months?
Like an actor on a stage, Mary deflected self, her usual and instinctive response to need. Do not mention your regard for Thomas; do not admit it . The sudden intimacy surprised her. It was unlike Jenny to seek her out for solace. They were unpracticed at it, and Mary could feel a latent resistance in her sister’s body, even as they embraced. She looked over her sister’s head outside, to the dark street, which was as still as death.
The baby stirred and Mary pulled Jenny into the hallway. Sitting on the top of the stairs together in the light of a single candle burning in a wall sconce, the sisters marveled. Always astonishment, the world over, when one is affected by upheaval. We are bored by the familiar, but terrified by the unfamiliar. The added lament: Christian, too, was leaving.
“Our hearts will break,” Jenny said.
Mary didn’t want to think of her brother at war. He was asleep now behind his bedroom door, where she wanted him to stay, safe and protected. As strained as her relationship was with her sister, her relationship with Christian was as easy as if they were mother and son. No competition, only joy. But now, with their full skirts gathered around their ankles, whispering like they used to when they were younger and shared the same bed, Mary felt a thaw between herself and Jenny, and the veil of night working on her, inviting disclosure.
“I wanted to be a surgeon,” Mary said.
“No woman is a surgeon. Besides, how can you think about a thing like that when we are losing a brother and I am losing Thomas? You are too cool, Mary.”
Too cool . Cool about everything but achieving her goal? Perhaps everyone viewed her that way, even Thomas. No woman is a surgeon. Mary smoothed her skirts and tucked the stray curls of her hair back into a comb, tired now, the full weight of the day’s disappointment bringing tears to her eyes. She felt like a failure. Wanting to become a surgeon when she couldn’t even take proper care of Bonnie. Believing she could sow intimacy again with her sister, when they were unalike as twin sisters could be. From the lying-in room came the mewling sounds of the baby, needing to be fed.
Rising, Mary said, “You could help sometimes, you know.”
“I don’t want anything to do with babies,” Jenny said.
“You might someday,” Mary said, though she hated acknowledging the prospect, for it seemed a prediction.
In the glimmer of light from the sconce, Jenny smiled shyly. “When I do, then you will be here to help me, won’t you?”
But Mary didn’t answer her, only turned her back and headed for the lying-in room door.
Chapter Four
James Blevens sat at his desk in his surgery pondering what to write so that Colonel Townsend, the newly appointed commander of the 25th Regiment from Albany, would choose him over the other physicians applying for the position of regimental surgeon. Time was short. The North was rallying, troops were assembling. That very morning, Wednesday, April the seventeenth, the Sixth Massachusetts, the first regiment to venture southward in defense of the Union, had set out from Boston for Washington City.
James Blevens dipped his pen in the inkwell and began to write.
Dear Colonel Townsend, I am offering my services as Regimental Surgeon for the 25th Regiment. My credentials are impeccable. I studied medicine for one year at Bellevue Hospital in New York, repeating the requisite six-month course of lectures to enhance my understanding. I then moved to Albany, where my surgery is located on Washington Avenue. I am well acquainted with serious fractures and their repair. The most recent fracture I set was on a boy who’d been run over by a wagon.
Mention of this accident reminded James of Thomas Fall’s parents. He had inquired around, learned the details. Had the policeman called him instead of that drunkard Fin McDonnall more than a year ago, he was certain he could have saved them, setting their broken limbs on the street before
Like an actor on a stage, Mary deflected self, her usual and instinctive response to need. Do not mention your regard for Thomas; do not admit it . The sudden intimacy surprised her. It was unlike Jenny to seek her out for solace. They were unpracticed at it, and Mary could feel a latent resistance in her sister’s body, even as they embraced. She looked over her sister’s head outside, to the dark street, which was as still as death.
The baby stirred and Mary pulled Jenny into the hallway. Sitting on the top of the stairs together in the light of a single candle burning in a wall sconce, the sisters marveled. Always astonishment, the world over, when one is affected by upheaval. We are bored by the familiar, but terrified by the unfamiliar. The added lament: Christian, too, was leaving.
“Our hearts will break,” Jenny said.
Mary didn’t want to think of her brother at war. He was asleep now behind his bedroom door, where she wanted him to stay, safe and protected. As strained as her relationship was with her sister, her relationship with Christian was as easy as if they were mother and son. No competition, only joy. But now, with their full skirts gathered around their ankles, whispering like they used to when they were younger and shared the same bed, Mary felt a thaw between herself and Jenny, and the veil of night working on her, inviting disclosure.
“I wanted to be a surgeon,” Mary said.
“No woman is a surgeon. Besides, how can you think about a thing like that when we are losing a brother and I am losing Thomas? You are too cool, Mary.”
Too cool . Cool about everything but achieving her goal? Perhaps everyone viewed her that way, even Thomas. No woman is a surgeon. Mary smoothed her skirts and tucked the stray curls of her hair back into a comb, tired now, the full weight of the day’s disappointment bringing tears to her eyes. She felt like a failure. Wanting to become a surgeon when she couldn’t even take proper care of Bonnie. Believing she could sow intimacy again with her sister, when they were unalike as twin sisters could be. From the lying-in room came the mewling sounds of the baby, needing to be fed.
Rising, Mary said, “You could help sometimes, you know.”
“I don’t want anything to do with babies,” Jenny said.
“You might someday,” Mary said, though she hated acknowledging the prospect, for it seemed a prediction.
In the glimmer of light from the sconce, Jenny smiled shyly. “When I do, then you will be here to help me, won’t you?”
But Mary didn’t answer her, only turned her back and headed for the lying-in room door.
Chapter Four
James Blevens sat at his desk in his surgery pondering what to write so that Colonel Townsend, the newly appointed commander of the 25th Regiment from Albany, would choose him over the other physicians applying for the position of regimental surgeon. Time was short. The North was rallying, troops were assembling. That very morning, Wednesday, April the seventeenth, the Sixth Massachusetts, the first regiment to venture southward in defense of the Union, had set out from Boston for Washington City.
James Blevens dipped his pen in the inkwell and began to write.
Dear Colonel Townsend, I am offering my services as Regimental Surgeon for the 25th Regiment. My credentials are impeccable. I studied medicine for one year at Bellevue Hospital in New York, repeating the requisite six-month course of lectures to enhance my understanding. I then moved to Albany, where my surgery is located on Washington Avenue. I am well acquainted with serious fractures and their repair. The most recent fracture I set was on a boy who’d been run over by a wagon.
Mention of this accident reminded James of Thomas Fall’s parents. He had inquired around, learned the details. Had the policeman called him instead of that drunkard Fin McDonnall more than a year ago, he was certain he could have saved them, setting their broken limbs on the street before
Similar Books
