His feelings for Mary had bloomed last winter when she’d learned that Alfred, who in twenty years as Mary’s beau hadn’t asked for her hand, had instead proposed to another woman. While Cora had been fleeing the bungalow to avoid being inadvertently hit by a kettle, tea box, or hairbrush—all items Mary regularly hurled against the walls of the one-room shack—she’d passed Canne. Halfheartedly clearing away the dried stalks of pansies and snapdragons, which he planted in front of Mary’s porch each spring, he’d looked more hopeful than sympathetic.
Occasionally, the two women had chatted about Canne’s obvious fondness for Mary, who’d made it clear that she had no interest in “that little man.” Watching him try to win Mary’s heart had pained Cora. For his sake, she was glad Mary had left. Over time, Canne would forget her, whereas Cora still saw Linnaeus Jones seven days a week. A year ago, he’d married nurse Carlton at St. John-by-the-Sea. From the lawn, Cora had listened to the ceremony. She wished she hadn’t.
Afterward, whenever she saw his sleek, black hair and broad shoulders from afar, she ducked her head to hide her eyes—the only outward evidence that she was as human as the rest of them.
Also, she’d given up on the possibility that Dr. Gettler’s humanity would return with the curative passage of time. No longer did he attend the church services, despite now being on the island every Sunday. And he limited his interaction with the staff and patients to the bare minimum required to maintain his position. Not even for his son could he rouse the compassion that had once made the nurses and patients adore him. As far as Cora could tell, he rarely visited the now nine-year-old boy, still living with a nanny in Kleindeutschland.
O’Toole had become her only friend.
Now he jerked the pole twice. “Feck. It got away.” With a groan, he heaved his body to a standing position and reeled in the line.
Whatever he caught today, nurse O’Toole would fry in the cafeteria kitchen for their children. In two hours they would return on the same ferry that delivered them each morning to the Lower East Side, where they attended Public School 188. According to O’Toole, it was the largest in the world, occupying an entire block of Houston Street. To spend just one day as a student there, Cora would give up her golden guinea.
An empty hook rose from the river.
“Bad cess, that’s all I’ve caught today,” O’Toole muttered, moving to the end of the pier, where the wind carried away the stench of the small fish he’d sliced as bait.
Bad luck is right, Cora thought. Her gaze fell from the Queens shoreline to the whitecaps of the river, and she shivered. “Maybe the sharks have eaten all the striped bass.” She bit her lip. Not once since her battle with the currents had she mentioned those beasts.
He laughed and rubbed his ruddy nose with the side of his fish-juiced hand. “Sharks? The ship traffic chased all those away a century ago.”
Would he think I’m mad? She inhaled the salty air and raised her cheeks to the sharp wind. Here on the southeastern dock, the farthest accessible point from the hospital, she could safely remove the wrap that shielded her breath. As the days had carried her farther from that encounter, she’d begun second-guessing the creatures’ existence. Maybe she was insane. O’Toole would tell her the truth.
She waited for him to cast his line and sit back down.
The reek of his sweat permeated the air once again. Cora didn’t mind; she cherished being this close to another human.
“O’Toole?”
“Yes, my sweet lass?”
“That day I almost drowned. If I were to tell you that a pair of sharks . . . saved me. Would you . . . Am I crazy?”
O’Toole bellowed, the deep sound reverberating across the water.
Humiliated, she reached for her hood.
He quieted and gripped her arm. “Hold on, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
“I must have imagined it. I must have been delirious from the fever.”
O’Toole stuffed his fishing pole under his armpit and twisted his massive torso to face her. “People say I laugh too much for an orderly at a contagion hospital, but laughter—and me family—are the only things that get me through each day on this godforsaken rock. The idea of guardian angel sharks: it’s thrilling.” He put his paw on her glove. “I hope they weren’t an illusion. You need a few angels on your side.”
She peered at him through her lashes. “Why would they help me?” she asked despite having her own idea. In her satchel she carried the pastor’s note with the Bible verse about Jesus cleansing the leper. Although time and wear had faded the ink, and she was no leper, its potential application to her had been gathering strength deep within her.
O’Toole motioned to the campus behind them. “I’ve always thought there’s something mystical going on with you and this place.”
Reflexively, she touched the wool covering her chest, beneath which lay her crucifix pendant. “Mystical?”
“I don’t mean no disrespect to the Good Lord,” he said, crossing himself, “but I don’t think He’s all that exists. The Indians, who used this island as fishing grounds, they have their own set of spirits. Maybe those sharks were making sure you stay put on what may very well be sacred land.”
She clutched her bag and thought of the bird stone within it. “Why me?”
“Who’s ta know?” He raised his line and cursed the empty hook. “Though ‘chosen’ you clearly are.”
“I don’t want to be,” she snapped, standing and turning inland. She’d seen more than enough of the river to last a lifetime, however long that might be. “I’d rather be dead than live like this,” she said, sweeping her hand across her cloak.
Her cheeks felt hot, and she realized she was crying. “I should jump in now and let the current carry me out to sea. Then we’ll know for sure about those sharks.”
O’Toole glanced toward the outbuildings, presumably to ensure that no one was watching, and grabbed her shoulders. “You can’t do that,” he said, his voice hitching. “I can’t lose one of my best friends.”
Overwhelmed, and flattered by his characterization of her, she replied, “You’re one of my best friends, too. Actually, the only one I’ve got left,” she finished bitterly.
He ruffled her hair. “Then I guess you’ll stay put so I don’t have to dive in after you.” He smiled, his full cheeks nearly swallowing his eyes. “The amount of meat I’ve got on me bones… those sharks of yours would have a field day.”
She mirrored his smile. “They wouldn’t stand a chance against you.”
“Perhaps. Seriously, though, I don’t understand your circumstances any better than you do. But I’m certain that you will bring good to mankind.”
Cora squirmed at his sudden change in demeanor.
His hand returned to her shoulder, gripping it more tightly than she knew he’d intended. “I’m here for you, in any way you need. Always have been, always will be. You know that. I understand that your blessings are also a curse. But if you don’t let the doctor finish his work, then your sister’s death will have been in vain.”
She leaned away. “You sound like him.”
O’Toole shrugged. “Whatever greater force that’s at work here, perhaps Rolene’s and Ingrid’s drownings were by its design.”
The possibility made her sick to her stomach, and she curled forward.
He rubbed the top of her head, and his touch sent a wave of warmth through her.
“Trust in God. And yourself. Miss McSorley, that leper’s cloak may fool others, but I know who you are: the descendant of a great Celtic warrior. And no one of that bloodline—not even a woman—would ever give up.”
Cora looked up at his fiery orange hair, cresting this mountain of a man. Far more likely, she thought, he’s the one of warrior descent. But O’Toole was right in one regard: she had to carry on. For Maeve’s sake. And because of her pact with God.
“I need to go. The doctor hates it when I’m late.”
O’Toole sighed and cast his hook. “As long as you walk tall, with your head high, he can never own you.”
Smiling weakly, she rewrapped the cloth around her head and pulled on the hood.
As she neared the building, her feet began to drag.
Who was O’Toole kidding? She was no warrior.
March 1915
he musty air within the bungalow felt like a second layer of wool pressing against Cora, yet she resisted the urge to step outside. Mary had unpacked most of her suitcase, without chucking a single one of her possessions across the room. After five years of freedom, Cora’s friend had been forced back into isolation permanently, as the newspapers had proclaimed, but not with her spirit intact.
“Dr. Soper was right,” Mary whispered in the Irish brogue that reminded Cora of her mother. “Disease and death follow me everywhere I go.” Keeping her back to Cora, she arranged her comb, jar of hairpins, and hair powder on the tray beneath her mirror. “I was wrong. In so many ways.”
There were no words of condolence that wouldn’t ring empty. A month ago, a typhoid fever outbreak at Sloane Maternity Ward had infected twenty-five patients, two of whom had died. Unbeknownst to health authorities, Mary had been working there as a cook.
Mary stared into the mirror. By her furrowed brow, Cora could tell that her friend abhorred the person she saw.
“Sixteen years ago,” Mary said, pinching the far corners of her eyes, “I was the cook at the Kirkenbauer estate. Little Tobias, he used to love my peach ice cream. He died from typhoid fever. His mom and the butler too.”
“I’m so sorry,” Cora murmured, her friend’s loss echoing through her own hollow spaces.
Mary turned away from the mirror and began unpacking the blouses and wool skirts she’d laundered and ironed herself throughout her last stay at Riverside.
Cora understood: all these years, Mary had been refusing to believe she was a germ carrier because that would have meant accepting responsibility for the little boy’s death. As a result, how many more had been lost? Cora wondered if Mary knew, or had even tried to guess.
“Sour milk,” Mary muttered and shoved a stack of shirts into her small dresser. “I feel like I’ve drunk a pitcherful.”
Cora knew that sensation; she’d often felt it herself. Frequently she’d wondered how many people she’d inadvertently infected despite her isolation. In addition to the five people she’d sickened in the first year following Maeve’s death, she suspected that she’d been responsible for at least six other cases, including two deaths. Once, she’d asked Dr. Gettler if he could figure it out from the hospital records.
He’d replied that the potential benefit for the greater good far outweighed any isolated casualties; tallying the sacrifices would be an unproductive distraction.
Cora loathed that word.
“I know how you feel,” she said softly to her friend.
“Aw, shite.” Mary tugged the other wooden chair to the far side of the room and flopped onto it. “We’re a sorry pair, aren’t we?”
Cora raised her head so Mary could see her eyes beneath the overhang of her hood. “If I tell you I’m glad you’re back, will that sound selfish?”
For the first time since Cora had watched her step off the ferry that morning, Mary smiled. “No, it would sound human. I’m equally glad you’re stuck here.” She inspected her hands, roughened from twenty years of plying a trade that involved scalding water. “You’re all I’ve . . . My Alfred, he’s dead.”
Cora jolted upward. “What? When?” For the past five years, she’d been assuming that Alfred had remained married to Liza Meaney.
“A heroin overdose. My fault, just like the others.”
She’s been through so much, Cora thought, and she’d been oblivious to it all. Suspecting that Mary would pass along messages intended for Eleanor, Dr. Gettler hadn’t allowed Cora to write her, even after Cora had declared that she’d rather have her mother think her dead than know the truth.
“How could that possibly be your fault?” Cora asked, still agitated that she hadn’t been there to support her friend.
Mary exhaled and turned away from her reflection. “About four, five years ago, just before Christmas, he was burned something terrible when a lantern exploded in his hands. When the doctor refused to give him more morphine, I started buying him heroin—it was cheaper. To get the money, I sold pies to the other tenants in our . . .” She hiccupped loudly and put her hand to her mouth.
Cora longed to cross the room and hug her friend.
“They wouldn’t even let me attend his burial,” Mary said, sobbing. “And I can never cook again. I’ve got nothing left.”
Cora’s insides twisted at the statement. She reached into her satchel for the envelope she’d kept safe throughout Mary’s absence. “It’s not much, but—”
“Miss McSorley,” Dr. Gettler called through the open window, and her shoulders stiffened. “I need you in the lab, disrobed and ready for surgery. Now.”
The scars from her past incisions seared with the dread of whatever he had planned.
“They still want to remove my gallbladder. I won’t let them . . .” Mary pursed her lips.
Although Mary had stopped herself, Cora knew the rest of the refrain: “. . . split me open like a pig on the butcher’s block.” During her first stay at Riverside, Mary had said it more than once. Often Cora had recalled the line as she lay beneath the doctor’s scalpel.
Maybe someday Cora would explain why she wished she could have her gallbladder removed, and why she could never go through with it. But not today. Not with Dr. Gettler standing impatiently outside and Mary still so chafed by her mistakes.
“I’m coming!” she hollered.
Mary groaned. “If you’re not gointa stand up for yourself, I’ll have to find a way to do it for you.”
Cora bit her lip. She didn’t want to argue with her friend, not on their first day together again. From the envelope in her gloved hand, she shook out two dozen flecks.
“Whatcha got there?”
“The makings of your next crop.”
Mary inhaled sharply.
After their failed escape, Alfred had sent her a packet of tomato seeds, and each summer Mary had tended the resulting plants with the care of a nursemaid. At Cora’s request, Canne had preserved the seeds from the tomatoes that had ripened after Mary’s departure. Often, Cora had recalled the sweet tang of the succulent vegetable, fresh off the vine, but she’d never felt tempted to plant the seeds herself. They wouldn’t have tasted as good without Mary beside her. “I kept them, not in the hope that you’d ever be back, but as a remin—”
“Miss McSorley!” Dr. Gettler barked from the lawn.
Cora glanced out the window. Beyond the doctor stood John Canne. He’d put on a fresh collared shirt and was holding a bouquet of gardenias.
“I’d better go. Should I tell Canne you’re resting?”
Mary groaned. “Please do.” In their old custom she opened the door for Cora and stepped aside.
Cora paused. “I’m sorry. About everything.”
“Liar.” Mary flashed a weak yet toothy grin.
“You’re right. Isolation Island wasn’t the same without you.” Cora adjusted her cloak and headed toward the doctor, his arms crossed impatiently.
“This renewed female companionship is a fantastic development,” he said as he began walking. “I’ll see that she’s treated well.”
Surprised, Cora squinted at his back. Maybe his old self hadn’t been entirely lost. “How kind of you,” she said, following him.
“I’d hoped—expected—to have
made a breakthrough by now,” he said, glancing back at her. “I’m disappointed in myself. I hate putting you through so much pain. But every day that I fail to replicate your antibodies is another day that thousands of people die from disease. For the sake of those who fall ill tomorrow, and the day after, we have no choice but to double our efforts. The recovery time between procedures, it’s been delaying my progress.”
Goose bumps shot down her arms. “What does that mean?”
“It means you won’t be able to fully heal from one surgery before the next. I’ll do everything I can to eliminate your discomfort, but your dedication will be tested. You’ll need the support of a friend now more than ever.”
They reached the morgue, and her feet refused to carry her over the threshold.
O’Toole’s words, after her admission about the sharks, jimmied their way into her consciousness.
Fighting her body’s rising cry, she straightened her spine and lifted her chin.
“For Maeve,” she whispered and lifted one foot, then the other.
August 2007
August 8
he door’s open,” Cora called from behind Finn as he approached the morgue and pathology building. “Don’t touch anything. The place is a hot zone.”
The notion of a deadly virus, lying in wait, made his skin tingle. Though her claim couldn’t be true: Riverside hadn’t housed patients with communicable diseases since the 1930s.
“There’s a sealed N-Ninety-Five mask at your feet. Put it on, and—”
Thunder rumbled; she waited for the sky to quiet.
“Leave your bag. Then go left, down the hall, and take the stairwell to the roof.”
Challenging her claim would only exacerbate her ire, so Finn set down his pack and put on the mask. Almost immediately, the air trapped against his face felt steamy. Adjusting his grip on his flashlight, he stepped inside.
The smell of rot aggressively invaded his nostrils. Pushing the mask against the bridge of his nose, he took in the decomposing, cavernous hallway.
The Vines Page 16