Jillian put her plate in the sink. “Then I’m going to need more coffee. And don’t give me any of your baloney about decaf.”
A moment later, one of Jillian’s machines whirred and she carried a large mug into her office. Nolan went into the living room and crossed to the far end the family had always used as a cozy TV corner. But he didn’t turn on the television. He needed to hear every approaching sound. He picked up a book and settled in, and the Davieses found him there when they came in from their dinner. A long dinner. Long enough that they might have gone looking for Meri and run into Leo’s history lesson or long enough that they’d spent it strategizing what their next move would be. Or both. Nolan didn’t ask.
They exchanged pleasantries, Nolan locked up, said good night to Jillian in her office, and trailed up the stairs that ran through the center of the house, beginning from both the front and the back and meeting on a landing halfway up. He took the time for one short text.
CLEAR TO BRING MERI HOME.
Nolan listened for the sounds that the houseguests had settled in and allowed himself to drift to sleep.
He woke to find Jillian hovering over him. Startled, he said, “What time is it?”
“Late enough that I hoped you’d be up,” she said. “I couldn’t wait any longer.”
He sat up and glanced at the clock. “Breakfast. And I have to cancel my whole day in Denver.”
“Dad, I have something.”
He swung his feet over the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes. “Did you sleep at all?”
“A nap between three and four. But I got into some black holes of the internet about midnight and ended up waking up a contact in Memphis in the middle of the night.”
“How to win friends and influence people.”
“She knows she could call me if she needed to.”
“She also knows something about Canfield, this contact?”
“She has access to local historical records. Scraps of records, really.”
“And?”
“She has a key to the building where she works, and she went in at four in the morning for me.”
“And?”
“Pretty sure I know something I doubt the Davieses do.”
“Then get ready to tell it.” Nolan was on his feet and headed toward the closet. “And do not let any of them leave the house.”
“Where are you going?”
“Based on Meri’s mood last night, I think she will require some persuading to return to the negotiating table.”
“Because she didn’t see any evidence of negotiating yesterday.”
“Call Nia and tell her I’m on my way. Make sure Meri is actually still there.”
Jillian left the room with her phone already at her ear. Nolan pulled khakis and a polo shirt from his closet, slid his feet into loafers, and grabbed his jacket on his way out the back door. At the Inn, he went straight to the kitchen entrance. Leo saw him and waved him in.
“I don’t have anything to say to them.” Meri turned to the sink, where a couple of pots awaited washing. “I made myself perfectly clear last night. You wanted me to stand up to them, and I did.”
“Yes, you did.” Nolan leaned against the counter. “What if I said Jillian found something in your family history that you’ll all want to hear?”
Meri’s hands in the sink stilled.
“Don’t you want to know?” Nia asked. “After all this, don’t you want to hear it?”
Meri started scrubbing. “She can tell me after they’re gone. I’ll still be here.”
“Maybe they need to know too,” Nia said.
Meri threw her scrubbing pad into soapy water and swatted at the resulting splash. “You people are impossible.”
In the kitchen at home, Jillian wilted around the edges at the sight of both Nolan and Meri. He looked over her shoulder. She’d managed a credible batter for buckwheat pancakes—learned from so many Saturday mornings together—and set out a cantaloupe and bananas Nolan didn’t know they had.
Jillian let the whisk rest against the side of the batter bowl. “I’m glad you came, Meri.”
Meri’s arms crossed over her midsection, hands grasping elbows. “I’ve already had breakfast. I eat before serving the guests.”
“Of course you do,” Nolan said. “But let Jillian whip you up a fancy coffee.”
“I heard movement upstairs,” Jillian said. “I have a feeling everyone will be down soon. What kind of coffee would you like? My dad can take over cooking pancakes. Right?”
“A perfect plan.” Nolan turned on the griddle in the center of the stove top.
“Shall we eat in the dining room?” Jillian said. “More comfortable for six people.”
“An even more perfect plan.”
Jillian turned to her barista duties.
“Uh-oh.” Meri stiffened.
Three sets of footsteps descended the back stairs, not in a straggling-to-breakfast fashion but a coordinated, united effort that would dump them into the kitchen.
“Good morning.” Nolan dropped the first splashes of batter on the hot griddle.
Technically Michael, Juliette, and Canny had broken the boundary and entered the kitchen, but they stopped there.
“Come on in,” Nolan said. “Breakfast is almost ready. Jillian has the coffee grounds out.”
“Good morning.” Canny glanced toward Meri. “Good. You’re here. I hope Nolan hasn’t gone to too much trouble over breakfast, because we’re in a bit of a hurry.”
“You’re leaving after all?” Meri said.
“You too,” Canny said. “I just booked four tickets. We leave DIA in four hours.”
Jillian handed Meri her mug of coffee, which she gripped with both hands.
“I think that’s for the best,” Michael said. “We have prevailed on Nolan and Jillian long enough and staying further will not change the ultimate outcome.”
“Dad!” Meri said. “This is not some clinical treatment plan.”
Nolan flipped the pancakes.
“This seems harsh right now,” Michael said, “but later you will look back on all this as a blip. No one will ever remember it happened. Your brother understands the pressures of med school. We all do. We’re here to help.”
The longer Michael spoke, the less Meri looked at him.
“Canny, I hope you can get a refund,” Meri said, “because you only need three tickets.”
“Actually, you will only need two.” Juliette spoke for the first time.
“Mother?” Canny spun on one heel.
“It’s time we heard Meri out.” Juliette slipped past her son, out of the border zone and into the kitchen. “If she came all these miles to get away from us, after obviously going out of her way to get thrown out of medical school—and to this place of all places—what will it hurt to listen to what she wants to tell us? I, for one, would like to know.”
Nolan wanted to throw Juliette a big sloppy kiss clear across the kitchen. For ten seconds, the Davies men stood in stunned silence.
Then Canny erupted. “We talked about this, Mother. The three of us discussed this and agreed that the best way to support Meri is to help her get back on the plan.”
Ah. So last night had been a strategy session.
“I’m standing right here, Canny,” Meri said. “It’s my life the three of you are making decisions about.”
“If you don’t mind, Canfield, I’d like some breakfast.” Juliette eased into the corner seat of the nook. “Meri, why don’t you bring your coffee to the table and sit with me.”
Nolan grinned and slid the first three pancakes onto a plate and set it in front of Juliette at the kitchen table after all. He stood ready to pour fresh batter onto the griddle.
“Canny, do you want the next batch?”
“None for me, thank you.” Canny’s civil words answered Nolan’s question, but his frigid tone hurled arrows at his mother as she dotted her pancakes with butter.
Jillian handed her a bottle of maple syru
p.
“I’m going upstairs to pack,” Canny said.
“I’m right behind you,” Michael said.
Nolan made more pancakes, and Jillian sliced fruit. But in under fifteen minutes Canfield and Michael thumped back down the front stairs with their bags.
Nolan followed Juliette’s gaze. From her corner spot at the kitchen table, Juliette could see straight through the house to the main entryway. Her face twitched. Michael had her bag and briefcase as well as his own. The resolve she’d mustered was already crumbling.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Memphis, October 17, 1878
When this madness ended and it was safe for her parents to come home, perhaps it would be Eliza who drove them around Memphis. Wherever the household staff had scattered to during their weeks of unexpected extended leave in August, by now any not with her parents in Wisconsin would have sought other work. And who could blame them? They needed wages, and they might not have any surviving reason to return to Memphis, their own friends and family afflicted and buried unceremoniously. Eliza had no way to know how widely the epidemic would affect the household staff social circles.
Eliza had become quite accustomed to driving her own carriage. With the help of the Heard boys, she had learned how to put the top down so that when one of them traveled with her on her rounds to help deliver groceries to households struck by illness they could be in the open air. And keeping the top down made getting everything in and out so much more efficient during multiple trips back to St. Mary’s during the day to restock supplies. She was fortunate to have the boys. Their father could not usually spare both of them, but he did his best to have one or the other at the disposal of St. Mary’s for at least a few hours each day.
“The least I can do,” he said on a daily basis, “for the nuns who saved my life and lost theirs.”
The suffering of our Lord. Sister Constance’s more theological framing of Mr. Heard’s litany was ever in Eliza’s mind as she turned the pages of her Bible and murmured prayers throughout the day. Compline in the chapel remained on the daily schedule of the Sisters House, but most evenings it was impossible to guarantee Sister Hughetta—the only surviving nun now—or Father Dalzell would be back from calling on the sick for even the briefest of spoken service.
Eliza stopped in front of her ninth house of the day after freshly reloading the carriage with jars of broth and tea, tins of meat, cans of milk, and sacks of sugar, beans, and potatoes.
“I can help,” Gerald said, “if you just let me come in. My mama died, you know.”
“I remember.” The poor boy had a penchant for reminding her.
“We never had a woman to do for us. I can make tea and warm broth and clean up slop.”
“I know you can, Gerald. But this is for your own good—and mine. Where would I be if you got sick and I was deprived of your able assistance with deliveries?”
“Then at least let me drive.”
“I’ll consider it.” Eliza had, in fact, been considering it. If Gerald were driving, she could be looking at plans about the next visit or making notes about the visit just completed while the buggy was in motion. It would save time.
Armed with a basket of tinned meat, broth, tomatoes, and a bag of dried beans, she made her way toward the door of the call at hand. The notes from the nurse who had sat with the family during the worst of it indicated they had lost a grandmother and one small child, but six other household members had survived. They needed looking in on once a day to make sure they were eating and taking enough fluid, in the wake of both illness and heartbreak.
Eliza was relieved to find the windows open and the house reasonably aired out. No matter how many visits she made to homes closed up to contain the sick and dying, her stomach refused the odors that came with the task. The visceral reminder of the devastation itself fueled her compassion through her own exhaustion.
“Hello, Mrs. Fliggin. I’m from St. Mary’s. I’ve come with some provisions and to see how I can make you more comfortable.”
Mrs. Fliggin’s dark hand let go of the door, and Eliza stepped aside.
From the beginning, St. Mary’s was a parish that did not accept donations from members for preferential seating among the pews. It was open to any and all, and many of its worshippers were working-class people who served the same Lord Eliza did—people like Mr. Heard. The area immediately around the church was not home to colored families, but the penetrating dearth of nurses in the city and the augmenting range for which St. Mary’s was responsible brought Eliza and her caregivers to homes they might not have visited two months ago.
Eliza reached for the woman’s hand. “I am so very sorry for the loved ones you have lost.”
“My mama,” Mrs. Fliggin said, “and my baby. He would have been three next week.”
Eliza did not try to make up words that would bring sense to tragedy. She only squeezed the woman’s hand and looked into her eyes.
“My husband—his only son,” Mrs. Fliggin said. “I don’t know what to say to him.”
Nor he to you. Nor I to either one of you.
“I’ve brought some ingredients that will make a nice hearty stew.” Eliza spoke softly. The food would not fill the absences left in the family, but it might help get frail bodies through another day while their love for each other bound up their true wounds. The kitchen had clean water that would suffice both for the stew and for freshening the stair-step sisters. A rickety dresser held frayed but clean clothes, and Eliza swiftly wiped hands and faces and slipped fresh gowns over heads while waiting for the stew to come to a boil.
With meat and tomatoes coming from tins, it was hardly a true homemade stew, but what would Callie think to see Eliza mixing ingredients for a meal to feed a family?
“I kin manage,” Mrs. Fliggin said. “With the food. I won’t burn the beans, and I make sure the chillun eat.”
“Make sure you eat as well.”
“I try.” Mrs. Fliggin rubbed her forehead. “I be so worried ’bout my friends.”
“Have they been ill as well?”
“Mebbe. Dey were. At least Tillie was. I just don’t know. Been too sick to pay a call. But I worry. Her lil Sammy is my boy’s age. Just a few months older.”
“Why don’t you tell me how to find where they live,” Eliza said. “I’ll see if I can discover some information to put your mind at ease.”
“You kin do that?”
“I will certainly try.” Another slip of paper. Another call to squeeze into an overtaxed schedule. Another nurse to assign.
“Dey church friends, from where our people go. Tillie was sick, and I hear her sister—Callie, that would be—came to look after her. It wasn’t the fever at first, but she was poorly. I wondered if it be another child. The fever came later. But I don’t know. I ain’t heard no more in so long.”
Sammy. Tillie. Callie.
The names thudded into their slots.
“I would be happy to personally check on Tillie’s family,” Eliza said. “I can go right now. Where do they live?”
By the time Eliza got back to the carriage, she felt as if someone was using an iron tool to pry the top off the barrel of her head. She put the horse into motion.
“Miz Eliza, where are we going?”
In this moment, Eliza wished it was Buntyn beside her on the bench today rather than Geraldous and his incessant questions.
“Another call, of course.”
“Aren’t we going to see the Carters?”
“Yes. We will. I just … I have become aware of a situation that might be urgent.” Eliza reached an intersection and hesitated, trying to remember Mrs. Fliggin’s instructions for finding Tillie’s home. She started to turn the carriage to the left and then jerked to the right instead—barely missing a coffin wagon lumbering through the corner.
“Miz Eliza!”
“Geraldous!”
He met her glare with a scowl. “You should stop and let me drive.”
At least it was not a
question. Eliza raised a hand to her splitting head. The day was not even warm, nor the sun bright enough to provoke such a physical complaint. Surely it was only the shock of suddenly having an address for Callie. She handed the limp reins to Gerald, who ably guided the carriage clear of the intersection.
“I should take you back to the Sisters House, Miz Eliza,” Gerald said.
“No.” She grasped at the reins. If he was going to do that, she would not let him drive after all.
“Where is it you have a mind to go, Miz Eliza?”
She gave him an address, not certain she hadn’t reversed the numbers of the house.
“Weren’t we near there a couple of weeks ago?” Gerald said. “The day the ship came in?”
The day she found the empty house full of the stench of death. She pictured the humble structure.
A block away. Had they been only a block away?
They found the house. It was nothing like the one she’d been sent to the last time. At least now she had more reason to believe she was in the right place.
The home was closed up. Though they had not yet had a fall frost, and the daytime hours were pleasant, and the temperatures were dropping. A home might be closed against the fever or simply the changing weather.
“I’m coming in with you,” Gerald said.
“You most certainly are not.” The boy knew the rules. Eliza exited the carriage. Gerald got out as well, but he stood with the horse and did not follow.
The reek grew more overbearing with every step closer. Knocking on the door was a waste of time. Eliza pushed it open. While her eyes adjusted to the gray hues of the cloistered rooms, she heard only the whimper of a child from an indistinct direction. On a narrow bed in the front room, in nightgowns crusted with vomit, two young women—hardly more than girls—held hands. They did not move, and their eyes stared, unblinking at the ceiling.
Eliza’s heart cracked. The dear girls whose mother feared they might fall in with the wrong crowd if they didn’t stick together.
Her hand over her nose and mouth, Eliza allowed herself an audible sob. A whimper not her own rose and fell ephemerally, smothered by the sounds from her throat. She stifled herself to listen again.
The Inn at Hidden Run Page 22
