by Sara Donati
In the greenhouses they introduced her to the roses, carefully pronouncing their full names: Général Jacqueminot, Louise Odier, Rêve d’Or. She was too late to see the tulips and other bulbs, but there was always next year, Lia reminded her as they hurried her away to see the livestock.
First the cows, then a herd of goats with a dozen kids that rushed them with deafening bleatings and blattings, leaping into the air like India rubber balls. Pip shivered with excitement but stayed at Sophie’s side.
The sheep were in a large field being guarded by the great white dogs Jack had mentioned, apparently asleep until a lamb went bouncing off. Then a shepherd would rise, sinuous and graceful, and lope off to put an end to the attempted escape with a gentle push and nip.
Pip watched this with an expression that Sophie read as critically observant, but he didn’t seem interested in going any nearer. He was far more interested in the henhouse, and Lia’s beloved roosters. There were two of them, and for each, a dozen hens. All of them had names, which made Sophie wonder if the poultry never showed up on the dinner table. A question she kept to herself.
The Mezzanotte cousins trailed them through the tour, drifting away at times and appearing out of nowhere to announce facts of importance: Marco had fallen from this apple tree and broken a wrist. Rabbits lived underneath that tool shed. The black barn cat with one gray ear had a litter of seven kittens, every one of them white, except for the two that were gray, and one that was striped. Pip was hefted up and onto the shoulders of one of the bigger boys, where he rode with great dignity.
In all the back-and-forth, children coming and going, there was no sign of Tonino. Sophie had thought he would keep out of her way, but she also had the feeling that he was watching her from just out of sight. Last night Jack’s father had had a talk with him about Sophie and why she could be trusted, and now he was observing her to decide for himself. If Tonino disappeared into the woods rather than let himself be examined, they would have to come up with another plan.
This thought was still foremost in her mind when the clanging of a dinner bell came to them from far off.
Rosa’s expression shifted first to surprise and then dismay. “Sunday dinner! Already! And I haven’t been helping.” In the tones of a disappointed mother she surveyed the Mezzanotte cousins who were still with them, hands on hips, and made a statement in Italian that had them all trotting off for the house with her.
Lia, who was very capable of standing up to her sister, stayed behind to escort Sophie and Pip at a more reasonable pace.
Sophie had spent a lot of time with the girls when they first came to Waverly Place. Newly orphaned, their brothers missing, and in desperate need of more than food and shelter. Lia was an open and affectionate child, one who grieved without apology, asked for comfort and accepted it gladly. Rosa, swamped by guilt, shut herself off.
Now Lia slipped a hand into Sophie’s to tug her along.
“Do you like to eat?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“Good. Because you have to eat. A lot. Or at least, a little of everything. Because if you don’t, somebody’s feelings will be hurt. You don’t know the aunts, but you don’t want to hurt their feelings. It takes forever for them to get over hurt feelings. Now listen, you know bracciol’?”
Sophie did not, and said so.
“It’s meat pounded thin, they wrap it around more meat and cheese and an olive and eggs and other things, and tie it together with string and cook it in sauce. But the aunts all make bracciol’ in their own way. And every one of them thinks hers is best. Do you know what I mean?”
Sophie believed that she did. “If I have a very little of each kind of bracciol’ and say I can’t decide which is most delicious, will that work?”
Lia shrugged a shoulder. “It’s worth a try. And remember you have to eat vegetables, even the ones that don’t look so good. Like the little green trees.”
“Broccoli?”
Lia shuddered. “Broccoli.”
“I like broccoli,” Sophie said. This was in fact not true, but she was curious about Lia’s reaction.
“No, you don’t,” Lia said. “You have to say you do because you’re a grown-up. But nobody likes eating trees. Not even with white gravy and pepper.”
Sophie bit back a smile. “All right,” she said. “I’ll be sure to eat some of everything, including the trees.”
Lia stopped suddenly and frowned up at her. “There’s no broccoli yet, it’s too early.”
“They don’t grow it in one of the greenhouses?”
A look of horror passed over the little girl’s face. “Don’t say that. You might give them ideas.” She squinted hard at Sophie. “I’m not being funny.”
“No?” Sophie said.
“I’m not trying to be funny,” Lia amended. “Now let’s go eat.”
* * *
• • •
WHITE GRAVY TURNED out to be some kind of milky sauce that tasted of cheese and basil, layered between sheets of pasta with more cheese. Mindful of the good advice she had been given, Sophie took some of it along with a little of everything else. At the children’s table Lia had positioned herself so that she could keep an eye on Sophie’s progress. It seemed Sophie was doing well, because no corrections or advice had come from that direction.
There were multiple discussions going on at the adult table that swam back and forth like schools of fish. Sophie contributed where she understood something of the subject or where someone asked her a question. Anna was at the opposite end of the table between Jack and Ned and was no help at all.
“These people want to like you,” her Aunt Quinlan said to her at one point, her voice low. “Let them.”
But Sophie found herself watching Bambina and her female cousins, all of them kept busy with serving. The division of labor here was very strict, and she imagined that had always irked Bambina, who put such importance on her independence and personal dignity.
Mrs. Lee leaned toward Sophie and pressed her shoulder. “Now I finally got the chance, I want to say something to you.”
Sophie put down her fork and turned toward the older woman. “You can say anything to me, Mrs. Lee.”
She smiled and patted Sophie’s hand. “Maybe so. But whether you are listening, that’s the question. So now, you see Anna down there, looking so happy?”
“I do.”
“That will be you one day,” said Mrs. Lee. “You are far too young to settle for less than happy, and I won’t allow it.”
“Less than—” She looked around herself. “I doubt there’s another situation like this anywhere.”
“No, but there’s something else, just right for you.”
Sophie wasn’t sure what to say, so she did her best to look as if she agreed. “I hope you’re right,” she said.
Mrs. Lee was not fooled.
“No,” she said. “You don’t believe me. Not yet. But that day will come.”
* * *
• • •
AS IT TURNED out, Tonino Russo was not so skittish a child or as stubborn as they had been led to believe. Jack’s father—Nonno, as the children called him—had explained that Dr. Anna and Dr. Sophie wanted to examine him because Nonna was worried about his health. He listened, stared at his bare feet for a long moment, and then nodded. When Ercole got up as if to leave, Tonino grabbed his hand and pointed to a chair.
Leo and Carmela’s house had been home to the Russo children since January, and so they met in that small, neat parlor, and Sophie began by unpacking her Gladstone bag and handing things to Tonino for him to examine. She talked about the stethoscope in terms that a child would understand, and waited for Ercole to translate, though it seemed to Anna that Tonino understood Sophie well enough. It was hard to know how much English he had at his command, but now was not the time to explore that question.
Sophie’s manner was gentle but not hesitant, assured but not overwhelming. She asked for his cooperation and got it without hesitation while she listened to his chest, looked down his throat, palpated his abdomen.
“Does it hurt when I press here?”
Ercole began to translate, but the boy was already shaking his head.
The only time Sophie hesitated was when she lifted his shirt and saw the scars on his back.
“On his legs, too,” Anna told her.
Sophie made a humming sound and turned her face down and to the side while she ran her fingers over the boy’s jawline, neck, and shoulders. His expression was stoic, but his hands were fisted. If not for his nonno, Anna thought he might have run from the room.
While Sophie went on palpating down his torso from armpits to waist she asked questions that he could answer with a shake or nod of the head. Some of these questions had already been answered by Rachel, but she wanted to know how Tonino experienced his symptoms. Did he cough at night sometimes? Wake up sweating? Was his skin itchy?
The last question Ercole answered for him, taking Tonino’s fisted hand and unfurling the fingers to show nails clipped almost to the quick.
“He scratched so hard he drew blood on his arms and legs, so Carmela cuts his nails every morning.”
Sophie took one last look at Tonino’s face, her gaze sweeping over him. Then she sat back and smiled at him. It was a perfectly amiable smile, and it made Anna’s heart sink in her chest.
* * *
• • •
TO DISTRACT HIMSELF while the examination was going on, Jack went to help in the greenhouse, stopping only when he realized they had just over an hour to get to the ferry landing. Turning into their room, he ran into Anna and knocked the things she was carrying right out of her hands.
“You’re packing.”
“As you see.”
They crouched down to gather the scattered clothes.
“I thought you’d still be with Sophie. Is it bad?”
“I’m not sure,” Anna said. “It might be. It probably is.”
Jack recognized her tone, one he heard when she related troubling case histories. They stood, and she took the clothes from him.
“Bottom line?”
She hesitated and glanced at the door. When Jack had closed it she said, “We have to take him to the city with us. Sophie wants Dr. Jacobi to examine him, and we need to do a blood count.”
Jack had begun to strip out of his work clothes, but he paused. “Where will he sleep?”
They couldn’t take the boy home to Waverly Place, not without risking an arrest.
“Leo and Carmela are going to sign a letter entrusting his care to Sophie. As his guardians it’s their responsibility to see that he gets medical treatment when he needs it, and there’s nothing in the judge’s ruling about how they choose doctors. Sophie’s name was never raised in any connection with the lawsuit. Which turns out to have been very fortunate.”
He thought this through while he poured water into the washbasin.
“So he’ll be at Stuyvesant Square. Certainly he’ll get better care there than he would even at the best hospital.”
“Unless he does need surgery,” Anna said. She had returned to her packing. “But I don’t want to think about that unless I have to.”
“Fair enough. What about Rosa?”
“She wants to come with us. So does Lia. Right now they’re in the kitchen arguing the point with your parents and with Leo and Carmela. I don’t envy them that conversation.”
He took her by the wrist and drew her to him until she sat down on the edge of the bed, beside him. With a great sigh she put her head on his shoulder.
“And Tonino?” Jack ran a thumb over the back of her hand.
“He’s numb, I think that’s the only word for it.”
“Anna. How bad is it?”
She thought for a long moment. “He’s not in pain, or at least, Sophie doesn’t think he is. You want a diagnosis, but I can’t give you one with any certainty. His lymph glands in his neck and in both armpits are swollen. Sophie could palpate his spleen, and that means there’s swelling there, too.”
“Not his tonsils, then.”
She gave a sharp shake of the head.
“What is Sophie thinking, beyond having him seen by Dr. Jacobi?”
Anna lifted a shoulder. “I can only guess.”
“It’s not a surgical case, is it.”
She studied her own hands, red and rough from the harsh disinfectants she subjected them to, multiple times every day. The cost of practicing medicine, she said. Of performing surgery. Even when the most advanced surgical techniques and modern medicine could do nothing, the price must be paid.
When she looked up, he saw the truth there in her eyes. Maybe she wasn’t ready to put a name to what was wrong with Tonino, but she knew. She wanted to be wrong, and feared she was not.
37
ANNA BOARDED THE Hoboken ferry alone, and at the last possible second. She stood on deck and watched while Leo turned the carriage around for the trip back to Greenwood.
For the whole journey to Manhattan she stood just where she was, hands clamped to the rail. The Hudson was choppy and the rest of the passengers retreated into the cabin, but she was glad of the cool wind and the light spray of river water on her face. Like a sharp slap to stave off panic.
Sophie would laugh at the idea, if she were here. Anna would have laughed at the idea just a day ago, but now she knew what it meant to be on that edge, and she didn’t like it. She needed to impose some order on the thoughts pinwheeling through her mind.
First and most pressing: she had three hours. On a Sunday, when shops and stores were closed, she had three hours to make Sophie’s house ready for a sick little boy, his two distraught sisters, and Jack’s father.
To accomplish this she would have to raid the New Amsterdam for supplies and medicines, arrange the reordering of furniture, and call on Dr. Jacobi to ask for an emergency consultation. She would need a great deal of help, starting with Mr. Lee, Elise, and Laura Lee. Sam Reason had spent the weekend working at the house, she remembered Sophie telling her. She would call on him, too. And Noah Hunter. The thought of competent people she could depend on brought her some clarity, and she started making lists in her head.
* * *
• • •
AS THE CAB stopped on Waverly Place and Anna paid the driver, she caught sight of Elise in the window at Roses. Something in her expression must have given her state of mind away, because Elise came out to greet her.
“Are you just back from your shift, or about to go?”
“Just back. What—”
“Wait until we’re inside. Where’s Mr. Lee? I need him to hear this as well. Will you fetch him, please?”
Anna retrieved paper and pencil from the table in the hall and went to the kitchen, where she sat down and began scribbling the lists she had been compiling in her head. She hadn’t gotten very far when the door opened and Mr. Lee and Elise came in.
Elise was very pale, and Anna chided herself for her thoughtlessness.
“Everyone is fine. Everyone who went to Greenwood will be coming home on the next ferry in good health. But they will have the children with them, and Jack’s father.”
Mr. Lee said, “Start at the beginning, would you, please? And don’t leave anything out.” He pulled out a chair for Elise, and one for himself, and they sat.
* * *
• • •
TEN MINUTES LATER Mr. Lee went out to get the carriage ready, while Anna and Elise went through the house to gather extra linen and all the medicines and herbs on hand. Mrs. Cabot was still away, which was unfortunate. She was quick and efficient and wouldn’t have slowed them down with questions. As it was they had to assume the linen they were taking with them would s
uffice.
“Should we go through the larder?” Elise wanted to know. “Laura Lee will be cooking for four extra people; she might not have enough food on hand.”
“She’ll have enough for this evening and for breakfast,” Anna said. “Tomorrow she’ll need to go to market. And to the apothecary, once Dr. Jacobi has seen Tonino.”
Elise was trying very hard not to ask questions, but it was clear that she was finding it a challenge.
Anna said, “I’ll tell you what we know so far from Sophie’s exam.”
“That would be useful.” Elise looked up from the largest of Mrs. Lee’s marketing baskets, already piled high with sheets and blankets.
Anna outlined the symptoms: lymph glands on both sides of the neck were swollen and hard, as were the nodes in the armpits, again on both sides. The spleen was palpable. There was a history of increasing lethargy, weight loss, and trouble swallowing, as well as intermittent fever and pruritus on limbs and torso.
The mention of pruritus made Elise’s brow arch in something like surprise, or confusion.
“I was going to ask if he has a cough, but whole-body itchiness isn’t usually associated with lung disease, is it?”
“Not usually. There is some roughness to his breathing. If he were talking, I think he’d be hoarse.”
Elise’s gaze shifted to the middle distance, as if she had seen something on the other side of the kitchen that deserved all her attention. Anna had the fanciful idea that she could see gears and levers moving at high speed behind the pale brow. She turned to tuck a half-dozen rolls of gauze into the corners of the smaller basket, and waited.
