Her elbow slipped and struck the cabinet. Not hard enough to hurt or wake Lula. But in righting herself, she bumped into the pitcher and sent it tumbling to the ground. It shattered. Saline water and glass covered the floor. Mirielle turned her head toward the desk at the far end of the infirmary, but thankfully neither Sister Verena nor Sister Juanita was there.
“I’ll be right back,” she whispered to Lula, who was still sleeping despite the clatter of the breaking pitcher.
Mirielle hurried outside, down a short flight of steps to a small shed where they kept the mop and cleaning supplies. The rain dampened her uniform, and mud squished beneath her shoes. Without the aid of sunlight, it took Mirielle several swipes through the darkness to find the dangling light cord. When the bulb flickered on, several cockroaches and a large mouse scurried to the shadowed corners. She tucked the hand broom and dustpan beneath her arm and grabbed the mop and bucket.
On the way back, she slipped in the rain, falling into a muddy puddle. She scrambled to her feet and hurried back to the infirmary. Now she’d have to clean the mess of the broken pitcher and find some way to change her uniform before Sister Verena returned.
Once Mirielle was inside, she set down the cleaning supplies and grabbed a towel from the linen cupboard. As she dried off her uniform, a shaking from across the room caught her eye. She dropped the towel and ran to the fever cabinet. The other patients in the infirmary were all sitting up in bed, staring at the rattling machine. Had some gasket or coil inside it busted? Had the water she’d spilled somehow damaged the circuitry?
As she drew closer, Mirielle realized it wasn’t the hypertherm that was shaking at all. It was Lula.
“Lula! Lula,” she cried, but the woman didn’t respond. Her eyes were open, rolled back, so only the whites could be seen. Foam dribbled from her mouth as her head thrashed on the pillow. Something thudded against the sides of the cabinet. A shaking leg? A convulsing arm?
Mirielle hurried to the wall, almost slipping again in saline water, and yanked the plug from the outlet. The whirring machine went silent. She raced back and unlatched the sides of the cabinet, throwing up the lid as soon as the last latch was sprung. A bloom of hot air struck her face. She climbed onto the mattress, doing her best to cage Lula’s flailing limbs, holding her until at last she went still.
CHAPTER 42
Mirielle dunked her scrub brush in the bucket of soapy water and raked it over the floor. After Lula’s convulsive fit in the fever cabinet, she was no longer allowed to assist with the trial. Lula had recovered, and Doc Jack assured Mirielle it hadn’t been her fault, but none of that mattered to Sister Verena, who now relegated Mirielle to the meanest tasks in the infirmary. For the past three weeks, when Mirielle wasn’t emptying bedpans or clipping patients’ toenails or on her hands and knees scrubbing floors, she was hand-copying The Principles and Practices of Nursing. This last assignment, Mirielle suspected, was more for penance than practicality, for it seemed unlikely Sister Verena would let her take a temperature, let alone assist in some medical procedure ever again. Why she didn’t just fire her, Mirielle didn’t know.
And why didn’t she quit? Each day Mirielle thought about it. Before she could convince herself that what she did aided in the pursuit of a cure. But scrubbing floors? Never in her life had she been subjected to this kind of work.
Frank’s voice at the doorway of the infirmary made her look up. He handed Sister Loretta a box overflowing with garlands and ribbons. “The What Cheer Club rustled up a few decorations. Thought it might lift patients’ spirits.”
“Oh, what a lovely idea,” Sister Loretta said. “Mrs. Marvin and I will hang these right away.”
Before Mirielle could look away and pretend to be working instead of eavesdropping, Frank’s eyes found her. He used to smile when he saw her. Wave. Make some stupid joke to get her smiling too. Not anymore. He said goodbye to Sister Loretta and left without a second glance in Mirielle’s direction.
She spent the remainder of her shift helping Sister Loretta string festoons of evergreens from the walls and tie Christmas-colored ribbons to the foot of every bed. They trimmed the nurses’ desk with strings of popcorn and hung a wreath on the door.
The What Cheer Club had been right. The decorations did buoy the patients’ spirits. There were more smiles and fewer call bells as they watched the ribbons and greenery go up. A few of the women even began humming Christmas tunes.
Mirielle told herself to smile and even hummed along in her head, but she might as well still be scrubbing the floor for all the cheer she felt. She’d loved the Christmas season as a girl. As a young mother too. But Felix’s death had overshadowed last Christmas and the one before. Never mind the twelve-foot fir tree aglimmer in the great room. Or the dozens of brightly wrapped presents below. Not even Evie’s laughter or Helen’s squeals of delight had penetrated the darkness. Now, when at last Mirielle was beyond that shadow, her daughters were hundreds of miles away.
On Mirielle’s way back to house eighteen after her shift, Irene intercepted her. She looped an arm around Mirielle’s waist. “It’s a red-letter day, baby!”
“Humph,” was the only response Mirielle could muster.
“Ain’t you gonna ask why?”
Mirielle suppressed a sigh. “Why?”
“I’ll show you.”
When they got to house eighteen, the air smelled strangely fragrant. Maybe Irene had finally gotten Jean to stop leaving her dirty socks lying about. She steered Mirielle into the living room. “Ta-da!”
A huge bouquet sat on the side table—red roses and amaryllis, pearl-white lilies and sprigs of greenery.
Mirielle couldn’t help but reach out and touch one of the leaves to feel if it were real. “How’d you get fresh flowers delivered way out here?”
“Ain’t they somethin’? My son sends ’em every year. Thought I’d put them out here so we could all enjoy them.”
Mirielle bent down and smelled one of the lilies. Its scent mixed with that of the roses creating a fragrant perfume that reminded Mirielle of the grand marble foyer in her childhood home. No matter the season, her grandmother kept a bowl of cut flowers on the lacquered table in the center of the room.
Mirielle straightened and rattled her head as if she could somehow dislodge the scent from her nose and, along with it, the memory. Instead, more memories followed. The wonderfully garish bouquet of roses Charlie had sent after their first date. The lily corsages she’d worn at all three of her children’s christenings. The flowers that crowded Felix’s small coffin at the funeral.
She stepped away and tried again to smile. “They’re beautiful, Irene. What a thoughtful boy.”
“He ain’t that bright or that handsome, but he’s good to his mama.”
Mirielle started for the door. She wanted to change out of her scratchy uniform before supper. Maybe take a quick nap. Forget about the flowers. The memories. And the fact that Charlie hadn’t been as thoughtful.
“Hey! That’s only part of my good news,” Irene said before Mirielle could leave. “I got the results of—”
“What’s that smell?” Madge said, shuffling into the room. She scowled at the bouquet. “Don’t like flowers. Never did. Waste of money if you ask me.” But despite her protestations, she sat down on the side of the sofa closest to the blooms. “How’s your son able to afford such fancy flowers every year anyhow, Irene? He bootleggin’ or something?”
The supper bell rang, and several more of their housemates crowded into the living room, waylaid on their way to eat by the grand bouquet. Each one of their oohs and aahs and oh my how prettys nettled Mirielle until she wanted to grab the vase of flowers and throw it through the window. Before Irene could finish telling Mirielle the rest of her good news, talk turned to the upcoming holiday. Would they take a trip to the woods to cut down a tree? Who’d done what with the ornaments they’d made last year? Had Chef said what he was making for Christmas dinner?
Their happy chatter annoyed Mirielle
all the more. A spindly little tree from the woods. Moldering handmade ornaments. A heatlamp-warmed Christmas dinner served on chipped enamel plates. A pathetic bouquet of flowers. How could any of that make up for being away from their families, locked away and forgotten?
As her housemates moseyed out of the living room, still chatting, and on their way to supper, Mirielle headed for her room. Irene called down the hall after her. “You comin’ to supper?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You sure?”
Mirielle nodded.
“I’ll bring you back somethin’. Ain’t good to sleep on an empty stomach.”
She opened her door and pressed the light switch. Irene was at the door before Mirielle could close it.
“With all that jaw flappin’, I didn’t get to tell you the rest of my red-letter news.”
Mirielle didn’t step back or invite Irene into her room. All the day’s little irritations had coalesced into a throbbing at the base of her skull. “I’m not much in the mood for—”
“My tenth skin test. It was negative! Got the results just this morning.”
Each one of her words was like a jagged spoon, scooping out a piece of Mirielle’s insides. Ten tests. Mirielle only had seven with no cure in sight.
Irene’s brightly painted smile faltered. “Ten in a row, that is. Only two more to go, baby, and I’m a free bird!”
After another beat of silence, Mirielle managed to peel her tongue from the bottom of her mouth. “That’s swell.” She started to close the door, but Irene stuck her hand out.
“Swell? That’s all you got to say?”
“Yeah, swell. What do you want me to do? Dance around the room? Go tell the other ladies if you want them to howl about the house with you.”
“What’s wrong with you? You’ve been a downright killjoy ever since they kicked you outta that trial.”
“I hate this place and everyone in it! That’s what’s wrong with me. Flowers and Christmas decorations don’t change the fact that we’re lepers. And neither do your ten goddamned tests.”
Irene’s lips slackened. She took a step back, and Mirielle slammed the door.
CHAPTER 43
Five days after the argument, Mirielle listened at her door to her housemates’ chatter and hurried footfalls. Carville’s unvarying routine made it easy to avoid Irene, even though her room was only two doors down. When Mirielle wasn’t at work in the dressing clinic or infirmary, she kept to her room. She came late to every meal, arriving just as Irene and the rest of her housemates were leaving.
Tonight, they were off to the rec hall to watch whatever old movie the What Cheer Club had managed to get ahold of this week.
“Don’t forget your pillows, gals,” Irene hollered. Shot clinic had been that day, and everyone was likely still sore. Without a pillow, the benches and chairs in the rec hall would only make the soreness worse. One more reason Mirielle was glad to be staying in.
The front door opened with a squeal. Mirielle felt the rush of cold air over her toes. The calls of “Hold on!” and “Anyone seen my scarf?” and “Can I bum a nickel for candy?” faded as the door whined shut.
Silence. The very sound Mirielle had been waiting for. She slipped out of her room into the bathroom, pulling her silk kimono tightly closed against the cold air. All day she’d been dreaming about a bath, conjuring the steam and bubbles in her mind to chase away the tedium of boiling needles and peeling apart cotton squares. She turned the tub’s faucet as hot as it would go, but lukewarm water dribbled out.
“Oh, horsefeathers!” she said aloud, wrenching the water off and stalking back to her room. Another resident must have burned himself. It could happen easily enough when you hadn’t any feeling in your hands. And whenever it did, the top dogs up at the big house ordered the water temperature lowered another few degrees.
Mirielle put away her bathroom caddy—she wasn’t going to waste the last of her good bubble bath on lukewarm water—and threw a satin nightdress on under her kimono. Now what? It was too early for bed. She could read. Buff her nails. Play a game of solitaire. What had she done when she first came here? All those hours alone. Not just in jail but after too. When she’d thought Irene and her housemates and everyone at Carville were just a bunch of common bores.
She sat on her bed and occupied her hands with a nail file. The silence now felt suffocating. She really ought to apologize to Irene. Slamming the door in her face had been a bit much. Mirielle wasn’t sure where all that silly anger had come from. Trouble was, it boiled inside her still. Every time she passed by the living room and caught the scent of flowers. Every time she heard Irene laughing. Every time she came home to Christmas music playing on the phonograph or new decorations strung on the walls. Of course Irene would be merry. She had a son who sent her flowers and only two tests to go before she could see him again. Mirielle had more than twice that many tests to go and a husband vacationing in the goddamned Swiss Alps.
Really, it was Irene who ought to apologize. For making all that fuss when she knew Mirielle was so blue. It was downright garish the way she’d behaved. And that music—“Jingle Bells,” “Silent Night,” “The Little Drummer Boy”—she must know it set Mirielle on edge.
She looked down at her hands. She’d filed her nails to blunt nubs and chafed the tips of her fingers raw. White dust covered her lap. She brushed it off and flung the file onto the table beside her comb. If she had to hear “Adeste Fideles” one more time, she’d smash the record in two. Even now, the words looped round in the back of her mind.
She needed something to break the silence. Another song. Something that wouldn’t remind her of Christmas parties and mistletoe kisses and children’s laughter. She got up and went to the living room. Just because she and Irene weren’t speaking didn’t mean Mirielle couldn’t use her phonograph.
She crouched down and opened the cabinet where Irene stored her records, looking for something jazzy and bright. The first few were all holiday albums. Mirielle flipped quickly past them. A brownish-gold label caught her eye. She pulled the record out from the stack. Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers. One of Frank’s hillbilly records? It must have gotten mixed up with Irene’s the night they were all dancing on the deck of the observation tower. She slipped it from its cardboard sleeve and placed it on the turntable. A fiddle and guitar medley sounded through the speakers. She’d expected the lively tune to lift her spirits. Instead, her ribs tightened around her lungs. It was impossible not to think of Frank while listening. She lifted the needle and fumbled for the record sleeve.
A sniffling noise sounded in the silence. Mirielle startled, nearly dropping the record. When she turned around, she saw the scuffed tip of Jean’s oxfords peeking from behind the sofa. Had she been here the whole time?
“Jean?”
Another sniffle.
Mirielle walked around the sofa and found Jean sitting on the frayed rug with her knees drawn up to her chest. She’d stolen one of the roses from Irene’s bouquet. Its red petals lay scattered around her.
“Why aren’t you at the picture show?”
Jean wiped her runny nose on the sleeve of her cardigan and shrugged. “How come you ain’t?”
All Mirielle’s excuses seemed too foolish to say aloud, so she didn’t answer. Instead, she sat down, leaning against the back of the sofa. “Tell me what’s up, buttercup.”
When she said that to Evie, she always got a smile. But Jean’s pout didn’t budge. “Mrs. Hardee sent me back and said I ain’t allowed at no more shows for the rest of the year.”
“What did you do?”
“I only told Toby that there weren’t no Santa. He started crying like a baby, and I got an earful from Mrs. Hardee.”
Mirielle had expected the usual: Jean slipping a cockroach down someone’s shirt or throwing peanuts at the screen during reel change. The existence of Santa Claus caught her off guard. “That’s not true. Of course there is.”
Her hasty response didn’t seem to con
vince Jean, whose gaze was fixed on the rose stem in her hand. She tapped her finger against one of the thorns, lightly at first, then hard enough to draw blood. Mirielle teased the stem from her grasp and set it on the floor.
Jean sucked on her finger, then said, “If Santa’s real, how come he never comes to Carville?”
Mirielle floundered for an answer. Maybe she ought to tell Jean the truth. The girl was ten years old now, after all. Everyone had to learn that Santa wasn’t real at some point.
“Is it ’cause of our disease?” Jean asked before Mirielle could reply.
“No. Santa Claus doesn’t care a wink about such things.”
“Then how come?”
Mirielle picked up one of the rose petals. It felt light and soft in her palm like a swatch of fine silk. She couldn’t bring herself to say that Jean was right. That Santa Claus wasn’t real. Jean had already faced enough hard truths in her short life. What harm was there in forestalling this one? “He probably doesn’t know that you’re here. That the colony exists at all. It’s not an easy place to find, you know.”
“I thought he knew everything.”
“Most things. Not everything. Have you written him a letter to tell him that you’re here?”
Jean shook her head.
“Well, no wonder he hasn’t come.” She stood and pulled Jean to her feet too. “I’ll get some paper and an envelope.”
Equipped with all the necessary supplies, Jean sat for several minutes at the living room desk, gnawing on the end of Mirielle’s pen between bursts of writing. Mirielle watched her from the sofa out of the corner of her eye, flipping through a magazine and pretending to read. She felt foolish for all her earlier huffing. What was lukewarm bathwater compared to being an orphan at Christmas?
“How do you spell ‘presents’?” Jean asked, her fingers smudged with ink.
As Mirielle spelled the word aloud, she realized more fully the impossible task she’d set for herself. Christmas was only three weeks away. How would she get gifts for Jean in such a short time? And what of the other children? There were almost a dozen here at Carville. Santa couldn’t just bring gifts for one of them.
The Second Life of Mirielle West Page 24