She stopped, turned back, one hand on the knob.
“The mob to whom your husband was in debt does not give up easily, especially where money is concerned. I just wondered. . . Have they tried to make any contact with you?”
In an instant, the strange man at her fence leaped into her mind. A jolt of fear ran through her. But there was nothing else. Nothing she could name. No attempt to contact her. He could be anyone—an unknown neighbor who took the alley as a random shortcut. She shook her head.
“You will let us know if there is any contact? Any hint of an attempt at contact?”
She nodded and walked out with Officer Dean, aware of Pulgrum’s eyes still on her.
CHAPTER 14
The chill increased. Alice cracked the window during the night, then closed it tightly as soon as she rose, the remnants of bread she kept by the bed still in her hand. Alice pulled her heavy shawl around her, finished the bread, waited for the nausea to subside. But the absence of Howard would not subside. It was no longer the physical absence of the man she called husband. Now she faced a void in the nonexistence of that husband. Who was the man she had married? Whom she had lived with? With whom she’d had a son? A son who had died in his hands. A severely ill son who might well have died of his fever regardless, but who had died thrashing out of control in a sink of cold water, in the hands of a father who was not Howard. A man whom she had blamed, had struck, fighting him to try to save her child. A man she had never ceased to blame for her baby’s death, whose stubborn, inexpressive grief she had not attempted to comfort. He could grieve alone and in shame, as she grieved alone. Now, in truth, she was utterly alone. And pregnant by a man who did not exist.
Chicago’s early winter had fully arrived. The inescapable mud in the streets had become partial ice. Ice that she would need to negotiate back and forth to the White Way to pick up the alterations. She assumed that there would be plenty, as was usual with the change of seasons, but with bulky, heavier fabrics to deal with, a burden to carry in the freezing cold and on the ice. Ice that would be treacherous for her, on which she might break a limb. What then? She would be unable to work, to sew, to earn money, to get food. Treacherous ice on which she might lose another child.
The nights were her respite. The open window invited the chill into the room. Alice slid herself into bed, under the cover of the wedding ring quilt she had made with her mother long ago, one of those hope-chest items she had actually brought with her. Hope sounded so empty now. The sounds of the city at night soothed her: the soft clip-clop of the occasional horse and its creaking wagon, the indistinct rhythm of neighboring voices, the occasional running feet of someone on an errand in the dark, someone young and unafraid of ice. In the distant flicker of the gaslight on the street, Alice would fall into a deep and, for the most part, dreamless sleep. It was as if the seeming inexistence of a husband named Howard Butterworth, cotton broker, emptied her nights of disruption, though now she woke at daybreak, her morning tinged with Jonathan’s death and her nausea, a new child in her womb. She consistently kept her bread within easy reach beside the bed to calm her stomach until she could rise.
The nausea passed, for which Alice was grateful beyond measure. This morning sickness had been only somewhat less than with baby Jonathan, but nausea was nausea. It takes your body hostage, Alice thought. Yes, that was the word: hostage. She dreaded waking, dreaded the movement of dressing herself, turning corners in the kitchen and down the stairs to the treacherous streets. With the holiday season approaching, she was correct about the abundance of alterations, but now she had to negotiate the streets in focus. She could manage that at least, but there was still the unrelenting fear of how to find housing, safe for herself and this baby to come.
When she took her single dish to the sink, there were tears and then sobs, which took her prisoner, hostage, there by that sink where Jonathan died. She gripped the cabinet edge to keep from falling. Her tears were as wet on her face as her hand had once been when trickling little streams of bathwater over her baby as she watched him laugh, his little arms waving in delight. Then the cold bathwater in which he died, the water meant to save him from his fever, in the wet hands of his father. His father, whose broken, guarded, silent grief she had scorned and ignored. She had adored her son. She still did, though he was not here. He would never be here. He would always be here in her memory, in her heart, in her very being. Her thoughts moved unexpectedly toward her own mother, in realization of how she had surely adored her own boys just this way, those boys who had lorded it over Alice, those boys whose right of inheritance had forced her into this life that now defied her, this apartment filled with memories that she could hardly bear. She held her breath until she could take it all in by force of will and walk away from the sink.
*
“Are you all right, Alice?” Mr. White held the pile of clothing to be altered over his arm. Leaning back, he studied her, his other hand on her shoulder.
“Yes. Yes, Mr. White. I am just a bit tired, but I am fine.” She saw his disbelief clearly defined in the concern on his face.
“Are you sleeping well, Alice?”
She nodded her head and reached for the clothing, which he did not surrender. “Yes. Actually, sir, I sleep surprisingly well.”
“Are you overloaded, then, Alice? Should I find an assistant to help you?”
“No, sir. I’m quite fine. The sewing helps me. It’s more than just the money, sir.” Alice hesitated, turned her head aside. “The sewing soothes my mind and gives me peace.”
“It is always reassuring to have something of steady peace,” he said, shifting the clothing. “So, nothing else?”
“No, sir. Let me take those now. I’ll have them back as quickly as possible. Is there anything urgent among them?” This time when she reached for the clothing, he transferred the load to her. “Anything special I should know?”
“Actually, yes. Miss Caruthers—perhaps you know her—needs the beige twill skirt hemmed by next week for her honeymoon. Your work is always so quick. I told her I felt sure there would be no difficulty. Everything else is quite straightforward.” White leaned toward her, then straightened, his face in a bit of a frown. “I almost forgot. Miss Caruthers had a friend, here from New Orleans for the wedding, I believe. At any rate, she has a hooded satin cape, falls below the shoulder, in need of some minor repair. I believe it’s to do with the trim on the edges of the hood. Something she needs back home for Mardi Gras, I think she said. As to the trousers, I have pinned the lengths myself. There are several. Is there any difficulty in this?”
“Of course not, Mr. White. I should have the skirt to you well before that time, and the little cape as well. It all sounds quite simple. I’ll bring the trousers one by one as I finish—or shall I wait and bring them all together?”
“All together will be just fine,” he said. “You do not need to be trudging to and fro in this weather, and these two gentlemen did not express any urgency.”
Alice saw the continued concern on his face. She felt a need to divert him. “I beg your pardon, Mr. White, but what is Mardi Gras?”