My Name Is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira Page A

they were even moved, unlike McDonnall, who’d let them be picked up and hoisted into the wagon bed, where they had both died. In his care, Thomas’s parents might have lived, and he would have visited them often, and perhaps encountered Mary, who would no doubt have been sitting at their bedside, stalwart and useful. Mary would have been curious about the fractures; he would have answered her questions: “You see here is the break of the femur. It’s important to splint it strongly so that it can’t move. In this case, I used a plaster with a splint and assigned them both to bedrest. Rest is very important. How long have you been interested in medicine?” Cast as the hero, the indulgent pedagogue, he might have held a different position in Mary Sutter’s eyes. It had been five days since he had eaten dinner with the Sutters, and he had not been able to stop thinking about her. With difficulty, he pushed her from his mind and again dipped his pen.
The injured boy walks now without a limp. In addition, I am conversant in all manner of violent injuries sustained in factory accidents. Albany being a great manufacturing hub, I have attended victims of the ironworks, tanneries, lumber district, and railroads, learning skills that I believe will be appropriate to the situation thrust upon us all. Please return your decision at your earliest convenience. I am yours most sincerely, etc., James Blevens, Surgeon.
    “’Scuse me?” A young man was standing at the threshold of James’s surgery. Dark brows over large eyes gave the impression of thoughtfulness, though his pants hems were ringed with dirt and manure, and his skin was sallow. James could not remember having left the door open after dismissing his last patient an hour before. With some degree of certainty he recalled at least latching it. He had not heard the rasp of the catch, nor a knock, and he wished now that he had shuttered his window so that the candle burning on his desk would not have alerted passersby to his presence.
    “Are you sick?” James asked, squinting at the doorway.
    “I’m Jake Miles. Bonnie’s husband.”
    James could have passed him on the street and not recognized him.
    “I’ve come to claim my wife,” Jake said. He waved the note from the door that James had posted nearly a week ago and said, “Can you show me where Dove Street is?”
    In the foyer of the Sutters’ home, James removed his hat and introduced Jake to Mary Sutter.
    “This is Bonnie’s husband, Jake Miles, who is eager to see his wife and baby.” He was perhaps assigning more emotion to Jake than Jake himself felt. On the ride over, Jake had been taciturn, maneuvering his cart over the cobbles with the deliberation of a farmer unused to carriage traffic. He had not mentioned the child, or seemed all that eager to see Bonnie, either, but it was possible the boy was just uncertain.
    “How do you do?” Mary said.
    Jake ducked his head in greeting, his hat clutched tightly to his waist. He gestured toward the parlor doors, where a maid had laid tea. There was an iced cake and yellow daffodils in a crystal vase. “I can’t pay you for taking care of Bonnie.”
    “Don’t trouble yourself. Payment is unnecessary,” Mary said. “I am very happy to tell you that Bonnie is well, but she must stay with us a bit longer. She’s not strong enough to travel. And certainly not at this hour of the night.”
    “But we’ve got to get home,” Jake said. “The ferry doesn’t run past eight.”
    “Your wife has had a difficult time. And the baby shouldn’t be out in the evening. Perhaps you could wait until the morning?”
    “But in the morning the animals will need me,” Jake said, his voice polite but adamant. “We need to get on.”
    Mary emitted an almost imperceptible sigh of frustration, but she called a maid to show Jake up the stairs, his shoes leaving pebbles of hardened dirt on the floor. When he disappeared into the lying-in room, she turned on James and said,