In my exhaustion-induced delirium, the thought made me giggle, and I was awarded with an outright scowl and then a loud shhhhh, complete with a fat index finger pressed to the nurse’s lips. Ignoring her, I used the central marble steps to climb to the nurses’ quarters on the sixth floor. The small space was filled with six metal beds, three of them occupied, including the one I’d been using and under whose pillow I had just that morning tucked my pajamas. The bucket I used for my toiletries was nowhere to be found.
I peeled off my gloves and stuck them into my pockets, then slid out of my dripping dress and slip, letting them fall to the ground because there was nowhere to hang them. I was still wet, and I smelled like a damp sheep. My gaze fell upon a bathrobe at the foot of what had been my bed. Without remorse, I grabbed it and wrapped it around my body, feeling mildly mollified.
I thought longingly of my peaceful attic room filled with light and the lost treasures of the people who’d once lived in the building. But it certainly wouldn’t do if I spent the night up there now, not since Captain Ravenel had awakened and begun his long road to recovery.
With a heavy sigh, I crawled under the covers of one of the unoccupied beds and closed my eyes. I should have been able to fall asleep immediately. The week had been long, my workload heavy. And tonight’s battles simply exhausting. But my thoughts kept drifting up toward the attic and to the solitary figure in the metal-framed bed. I kept picturing him as I’d last seen him, propped against the pillows, his face very close to mine. I remembered the sketch he’d drawn of me, and I wondered what had become of it. I was fairly sure it hadn’t fallen into Dr. Greeley’s hands or I would have certainly heard about it by now. I needed to remember to ask Nurse Hathaway if she had it. I wanted to keep the sketch. Not as a memento, I told myself, but as a reminder of something I might want to remember later in life. A reminder of the time a kiss had made light and color explode inside of me, a brief second when I’d questioned my chosen path in life.
I threw back the covers, knowing sleep would continue to evade me the longer I sought it. So as not to wake my sleeping companions, I stepped out into the deserted hallway and stood, listening to the nighttime pulse of the building, the soft hum like the memory of voices trapped inside its old walls. I crept out toward the elegant marble stairway, looking upward toward the glass skylight, and imagined I could hear the sounds of one of the grand parties that must have once been held in the mansion. I closed my eyes—just for a moment—and imagined I could see the handsome men in their tuxes and the beautiful women in their elegant clothes and jewels, smiling and dancing.
I opened my eyes, feeling dizzy. My imagination had seemed too real, as if I’d been remembering an event from my own past. I itched for a cigarette, to give my hands something to do more than from any real craving. But the night nurse would serve my head on a platter if I were discovered. I had almost decided to call Margie when I remembered the promise I’d made to myself earlier, about how I’d write to his family again if I hadn’t heard back by today.
I’d already begun stealthily walking down the stairs, listening for the night staff, and was almost at Dr. Greeley’s office door before I realized what I was doing. All correspondence was usually placed on his desk until he found the time to open it at his convenience. I happened to know that he was most likely already asleep in his bachelor’s apartment, and that he also routinely didn’t lock his office door—not because he was forgetful, but because he assumed his exalted position meant nobody would dare enter his office without his permission.
I turned the doorknob and opened the door. After making sure nobody was watching, I flipped on the light and locked the door behind me. I quickly went through the stack of mail on his desk, but there wasn’t anything from South Carolina—Charleston or elsewhere. I was about to admit defeat and try getting to sleep again when my gaze fell on an Army duffel bag shoved under a table heaped with books and papers.
All of the officers in the hospital had their duffel bags on the floor at the foot of their beds. All except for one. I bent down and read the name stamped in bold black letters on the side: CPTN CJ RAVENEL.
I sat back on my haunches, trying to justify what I was about to do. Maybe I didn’t have the correct address and my letter had not reached his family, and there might be something inside with another address. With the same bullheadedness that had made me apply to medical school despite what everybody else said, I unzipped the bag, making myself believe that if I didn’t do this, then Captain Ravenel’s family would be worried sick, possibly believing the worst.