“Not before I do,” she said. “Now listen, because you need to remember and follow these directions I’m about to give you exactly.”
Jack had never served in the army, but he had the idea that no general could sound more sure of himself as he sent men into battle. Anna rattled off instructions on how and when to change the dressings, what and when and how much to feed the boy, what trouble signs to watch for. The matron was to rinse out his mouth with salt water three times a day.
“The wet nurse must be patient with him when he’s feeding,” Anna said. “He will have forgotten how to suckle, and it will take a little time for the natural instinct to come back to him. You can be sure that his hunger will overcome the discomfort of the incision once he realizes his belly is filling up. It may take a half hour for him to get his fill, but that will improve quickly. If his malnutrition is not too far advanced, he may recover. His chances are not good, but they are better than they were ten minutes ago.”
She had been wiping and packing her instruments while she talked, but now she turned to look the matron in the eye. “You must scrub your hands in very hot water and potash soap before you deal with the dressing. You should be scrubbing your hands before you handle any of these children and using carbolic acid in a five percent solution. Never go from one to the next without doing so. Your hands are the most likely source of infection.”
Through all this the baby had been wailing, but Anna’s concentration was fixed on the matron.
“You understand these instructions?”
Reluctantly, her anger plain on her face, the matron nodded.
“If you feel you can’t follow these simple directions, I’ll find the doctor on call—there is a doctor on call, I assume? And go over it with him. Never mind, I’ll do that anyway.”
“That won’t be necessary,” the matron said, her voice fairly dripping with dislike.
Anna looked at her for a long moment. “However you feel about me, you will not take it out on this child. Someone will be coming by tomorrow and again the day after to check on his progress. If he is not improving, I will report you to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. You would not enjoy their examination, I assure you. Do we understand each other?”
Anna took the boy from Jack and held him to her shoulder, rocking him back and forth with her mouth pressed to his ear while she watched the matron struggle to speak.
“Yes,” the woman said finally.
“I hope so,” Anna said. “Primarily for his sake, but also for yours.”
? ? ?
THE SUN WAS low on the horizon by the time the police ferry had moved away from Randall’s Island. Anna was very quiet, and Jack left her to her thoughts while he coped with his own. He had never doubted her intelligence or her training, but now he had a real sense of who she was, as a woman and a doctor.
She roused him from his thoughts by touching his arm.
She said, “My mother died in childbed. I was just three but I remember some of that day. Ma was too old, really, and the pregnancy was a surprise. She herself was born when her mother was near fifty and she drew strength from that. But she went into labor too early and very suddenly while my father was out on a call. There was a—” She paused. “It’s called a placental abruption, a tearing of the womb. I don’t remember any of those details, of course. I learned about all that much later. What I remember is the look on my father’s face when he came in the door and found he had lost my mother and the new baby both.”
She paused to gather her thoughts.
“Not long after, he died in a carriage accident. It was his fault, he wasn’t paying attention. I have always thought that if he had been with her when she died, he might have been less—devastated, I suppose is the word. He might have coped with his grief differently.”
Her tone was very even, and when she raised her eyes to his they were clear.
She said, “I don’t know if it would help or hurt Rosa to see her father. I really haven’t known her long enough to anticipate her reaction.” And then: “What are you thinking?”
The urge to move closer was one Jack resisted in that moment. He said, “I’m thinking that you weren’t with either of your parents when they died.”
She jerked as if he had struck her. “I’m aware of that. Obviously.”
“I’m thinking that somehow, as logical as you are, you still blame yourself for their deaths because you weren’t with them. I can see it in your face when you talk about it.”
“I was a little girl,” she said, her voice catching. “I was just a baby.”