*
There was no time for me to stew over what I would say to Vincent for the rest of the day, and that was good. Mayor Finley’s twenty-two-year-old married daughter, Amy Pryor, was brought by hearse to the hospital late that afternoon, and she was in such dire straits with rapidly progressing paralysis that Dr. Matthews told us to move her immediately into our second iron lung. Her arms and chest and abdomen were already paralyzed by the disease and she struggled to breathe. She could only moan rather than speak. Although she could still move her legs somewhat, they thrashed wildly as Grace Wilding and I transferred her to the bed of the respirator. Along with Grace, I was put in charge of her care since I’d been trained in using the iron lung. I didn’t know which of us was more nervous, Grace or myself. Not only was the iron lung still new to us, but this was the mayor of Hickory’s beloved daughter and she was desperately ill. Her husband was overseas and her mother was taking care of her two-year-old son. To complicate matters even further, she was seven and a half months pregnant. The blessing in disguise was that she seemed to have no idea at all what was going on. She was in that blurry mental state we often saw in our most severely ill patients, confusion and delirium born of pain and fever and fear. If someone ever wheeled me into that long tube, forcing my breath in and out of my lungs, I thought I would panic, but Amy seemed oblivious, and it was a relief to Grace and myself when we saw her color quickly improve and the thrashing of her legs cease. I wrapped her neck in a cloth saturated with lanoline to prevent the diaphragm from chafing her skin, and we examined the seals on all the ports to be sure the lung was airtight. Nervously, I checked the power supply. The hospital hadn’t lost power yet, but it would be disastrous for our iron-lung patients if we did. Once everything was in order, Grace and I looked at each other and let out our breath with exhausted smiles.
I was relieved when it was Dr. Matthews and not Vincent who came to examine Amy. I saw Vincent several times over the remainder of the day, but he was always on the other side of the ward from where I was working. If he was looking at me, I didn’t know. I kept my face turned away from him, afraid of what he could read in my eyes. The guilt. The love I still had for him. Those emotions went hand in hand and I knew I’d be fighting both of them for the rest of my life.
The night shift arrived and I filled Betty in on my patients, most particularly Amy Finley Pryor. I could tell Betty was unnerved at the prospect of taking care of the mayor’s daughter. She was more than competent and had worked with polio patients before—she had more experience working with an iron lung than I had—“but I’ve never taken care of a mayor’s kin before,” she said with a shaky laugh.
“You’ll be fine,” I told her. I imagined that in the hours to come, she was going to be in better shape than I was. I was still unsure when I’d be able to talk with Vincent and even less sure what I would say.
He was waiting for me outside the door of the ward when I left. I saw Henry in the distance, standing by the Cadillac, chatting with Zeke, and I knew he expected to give me a ride home. I panicked, having both men in my vision at the same time.
“I can’t talk now,” I said to Vincent. “I’m getting a ride home.” I nodded toward the clearing and the Cadillac and he followed my gaze in that direction.
“I have my car here and I can give you a ride home,” he said, “wherever home is.” I heard anger in his voice. “I’ll drive you home after we’ve talked,” he added.
“I…” I glanced in Henry’s direction again. I didn’t think he’d seen me. I held my chin a little higher. “That’s my husband,” I said. “I have to go.”
I started to walk past him, but he put an arm out to stop me.
“You owe me a conversation, Tess,” he said.
I dropped my chin, giving in. My knees were shivering. “All right,” I said. “Let me tell him I have to stay.”
He looked reluctant to let me go and I thought he didn’t believe that I would return. He thought I was a liar, and I made up my mind right then that I would tell him the truth. All of it.
“I’ll wait for you at the entrance to the stone building,” he said. “My car is on the other side.”
67
We were quiet as we circled the stone building, heading toward the area where cars were parked haphazardly among the trees. I recognized his old Ford and the sight of it nearly put tears in my eyes. How many hours I’d spent in that car!
He opened the door for me and I got in and rolled down the window. He did the same on his side and the evening breeze and sound of cicadas filled the car. He didn’t say a word and I knew he was waiting for me to begin.
I leaned my back against the door and looked at him. Really looked. He wore a blue short-sleeved shirt I’d never seen before, but everything else about him was familiar. Familiar and beautiful.
“Did you know I was here?” I asked. “In Hickory?”
“I had no idea where you were,” he said. “Gina refused to tell me anything.”
“I made her promise.”
“That letter you left me…” He shook his head. “My Tess? Marrying someone else? Cutting me out of her life without a word of explanation? I thought it was impossible. And of course, you left me no way to get in touch with you. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.” He looked out his side window into the woods. “When I finally got to Baltimore after your mother died, and I walked into your house and saw your engagement ring on that letter … I couldn’t believe it. Neither could my parents. It was such a shock. Such a slap in the face to all three of us.”
I winced. “I know,” I murmured. “I hated hurting all of you.”
“I was sure Gina knew who the man was and where you were, but she told me to forget you. Just move on. And once my mother accepted the fact that you were gone, she said the same thing. ‘Tess isn’t the girl we all thought she was,’ she told me. But how was I supposed to forget about you?” he asked. “It was impossible. Then Gina stopped returning my calls, and I finally realized you’d shut me out of your life for good and I had no choice but to accept it and move on.”
“I’m so sorry, Vincent.” My heart skittered in my chest as I listened to him, imagining how he’d felt.
“I was worried about you at first,” he said. “That behavior … it just wasn’t like you. And then I got angry.” He gripped the bottom of the steering wheel. He looked at me. “I’m still angry,” he said.
“Of course you are. Probably not nearly as angry as I am at myself.”
“I thought our relationship was strong enough to survive me being gone for those few months. I was so busy and maybe I took you for granted when I became a lazy letter writer.”
“That wasn’t it,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault in any way.”