The water tasted metallic, like something medicinal had been added to it. She tried to ask them what they’d given her, but her tongue became heavy and thick. A sea of sensations followed, but she couldn’t figure out where the noises came from or where she ended and the rest of the world began. She dreamed of the baby and of her mother, the two curled up in bed together. In her vision, she drew closer, wanting to pick up the baby and hold her, but she drew back in horror when she realized they were both made of ice. Cold to the touch, not human at all.
She opened her eyes to the harsh summer sun streaming through the window. The room was empty; the humid air reeked of mold and rotting vegetables. Her entire body ached, as if she’d been trampled on by a horse, and her breasts were sore and heavy. She looked to either side of the bed for a crib, for some sign of her child.
“There you are, then.” The doctor stepped into the room. His eyes had shadows under them. “How do you feel?”
She tried to sit up, but her muscles refused.
“Don’t move. You’ll need to rest.”
“The baby?”
He didn’t answer her question. “The nurses said that you’ll need to rejoin the other patients in a day or two. I tried to get them to give you a week to recover, but I’m afraid Superintendent Dent would have none of it.”
She didn’t care about that. “But where’s the baby?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Smythe. The baby died.”
Sara blinked through her tears. She hadn’t admitted to herself how eager she had been to meet this creature, even if she was bringing it into a world of pain and misery. “How? I felt it inside me. Was it too early?”
He frowned. “It was deformed. Horribly deformed. To be honest, it’s best it died, for otherwise it would be brought up in a place like this, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”
She didn’t answer. “Can I see it?”
“It will be buried on the island. A boy was what you had. They bury them here. It was better you didn’t see him. Something had gone terribly wrong.”
Nurse Garelick’s beating had damaged the baby, just as she’d feared.
He reached out and patted her hand. “In any event, you’ll need to try to get stronger quickly. Don’t let this bother you. Better this way, I assure you.”
She turned away and covered her eyes with her hand. The baby had died and the only thing ahead of her was more pain, more sitting, more cruelty. The child she’d carried, Theo’s child, was now under the dirt somewhere on the island, in one of the unmarked graves she and Natalia had seen behind the Charity Hospital. No markers, just mounds of dirt that settled down as the bodies and flesh and bones melted down to nothing.
She retched and the doctor jumped up. “I’ll have the nurse bring you a bucket.”
Sara listened as his footsteps grew faint, replaced by the sounds of her own grief.
Sara had lasted two days back in her block, not talking, even to Natalia, not eating, and, more important, refusing to make mats, before she was dragged away and placed in a cell on the top floor, the same one she’d been taken to after Nurse Garelick’s beating.
Poor Natalia had tried to comfort her, and urged her to pull back from the dark place she’d been driven to by the baby’s death, but Sara would have none of it. She had been carved open by the pain and confusion of the birth, and there was no solace to be found. Not on Blackwell’s Island.
She lay curled up on the cot most of the day, lifting her head to watch the mice skitter across the floor and devour the tray that had been shoved through the opening under the door. How lovely to exist on instinct alone, to not know anything of the outside world and its delights and scandals. If she could have killed herself, she would have. One of the nurses had threatened to send her to the Lodge if she didn’t start obeying orders. “They’ll toss you around like a rag doll, and you’ll be screaming to be let back to your mates in no time,” she’d said, sneering. Sara had turned over to face the wall, and since then, the food had stopped.
She’d lost track of time. Maybe a week had gone by since the baby had died, maybe five days. Maybe five months. None of it mattered anymore.
The door latch clicked.
“You’ll stay in here until we know where to put you. Don’t mind the dead body over there. She won’t bother you.”
“Thank you, Nurse Cotter. I have your name right, don’t I?”
There was a long pause, long enough to make Sara open her eyes.
“That’s right.”
“Very well. Thank you, Nurse Cotter.”
The nurse made a clucking noise and slammed the door shut.
“Well, she’s a delight.”
Sara turned over and examined her new cellmate. The woman had survived the bathing process fairly unscathed. Her bangs were still curly and damp and her neck and cheeks red.
The woman thrust her hand out. “Well, hello there. I’m Nellie Brown.”
Sara closed her eyes. Poor child. She was yet to be broken.
“You all right?”
Sara hoped she’d get the hint and move to her side of the room. But no luck. Instead, she moved closer, studying Sara like a work of art in a museum. Which, in a way, was apt. All hard marble and stone, weighed down with no separation between her and the cot, her pedestal.
“You don’t look well. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Sara couldn’t help it. She laughed.
“Was that funny?”
Sara remembered the energy she’d brought with her to this place, trying to sort it all out and determine where she stood, how to get out. “You oughtn’t bother.” Her voice was weak.
“Oughtn’t bother to do what?”
“Much of anything.” Sara sighed. The girl was not going to be ignored. “There’s no point.”
The girl walked to the window and looked out. “I can see the city from here.”
“Seems so close, doesn’t it?”
Nellie moved to her cot and sat down, tucking the calico dress under her legs. “Do they not give you anything more than this to wear?”
Sara shook her head.
“Even in winter?”
“We get coats to wear outside on the mandatory walks.”
“Why are you here?”
She certainly got right to the point.
“I got into trouble at my work and ended up here. I’m not sure how.”
“Are you crazy?”
Sara shook her head. If anything, the agony of childbirth had strengthened her confidence in her own mental acuity. She had lost a child. And she was here against her will. “No. Not at all.” She sat up and crossed her arms in front of her. “Are you?”
“No.”
There was no explanation, no accusation of others, and no excuses.
“Then why are you here?”
“That’s a very good question.” But Nellie didn’t answer it. “How long have you been here?”
“I came in January of this year.”
“How many madwomen would you say are in the asylum?”
“Patients.”
“Sorry? Oh, right. Patients. How many are there?”
“Sixteen hundred or so.”
As the afternoon sun made its way up the wall, Sara found herself opening up more than she ever had, even to Natalia. Partly, she wanted to give this girl a better chance at navigating the dangerous channels of Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum. But she also wanted to be heard. One last time.
She told her of the beatings, the mistreatment and torture of Marianne. Nellie asked questions but didn’t seem overly shocked by any of it. Sometimes she repeated what Sara had said. Maybe she wasn’t very bright.
The food came. The woman picked up both trays and brought Sara one, laid it on her lap.
“I don’t want to eat.”
“I do, and I don’t like to eat alone, so you’ll have to indulge me.”
Sara bit off a crust of bread, shocked to discover her stomach growling for more.
“Where did you used to work, before you were sent here?” asked Nellie.
“I worked at the Dakota Apartment House.”
The woman put down her spoon. “I read all about that building during the construction. In what capacity?”
“I was the managerette.”
“You were in charge?”
“Under the managing agent, yes.”
Part of Sara was pleased to be able to shock this woman. Part of her wanted to sober her up, make her see that the outlook wasn’t good for either of them. You could be going along, living your life, and then see everything you’ve carefully built tumble down. She’d been worried about being with child, of how Theo would react. At the time, the problem seemed insurmountable. Until something else came along, a trip on a ferry into hell, that made her earlier troubles almost trite in comparison.
“What happened?”
“I was accused of stealing a necklace from one of the tenants.”