But she would persist, and this accusation delivered with a grin could not make her forget what was at stake.
The river was teeming with paddleboats and ferries, colliers, canal boats, barges and steamers and sailboats, all against the backdrop of the town of Brooklyn. She had never thought of Brooklyn as a particularly pretty place, its shoreline crowded with factories and warehouses and wharves. But from here the highlands were a small sea of oak and maple and cedar trees interspersed with blossoming cherry and crab apple, all punctuated by steeples and chimneys.
She said, “I don’t know what I’m looking at,” and Jack came up behind her. He ducked down to follow her line of sight and with his hands on her shoulders, turned her a bit.
“Wallabout Bay and the Navy Yard.” As they turned steadily and he put names to ferry landings and landmarks. One arm dropped to circle her waist. “Fort Columbus. Governor’s Island.” He pointed and said, “You can just see Bedloe, where they’re going to put up that statue from France, once they’ve got the money together. Meant to welcome immigrants to the city.” This was the cynic in Jack talking, a tone that she didn’t often hear from him.
A large steam liner was just passing the fort, headed for England or Greece or on its way to round the horn. Anna hesitated and then said what was on her mind.
“Sophie and Cap will be getting married next month and then they’re going to Switzerland, to the clinic I told you about.”
He didn’t seem surprised. “Is that what she really wants?”
Anna thought for a long moment. “What she really wants is a cure, but this is as much as she can ask for.” She shook her head, determined to put Margaret out of her mind for the moment at least. Instead she put her cheek against Jack’s shoulder and, leaning into him, turned to follow the Manhattan shoreline.
It was disquieting to realize that beyond Castle Garden and the spire of Trinity Church there was almost nothing she recognized, as if she were looking at a city she had never visited before. Behind docks and wharves and warehouses there were buildings of all sizes crowded together like grubby blocks a child had poured out of a bag for no other reason than to see how they fell. All along the river shore to the right the seventh district tenements leaned together like so many rotting teeth, but even there poles were going up as electricity wove its way through the city streets, wires crisscrossing over every intersection. Smokestacks belched far above the buildings they topped. In the distance the gas works looked like a cluster of tin cans. There were patches of green here and there, but for the most part it was a city of redbrick and cast iron and warped wood held together by grime and persistence.
She said, “You can just see the Hudson from here.”
“From the top of the tower—” He paused.
“Yes?” She elbowed him less than gently.
He used a hand to immobilize her arm. “Looking up there now, you still want to climb to the top?”
She tipped her head back to consider. “I’ve climbed a couple of mountains,” she said. “I don’t suppose there are any bad-mannered goats on the way up that ladder, are there?”
His face was so close she could count his eyelashes. When he spoke his breath was warm on her face. “Do you dislike it that I am protective of you? Because that’s bred in the bone.”
She straightened and patted his cheek. “I don’t mind. As long as you’ll take my ‘Yes, I will’ as an answer to your ‘No, you won’t.’”
Jack gave a low laugh that she decided to read as surrender.
They sat down on a bench that was so new the hardware shone, and Anna turned her attention back to the skyline. Dusk was dropping down, casting the kindest of lights over the worst of the city, a sugar glaze that might fool the eye for the few minutes it lasted. But it was her city, the only home she remembered. She had left once to test herself and come back again.
She said, “Sometimes I work twelve-or fourteen-hour days. I am called out I would say on average two nights a week. And I will always be a doctor. I will never give up practicing medicine.”
“Yes,” he said. “I recognize that about you. I see it.”
She hoped he was being honest with himself. “Aunt Quinlan calls me a freethinker, but in fact I’m an agnostic. I don’t care what you believe, if it gives you comfort. But I will not convert.”
Jack nodded as if this were no surprise. “Go on.”
“I’m not—I have—” She was irritated with herself now. He was being his usual calm, rational self; she could be no less. She said, “I’m not a virgin. My experience is narrow, but I’m not a virgin. I’ll answer questions if you have them.”
He shook his head, the muscle in his jaw rolling in a way she couldn’t read.
“Is there more?”
“Yes,” Anna said. “I’m working up to it.”