Where the Light Enters

by Sara Donati

  “Your new occupation is turning you into a philosopher,” Sophie said.

  Leo took up the reins and paused, looking at no one at all while he spoke. “I’m afraid there is a problem. Jack’s right, Papa went ahead so I could tell you about it before we get home.”

  * * *

  • • •

  JUST THAT EASILY the light mood slipped away, and something came to Sophie that her mother would have called a premonition and her grandmother Hannah a waking dream. She had never known her grandmother, but the stories were legend, and as a girl she had memorized them. A different way of knowing, her mother explained. Not everything comes through the eyes and ears.

  While Leo negotiated the wagon and team away from the dock and through the town, they let him concentrate on the traffic. By the time they turned onto the road that took them into the countryside, Anna was at her wit’s end. Sophie saw it in the set of her jaw. Jack saw it too, because he poked his brother hard in the shoulder.

  “Out with it,” he said. “Before she goes off like a cannon.”

  Leo cleared his throat. “Rosa and Lia are in good health.”

  “But not Tonino?” Anna said.

  “If you mean his mind and spirit, I would say he’s improving. He has been talking, just a little, with Mama. No one else. The girls don’t even know, so don’t mention it to them.”

  Anna sat back. “That is good news. Sophie, don’t you think?”

  Sophie said, “I think Leo has more to say.”

  He glanced at her, his expression somber. “Now and then Tonino has a fever. Trouble swallowing. He is tired a lot of the time. There are other things, Mama will talk to you about them.”

  “Has she been dosing him?” Anna didn’t seem worried about this, which said to Sophie that she was familiar with the household remedies her mother-in-law favored and had no particular problem with any of them.

  Leo inclined his head. “This question you must ask Mama. All I know is that none of the usual things have been helpful.”

  “And how long has it been since it started?”

  “A month, but it came on slowly. It’s not catching, Mama says.”

  Sophie studied the horizon for a long moment. “When I least expect it, I find myself practicing medicine. I’m glad I brought my Gladstone bag. Would you mind very much if we changed the subject for a few minutes? I want to hear about what I’m seeing as we drive along. Jack?”

  He seemed to be relieved to have this task, something to occupy his thoughts. And it was not the first time he had given a tour of the place where he grew up; she could tell by the way Anna smiled that she had heard these stories before. Jack recited the names of roads and rivers, talked about the farmers who owned the pastures and fields, and pointed out an orchard that belonged to a Spaniard who was trying to establish olive trees and having a rough time of it.

  “As we told him he would,” Leo added.

  They went through a very small town composed of a church, a general store, a school, a blacksmithy, and a scattering of houses, two of which, she learned, were occupied by cousins. Sophie was reminded of the train ride from Switzerland to Italy and the talkative conductor who pointed out small landmarks with such pride.

  This was a far less crowded landscape, very green with a narrow road that wound one way and another, through a wood and then out again to run along fields separated by fences. Wildflowers filled the ditches, and Jack and Leo took turns naming them and then arguing about their names.

  Anna was so quiet that in other circumstances Sophie would have been concerned, but she understood how her cousin’s mind worked. She had been handed a set of symptoms that required a diagnosis. A listless boy with an intermittent fever and sore throat. And this had been going on for a month, according to Leo.

  It made no sense to start with differential diagnoses before they saw Tonino and were able to examine him, but Anna was doing just that; her mind would not be quieted. She would chip away with the small bit of information they had, which taken together could be nothing at all or something serious. Given his age, more likely nothing. But it was also true that they still knew nothing about what he had experienced for the two months he was lost in the city.

  “There,” Jack said, drawing her out of her thoughts. He pointed with his chin. “The outbuildings. When we come over this rise you’ll see the houses.”

  “You like coming home,” Sophie observed.

  “With Anna, I like coming home. And I like leaving again, with Anna.”

  * * *

  • • •

  FOR SOPHIE THE rest of the day was a blur of dozens of faces with names that wandered and would not settle. To her relief Cara, one of Jack’s older nieces, assigned herself to Sophie and stayed by her side.

  “This is Michaela,” Cara would whisper to Sophie. “No English, but don’t worry, she’s too deaf to realize you’re not speaking Italian. She’s eighty on her next birthday.”

  Then Lia or Rosa would pop up and drag her away to see something or someone, Cara bobbing along behind.

  “Is it always like this?” Sophie asked Cara when a rare moment of silence found them.

  Cara craned her head to the left and right. “Like what?”

  “So busy. So many people.”

  “Oh,” Cara said. “Not usually. But it’s Uncle Jack’s birthday, and Nonna makes a fuss about her sons.”

  “Not about her daughters?”

  She gave a philosophical shrug. “Not in the same way.”

  “Nonna likes boys better than girls,” Lia said, popping up beside Sophie and giving her a shock. “But she loves us all.”

  Sophie and Cara exchanged a glance, one that said it would be best not to pursue this line of conversation at the present moment.

  “Come,” Lia said, grabbing Sophie’s hand and tugging. “See my room.”

  34

  THEY WENT TO bed full of good food, strong wine, and Mrs. Lee’s cake. Anna groaned in the direction of the ceiling.

  “I won’t be able to eat for a week. I may have to purge if I want to walk again.”

  Jack turned his head to nuzzle his way to her scalp. “You complain now but in the morning you’ll be hungry.”

  “Not this time,” Anna said, pushing him away. “This time it really was too much. The room is spinning.”

  A rumble of thunder rolled in through the open window and brought a cool breeze with it.

  “Oh.” She turned toward the window. “There’s hope for me. A thunderstorm is just the thing. You know what else would help?”

  One hand slid down the curve of her hip and she batted it away. “Not that. At least, not at this moment. Tell me a story. The best birthday.”

  Jack yawned. “That’s easy. Today. Today is my best birthday because it’s the first one I’ve spent with you.”

  “You sweet talker,” Anna said, and fell away into sleep.

  * * *

  • • •

  WHEN SHE WOKE, minutes or hours later, the rain was falling in earnest and the first flicker of lightning pulsed through the room. She might have slept through the storm, but not through the scratching at the door.

  “The girls,” Anna said, and Jack pivoted away to get the undershirt he had left draped over a chair. Apparently he had anticipated this late-night visit because she saw now that he still had his drawers on.

  “Come in,” Anna called. “But count to five fist.”

  The door swung open almost immediately. “I counted to six!” Lia announced as Rosa propelled her into the room.

  At the foot of the bed they paused, and then in a flurry of movement jumped in and crawled to fill the space Anna made for them by scooting to one side.

  “I couldn’t sleep without you.” Lia said this half in English and half Italian, and as was her sister’s habit, Rosa corrected her.

 
“One language or the other.” Rosa spoke English, because Anna’s Italian was improving, but slow, and Rosa was always at pains not to leave people out.

  “I don’t know how you’ll be able to sleep with us,” Jack said. “Somebody will end up on the floor. You two are growing far too fast. Lia is almost as tall as me.”

  He would have gone on making Lia laugh, but Anna gave him a look that told him to be quiet and wait because it was obvious that Rosa had come with a question, but she must ask it in her own way. And Anna was glad of a few minutes to consider how to tell Rosa what she must know. To think through the events of the afternoon and find words that would not alarm the girl more than necessary.

  * * *

  • • •

  AFTER THE TUMULT of their arrival and the reunion with Sophie, the great production that was a six-course lunch for some forty people, the birthday cake and toasts, and a nap, Sophie and Anna had sought out Jack’s mother.

  She was sitting at the table in the kitchen stripping seeds out of a great pile of wilted flowers and dropping them into a bowl. She smiled at them and pointed with her chin to the chairs opposite her. Then the formula, as Anna thought of it, started: did they want coffee? tea? something to eat? A dozen possibilities were presented, and Anna knew from experience if she showed the slightest interest, Rachel Mezzanotte would jump up from the table to cook an entire meal, for her alone.

  “No, we wanted to talk to you,” Anna said.

  “You want to know about Tonino.”

  Sophie said, “Leo tells us he’s been talking to you, a little.”

  Rachel’s fingers moved with great speed and dexterity as she worked her way through the blossoms. Bright yellows, deep oranges, fiery reds.

  “Not very much at all,” she said. “Just per favore and grazie. It’s a great step forward, but there’s this other problem. Leo told you about the boy’s symptoms?”

  It was impolite for one physician to interrupt another when she was relating a case history, and so Anna and Sophie listened as Rachel listed her observations: a fever that came and went, a sore throat and some swelling beneath the jaw on both sides, but no reddening of the tonsils that she was able to see. Night sweats so serious that Carmela had thought at first the boy had reverted to wetting his bed. He had lost weight, though he ate what he found on his plate. And he was often listless. She had tried various teas and tinctures without results.

  The very act of listing his symptoms had a dampening effect on her. Her eyes went red at the lower rims and she pressed two knuckles to her forehead. “Not good.”

  Italians were supposed to be emotional, but the Mezzanotte women were more likely to go in the opposite direction: the worse the situation, the quieter the reaction. The men were another matter altogether.

  “You have questions, so go ahead. I’ll do my best.” Her smile was grim.

  Surprised, Sophie leaned forward. “Mrs. Mezzanotte—Rachel, please, this isn’t a test. You have raised eight children of your own, any number of foster children, and you are surrounded by grandchildren. This is a conversation we’re having, not an exam. So tell me, what do you make of all this?”

  Rachel nodded. “I appreciate your confidence in me, so let me simply answer the question. I don’t think it’s his tonsils. It’s something bigger. Something worse.”

  “Can you explain to us what makes you think this?” Anna said.

  She studied her hands for a long moment. “Sometimes,” she began. “Sometimes you feel a child turning away, closing himself off. It can be something that’s troubling his mind. It usually is. But sometimes illness lays claim quietly. This is what happened with my brother. He had a cancer of the blood, but my mother knew long before the doctors did. She said she felt it gathering in him like a storm. That will sound like foolishness to you, trained doctors, both of you.”

  “Not at all,” Sophie said. “You couldn’t know that there have been many women healers in our families—Anna’s and mine—and the first to actually study medicine formally was Anna’s mother. But they were all excellent physicians, and they valued the instincts that you’re describing.”

  “Any sensible doctor would,” Anna added.

  Rachel said, “If I’m wrong and it is his tonsils, will you take them out?”

  Anna and Sophie exchanged a glance.

  “I won’t operate away from the hospital unless it’s a matter of life and death,” Anna said. “We would have to take him back to the city with us. At the New Amsterdam we can run tests that will give us a better idea of what’s wrong. But there’s no reason to assume the worst. Do you think he’ll let Sophie examine him?”

  It was a question that Rachel Mezzanotte couldn’t easily answer, but she thought that if anyone could convince the boy, it would be her husband. “Can you be there too, Anna?”

  “If he wants me, of course. Or Aunt Quinlan. Or you.”

  “It doesn’t have to be frightening,” Sophie said.

  Anna touched her cousin’s arm. “Not the way you do it.” They both had multiple experiences of doctors who frightened children with their abrupt and impatient ways. Male and female doctors who focused on the injury or the illness and took no more note of tears and trembling than a carpenter did of sawdust. But Sophie was not such a doctor.

  “Don’t listen to her,” Sophie said. “Anna likes to pretend that her patients are afraid of her, but I know better.”

  Anna cleared her throat. “I try very hard not to frighten them, but I fear that I sometimes get caught up in the science and lose sight of the patient.”

  “I don’t believe you,” her mother-in-law said. “It’s not in your nature, though you think it is.”

  Anna forced herself to smile. “It’s Tonino we need to examine. When will we do this?”

  * * *

  • • •

  NOW, MANY HOURS later, Rosa finally asked what was wrong with her brother and Lia’s giggling died away.

  “We don’t know,” Anna told her. “We haven’t examined him yet.”

  “He might not let you.”

  Anna said, “We can be patient.”

  “What do you think is wrong with him, then?”

  “Rosa,” Jack said. “You want promises that no one can give you.”

  “But you’ll examine him tomorrow?”

  “That’s the plan, yes.”

  “And you’ll tell me what’s wrong?” Her whole body tensed in anticipation of a refusal.

  “If there is something wrong, and if we can figure out what it is right away, I’ll tell you. It might take some time, Rosa, but if I can’t tell you tomorrow, I’ll tell you why I can’t tell you.”

  She caught Jack’s glance. He didn’t need an explanation about what she was trying to accomplish with Rosa; he could see for himself that the girl was too fraught to deal with details that in her current state would only frighten or confuse her. But neither could Anna lie to her and give her false reassurances.

  “When tomorrow?”

  “After dinner,” Jack said. “Now look, Lia’s half asleep. I’ll carry her back to bed.”

  Rosa looked as if she wanted to argue.

  “Tomorrow,” Anna said. “I will do my very best to get answers to your questions. But we all need to sleep now. All of us.”

  35

  OF ALL THE things that she left behind at the convent, Elise missed the bells that had ruled her day the most. Before she came to the city, bells had called her to prayer, to mass, to work, and to table. In her days as a student, bells marked the beginning and end of her classes. When she was a postulant and novitiate they had chased her through a day neatly carved into worship, lessons, housekeeping, study, and work in the clinics. She had thought it would be good to be free of bells and found just the opposite to be true.

  Now she woke on what she thought must be a Sunday morning, but she had to conce
ntrate before she could be sure of that much. Yes. Sunday morning. The last day of her rotation with Dr. McClure.

  Part of her confusion had to do with the fact that the house was silent, in a way that was markedly different from a house where everyone slept. On this Sunday morning Roses was empty, because they had all gone to Greenwood for the weekend.

  Which wasn’t quite true. Mr. Lee was in the little house he shared with his wife at the bottom of the garden, because a carpenter was coming to take apart the bedsteads for spring cleaning. Elise would get her own breakfast today, and she was thinking of doing just that until the clock in the hall struck half past five. Getting to the New Amsterdam in time for rounds with Dr. McClure was going to be a challenge, one she would have to meet on an empty stomach.

  * * *

  • • •

  ALL THE WAY to the hospital Elise lectured herself in the strictest terms: she would go the whole day without irritating her supervising physician. She would not draw attention to herself. She would answer questions with exactly the right amount and degree of detail. She promised herself she could do all that, because today was the last day of this rotation, and tomorrow there would be someone else to follow around.

  “Mercier!”

  Elise turned toward the familiar voice. Sally Fontaine came at her at a gallop, her long legs stretching to take the stairs.

  “We’ve got less than a minute to get to the third floor. Race you.”

  And she darted through the door Elise was holding open, laughing gleefully. Of course it was entirely inappropriate and against the rules, but Elise had never been able to resist a footrace. Then she realized who was standing in the stairwell.