translate Polish, but in the end Elise had been able to present her case to Dr. McClure, who was talking to a nursing matron. Without glancing at Elise she held out her hand for the chart, took it, and frowned as she read.
“I could just tell you what will happen here,” she said, pushing her spectacles up her nose. “But instead I’ll sign off on a surgical consult. More for you than him. Your favorite surgeon is in house, see if she’ll take him on as a favor to you.”
In that moment Elise recalled a lesson from her training as a nurse, when Sister Hildegard had mocked her when an infant who had seemed to be rallying died in her arms. A tear ran down her cheek before she could catch it, and Sister Hildegard had seen it.
“Babies die,” she had said. “Haven’t you learned that by now? A brilliant student, they tell me, but you haven’t got what it takes to be a nurse.”
In time Elise had proved Sister Hildegard wrong, and now she drew from that memory the strength to hide her anger and embarrassment, accepted the chart and signed order that Dr. McClure held out, and walked away.
As she went she wondered why Dr. McClure disliked Anna Savard, and whether she might ask Anna herself that question.
