Fashionable neighborhoods shifted north as the city grew, with the result that the lower portion of Fifth Avenue was now populated primarily by the elder generations of the most prominent families: Delanos, de Rahms, Lenoxes, Morgans, and Astors. As a very little girl she had come to call in these houses with her aunt and uncle Quinlan. She remembered marble floors, statues far taller than herself, butlers with long-suffering expressions and silver trays, the smells of camphor and rubbing alcohol and dried lavender. Now a few very old but still very rich people lived in twenty or thirty shuttered rooms with their staffs as company.
But this bright Sunday morning was also the first of April and the weather had drawn the people outside, bringing the neighborhood back to life. A breeze tugged at her hat and buffeted the hem of her coat and infused her with energy, and Anna let herself be propelled, first to buy an iced bun from a vendor and then to stop and do business with a flower seller who wore a kerchief folded like a veil over her head and shoulders. Anna pointed to what she wanted and the woman wrapped the violet stems in moss and newspaper and tied it all together with a bit of string.
She stopped again to watch children chasing each other through a courtyard, howling with laughter. As she had once played, with such abandon. In that moment it occurred to her that she was procrastinating, and why.
All week she had been avoiding the discussion of the clinic in Switzerland for the simplest of reasons. It might be pure selfishness on her part but she did not want to give Cap up, to send him away and never see him again.
It came to her then as if she heard the words spoken out loud: Sophie wanted him to go, because she wanted to go with him. To Switzerland.
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FROM THE OTHER end of the room Cap said, “Aunt Q was here this week. I suppose you know. We discussed Dr. Z?ngerle’s letter.”
He was sitting in his desk chair, his posture rigid and his complexion the color of skimmed milk. All the windows were open, bringing the early spring breeze into the room to play with the papers on the desk. If she asked him if he was cold, he would offer to close the windows, for her. It had never been easy to get an answer from him about himself, and now it seemed impossible.
Anna let the question hang in the air for a while. “I did hear, yes.”
“You think this is a creditable idea?”
“The doctor in question is creditable. His reputation is very good. If you’re asking about the protocol, I haven’t heard enough about it to say.”
“But Sophie thinks it’s promising.”
Anna inclined her head. “Yes.”
“And you’ll go along with her.” It wasn’t a question, and Anna didn’t answer.
After a moment she cleared her throat and said what she could not keep to herself. “Cap. If you talked to her about this, if you were to ask her—”
His gaze was direct. “You think I should go.”
“That’s beside the point.”
“Really?” he huffed softly. “I thought that was exactly the point.”
“She would go with you, if you asked her.”
“As what?” He turned away to cough into his handkerchief, his shoulders jerking with the effort. When he could breathe again he repeated himself. “As what?”
“I don’t understand.”
“As what? My physician? Nurse? Caretaker? Jailer?”
“As your friend,” Anna said. “As someone who loves you. And as a physician, of course.”
“To study from afar,” he said, a tinge of bitterness in his voice. “To sit across the room from me and observe.”
“Cap,” Anna said. “Four years ago we sat right in this room—at that table.” She pointed with her chin. “And you told me that you would leave Manhattan and live in Paris or anywhere else if Sophie would be there with you. You were willing to give up everything you hold dear to win her and keep her.”
“Yes. But she declined. She wouldn’t give up everything she holds dear.”
Anna drew in a sharp breath. “Do you really believe that?”
“Yes,” he said fiercely. And then, deflated: “No. She thought I would regret the things I gave up for her, eventually. I couldn’t make her understand.”
“She understands now. Now she is willing to give up everything.”
She wondered if he had heard her, and then she realized he was struggling to breathe. When she was about to reach for her bag he quieted. He was trembling, she could see, but not solely out of physical duress. Her own throat tightened in understanding and frustration, that she could do so little for him.
“You need to rest,” she said, getting to her feet.
He looked out the window still, as if she had not spoken at all.
“Cap?”
Without turning he said, “Tell her I will think about it, will you? Tell Aunt Quinlan how much her visit meant to me, and that I’ll think about Switzerland. Will you do that for me?”
Anna nodded, encouraged and disturbed at the same time.
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