Orphan #8

by Kim van Alkemade

  “Sadie and Saul, they’re moving away today. My son, he’s going to start his own family now. And what am I left with, alone in my shop? Your brother, he’s a restless one. What if he leaves, tries his luck somewhere else?”

  “Can’t he work for you, making deliveries, like Saul said?”

  “I hardly got enough business to keep my own head above water. But you, Rachel. Since you came, it’s been good, working with you. How we talk when you take the inventory. That I need, someone in the shop, to help with the stock. And the lady customers, they like having a woman to deal with. But what will they say, a young woman and a grown man living together like that? You can’t sleep on a cot in the kitchen all winter. But if we were married, we could stay together, upstairs. I’d take care of you, Rachel, if I was your husband.”

  Rachel’s heart cowered behind her ribs. She had to swallow, hard, before she could speak. “But you’re my uncle. You’re older than my father.”

  “I’m not too old to be a husband, and a father.” He tilted his chin up. The sun, slanting through the synagogue windows, bounced off his glasses. “There’s lots of older men who get themselves a young wife. Rabbi says an older man is more understanding and patient. As for me being your uncle, it’s true, it’s not so usual here. But back in the old country this is what happened sometimes, to keep a family together. And the rabbi says he’ll bless the marriage.”

  Rachel remained silent. Max had one more argument to make. “Maybe soon we’d start a family together. Wouldn’t you like that, Rachel, to have a baby all your own?”

  Rachel’s stomach was curdling, but her mind ticked like a clockworks. It was revolting to contemplate marrying her uncle, but the prospect of refusing him made her realize how dependent she was on this man. She considered and rejected every option she could imagine. To buy herself time, she said simply, “Uncle Max, I don’t know what to say.”

  “You think about it, Rachel. Maybe it’s a new idea for you, you have to get used to it. I’m also driving out to Colorado Springs this afternoon. I decided to give the bedroom suite from my own wedding to Saul and Sadie, so I’m going to take it in my truck. I thought maybe it’d be nice to get a new bed. For a fresh start?” Max closed his hand over her knee. “I won’t make it back tonight, so you don’t have to answer me until tomorrow.”

  Rachel blinked. “Tomorrow?”

  “I could wait until you turned sixteen to get married, if you want, so we’d just be engaged for now. But, well, I can’t have a young girl living in my shop unless there’s an understanding between us.” Max took her hand. He pulled her toward him and pressed his mouth against her lips. Beneath the hair of his mustache, Rachel could feel the hardness of his teeth followed by the damp tip of his tongue. A chill shivered through her as someone walked on her grave. Max pulled away. “Besides, where else can you go?”

  Nathan’s voice carried above the murmur. “Time to go home.”

  The word rang false in Rachel’s ear. Rabinowitz Dry Goods could only be her home if she let her uncle become her husband. Then it occurred to her—Sam would never stand for that. Once she told him, he would take her away. They would leave together, maybe find Papa, make a real family for themselves. A smile pulled at her mouth as she followed Max out of the synagogue. Rachel thought of that scene in the movies where a girl is tied to railroad tracks and the train is coming. She relished the certainty that Sam would save her.

  “MAYBE IT’S FOR the best,” Sam said that night when Rachel told him about Max’s proposal. Everyone else had gone to Colorado Springs, the newlyweds in the back of Nathan’s sedan, Max following with his old bedroom furniture tied down in the truck. Sam was reclining on his cot in the kitchen, a lit cigarette between his lips.

  Rachel couldn’t believe she heard him right. “He wants to marry me, our own uncle!”

  “He said he’d wait till you were sixteen, didn’t he?” Sam stood and reached up to the top of the Hoover cabinet, taking down a small bottle. “Max’s medicinal brandy.” He pulled the cork with his teeth and took a swig. “Not bad. Not bad at all.” He stretched out on the cot again, alternating inhalations with sips of liquor.

  Rachel was alarmed. “He’ll know you drank some.”

  “I don’t care. You just pretend you don’t know anything about it, let him blame everything on me.”

  Rachel sat beside her brother on the cot. “I’m not going to pretend anything. You’ve got to take me away from here, Sam.”

  “You’re birthday’s what, nine months away? This could work for us, Rachel. You know I’ve been wanting to get out of here, and I saved up a lot, but not enough for both of us to get anywhere and have anything left once we got there. Besides, I want some adventure, after all those years being told what to do, those damn bells ringing every hour of the day.” Sam shook his head as if there were water in his ears. “Drove me crazy, those bells. But where the hell was I gonna go with you to worry about? Now I know he’ll take care of you, I can go.”

  “But, Sam, it’s disgusting! You can’t leave me here, to that.”

  “I’m not really gonna let him marry you, Rachel. By the time you’re sixteen, I’ll be settled somewhere, and I’ll send for you. Promise.” He gazed at the ceiling, already lost in his imaginary adventures.

  Rachel watched the forgotten cigarette in her brother’s hand burn out. He was supposed to save her, not leave her behind with nothing more to cling to than the memory of his word.

  “You promised you’d get me from the Infant Home, too.”

  Sam bolted up. “I was just a little kid, Rachel. I couldn’t do anything about that. You want to blame someone, blame our damn father, the bastard, for turning us into orphans.”

  “No, Sam, it wasn’t his fault, running away after Mama’s accident. He was just scared.” Rachel caught her brother’s hand. “I don’t really blame you, you know that. You can’t blame him, either.”

  “I can’t blame him?” Sam pushed her aside and pounded up the stairs. He came back down a minute later with a knapsack. “You want to find our father so bad? Here!” He yanked out a crumpled envelope and threw it at Rachel. While she pulled out a tattered sheet of paper and smoothed it enough to read the writing, Sam aimed a barrage of words at her.

  “Max wrote to our beloved Papa when I showed up here. He’s living in California if you want to go find him. The address is right there on the envelope. You know what he had to say to me when Max told him I ran away from the orphanage and came out here all on my own?”

  Sam tore the letter from Rachel’s hands. “‘Dear Son,’” he read, his words slurred with anger. “‘Glad to hear you’re out in Leadville. I heard through Max you ended up in the Orphaned Hebrews Home. I knew they’d take good care of you and your sister, better than what I could have done. But now Max tells me you’re working in the mine. Maybe you could spare a few dollars to send my way? I’ve been sick lately. . . .’” Sam threw the letter on the floor. It drifted under the cot. Rachel got down on her hands and knees to retrieve it.

  “Money! That’s what he wants from me, after all these years. Max says it’s always the same with him. He came out here, after Mama died. Stuck around leeching off Max until he finally ran him off. Max says to me, do what you want, but I’m not throwing good money after bad on my brother no more.”

  Rachel was reading the words scrawled on the paper. Her own papa’s handwriting. “If he’s sick, Sam, we should help him. We should go to him.” It was as if the lies she told to the Cohens and the Abramses were coming true after all.

  Sam lit a fresh cigarette, the flame reflected in his eyes. “Let him die if he’s so sick. I’m not sending him a penny from what I earned, chipping away underground. He left us, Rachel. We don’t owe him a thing.”

  Rachel started to object, but Sam cut her off. “Look, you do what you want. You don’t trust me to send for you? Fine, then go on back to the Home.”

  Rachel thought of the curled insole of Naomi’s shoe, of Amelia’s shorn hair. Shame w
ashed over her. “I can’t go back there, Sam. Let me come with you, wherever you’re going.”

  He shook his head. “I tried, Rachel, all those years, I tried to watch out for you. You don’t think I would’ve run away a long time ago if it wasn’t for you being in the Home? I can’t protect you anymore. I never could. I mean, look at you!” He flung his hand at the cloche hat. He intended only a gesture, but he knocked it from her head.

  Rachel inhaled, as if stricken.

  “Oh, Rachel, I’m sorry.” He stooped to retrieve it. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  She took the hat from him, held it on her lap. She sensed the glare of electric light on her smooth scalp. She lifted her chin and tried to hold Sam’s gaze, but he turned his attention to the floor. She recalled the way Sam’s eyes had slid away from her face, that first day in Reception, when she mistook Vic for her brother. All these years, she’d thought it was guilt that turned his head. Now she saw the truth—that he couldn’t stand the sight of her.

  “You go ahead, Sam. I’ll stay here. Maybe I’ll go find Papa myself. Or maybe I’ll end up marrying Uncle Max after all.” To hurt him back, she said, “It couldn’t be worse than Marc Grossman.”

  Blood rose into Sam’s cheeks, mottling his skin. “It won’t come to that, Rachel. I promise.”

  The word was such a lie, Rachel switched off the light so she wouldn’t have to see her brother’s face.

  If Rachel ever slept, she didn’t know it. She listened to Sam in the night, pilfering supplies from the shelves in the store. Knowing the inventory by heart, she could guess from the location and quality of the sound what he was taking: duffle, blanket, canteen, knife. He’d be gone by morning, of that she was sure. She turned over on her cot, covering her ears with the blanket. She heard a muffled jingle sometime before dawn.

  In the morning, Rachel felt strangely numb as she adjusted the inventory ledger to cover her brother’s theft. She wandered silently through the building, picking up a piece of ribbon that had fallen from Sadie’s dress, peeking into Max’s dusty bedroom. For a while, Rachel couldn’t account for the novelty of it. Then she realized—she had never before in her life had a place entirely to herself. Sitting at the kitchen table, she read again her father’s letter, then spread out what was left of Naomi’s stolen money. It might be enough for a coach ticket to Sacramento, but she’d be arriving with nothing in her pockets to find a man she hadn’t seen in a dozen years. A man who was sick and needed money himself. A man who had left his children behind.

  Rachel looked through to the store. She liked working there, talking with customers and organizing the goods. She even liked Max, just not for a husband. Maybe she would stay on awhile longer. Then she thought of Max’s tongue sliding across her teeth, his hands on her waist every time she climbed a ladder. He might say he’d wait until she was sixteen, but alone in the store, she wasn’t sure his word could be trusted.

  In the quiet kitchen, Rachel realized she was homesick. Not for her brother and the father she could hardly remember, but for the dorms and dining hall and play yard of the Castle. She missed Nurse Dreyer. She missed Naomi. The money on the table, the braid in her case: they were a wall between her and the place that had been her home. She dropped her head onto her arms. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t go back. She would have to choose between her brother’s promises, her uncle’s proposal, or the uncertain prospect of her father.

  She heard the whine of an engine. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she looked out the window and recognized Mr. Lesser’s truck. Of course, it was Sunday. Max hadn’t left an order, though. Mr. Lesser knocked on the kitchen door. Rachel tucked the money and her father’s letter in her pocket, then went to let him in. She could at least offer him lunch until Max returned. He’d come so far.

  All the way from Denver.

  Chapter Sixteen

  NIGHT SHIFT PROVED TO BE AS EASY AS FLO promised—I could see why she preferred it. Just one other night nurse came on Fifth. Lucia and I knew each other from shift changes, and we chatted easily about the patients until she settled herself behind the nurses’ station with an elaborate piece of crocheting, a christening dress for her granddaughter, she said. Gloria signed off on all the night’s doses and locked up the medication room before clocking out. The doctors were good about prescribing sedatives for those patients whose opiates didn’t already guarantee us a quiet night. Aside from dispensing meds and checking beds, we didn’t expect to have much to do until dawn.

  Just as I finished organizing my cart for eight o’clock rounds, the storm Flo predicted finally broke. The sky flickered like a neon sign advertising thunderclaps. Wind burst through open windows, sweeping rain over sills and slamming doors. Thunder boomed above our heads. Light fixtures rattled. Bulbs dimmed and recovered. Someone screamed.

  Lucia and I rushed to close windows in the patients’ rooms. We ran into each other in the hallway, trailed by our wet footprints. “Mr. Bogan fell getting out of bed,” Lucia panted. “Will you help me with him?”

  “Let me just call down for a janitor first.” I did, then together we got Mr. Bogan up. Tangled in his sheets, he’d drifted over the side of the bed, sinking gradually to the floor.

  “Thank God you didn’t break a hip, Mr. Bogan,” Lucia said as we settled him back on the mattress.

  “I’m sorry, I had to use the toilet. I duh-duh-didn’t mean to cah-cah-cah-cah-cah-cause any trouble.”

  Lucia saw that he had soiled himself. “You’re no trouble, dear. Let’s get you cleaned up.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “I can manage here if you want to check on the others.”

  I dashed into the next room. Already the floor was puddled with rain. Working my way down the hall, I closed windows, calmed agitated patients, straightened sheets, promised to return with medications. A Negro janitor arrived, steering his wheeled bucket with the long mop handle. He followed me down the hall, drying the floor in each room as I left it.

  In Mildred Solomon’s room, the old woman’s moans mixed with booms of thunder like the soundtrack of a horror movie. At four o’clock rounds, I’d only administered half the prescribed dose and by now it was wearing off. I noticed the bedsheets had gotten wet from the rain driven through the window. I’d have to change them, and probably the nightgown and diaper, too. The thought made me shudder. But now that all the windows were closed, I’d have to get the meds out first. Coming through the doorway, I nearly collided with the janitor.

  “I’ll start back down the other end of the hall after this room,” he said.

  “Thank you so much.” He was a young, gentle-seeming man. I wished I knew his name, but I so rarely worked nights, we’d never met.

  I think he read my expression because he said, “My name’s Horace.”

  “Thank you, Horace.”

  “You’re welcome, Nurse . . . ?”

  “Rabinowitz.”

  “You’re welcome, Nurse Rabinowitz.” Horace placed the mop in the bucket and began rolling it through the doorway as I stepped past him. He stopped, his eyes following me.

  “Is there something else, Horace?”

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, Nurse Rabinowitz, and I don’t mean anything by it, but I can’t help remarking on your hair. I’m in art school, you see, days, and I don’t know as I’ve ever seen that particular shade of red.”

  Mildred Solomon’s moans were seeping into the hallway. “I’m sorry, I have to go get the medications.” I turned away from Horace as he entered the room.

  The chaos of the storm had unnerved me; I knocked the cart against the nurses’ station, jumbling the cups of pills and rolling the syringes. My hands shook as I reorganized the medications. Brushing hair out of my eyes, I surveyed the cart to make sure nothing was missing. I looked up and saw Horace coming down the hall. Having finished mopping out the last of the rooms on Fifth, he was steering his bucket toward the freight elevator. Impulsively, I pulled open a drawer and took out a pair of scissors.

 
I left the cart and walked quickly, unpinning my hair as I went. A thick lock unrolled down my neck like a lizard’s tongue. I lifted the hair away from the nape of my neck, pulling it taut. With the scissor held just above my ear, I placed the hair between its blades and cut. The shearing sound reminded me of the first time I cut this hair, how the scissors chewed through the braid in greedy bites.

  I coiled the hair in my palm. “Horace, wait.”

  He stopped, the rolling bucket stilled so suddenly water sloshed out.

  “Here.” I held out my hand. He took what I offered. The red strands crackled and curled around his brown fingers.

  “I don’t quite know what to say, Nurse Rabinowitz.”

  “It’s for your art studies. Don’t worry,” I said, stepping back, “it’s not really mine.”

  Horace tucked my strange gift into the chest pocket of his coveralls. I retrieved the cart and pushed it into a patient’s room. The thunder grew distant as the summer storm rolled out to sea.

  THE STORM HAD disturbed the routines of night shift. It was after nine before all of the patients were dry and settled and medicated—all except one.

  “I’ll take this in for Dr. Solomon,” I said to Lucia. “I expect to stay for a while. She’s near the end, I think.”

  “That’s kind of you. You know, no one else calls her Doctor. But you knew her, didn’t you? Gloria told me she treated you when you were little. Were you sick?”

  I suppressed an urge to blurt out the truth. Instead, I simply nodded. “It was a long time ago.”

  Lucia suggested I go ahead and spend the night sitting beside the dying woman. “Take her midnight dose with you, too. I’ll do the rest of that round myself. It’s mostly bed checks at that hour, anyway. If you want to be with her, I mean.”

  “I do, thanks.” I picked up another syringe and marked the chart, writing down a time that hadn’t happened yet. Lucia settled back with her crocheting as I walked to Dr. Solomon’s room. My hand curled around the vial of unused morphine in my pocket. I hoped it wasn’t too full for what I’d be holding back, though I supposed I could just rinse the extra down the sink. I wondered why I hadn’t done that from the beginning. What did I think I was saving it for?