The empty hours of the night trickled past. David and Dr. Goodenow had climbed the stairs ages ago. It was now the wee hours of morning, when darkness took its deepest hold and hope seemed out of reach. Not one sound had come from upstairs, not even the creaking of someone walking across the floor. No wails or cries. Nothing.
She gave up pacing so she wouldn’t wake the baby and settled in the straight-backed chair. Pray without ceasing, Paul had told the Thessalonians, but words could no longer overcome fatigue. Her mind constantly rambled, and her eyelids kept drifting shut. Each time they did, she jerked awake and then checked to make sure she hadn’t woken the baby.
How peacefully he slumbered in the midst of strife. She stroked his tender forehead. This little one did not know the turmoil surrounding his parents. He must never know it.
The stairs creaked, and she stood expectantly.
The midwife appeared, carrying the kettle of water. At Prosperity’s questioning look, she muttered, “Won’t be long now.”
Prosperity followed her out of the parlor. “Then there’s no hope?”
The midwife shook her head. “Her head’s clear at the moment, but she’s lost too much blood.”
“Isn’t a clear head a good sign?”
“Seen it happen before, jest before the end.”
Prosperity drew in a sharp breath. “Then there’s little time.”
“Aye.” The midwife pushed out the back door. “He be payin’ his last respects.”
Prosperity could not even swallow. She ought to apologize for her wayward thoughts. She ought to console David’s wife that her baby would have a good father, but her feet would not move toward the staircase. How easy it sounded to offer a simple word of hope. A stronger woman might march up those stairs. Prosperity remained rooted to the spot.
This moment must remain between husband and wife. Her presence would not bring the peace this woman needed. So she watched the midwife disappear into blackest night and offered a prayer for the soul of David’s wife.
More creaking sounded from above.
Prosperity moved back to the parlor and discovered the baby rubbing his fists against closed eyes. She picked him up and cradled him close, humming the lullaby her mother had sung to her. He drifted back to sleep.
Footsteps rang on the staircase.
She looked up to see Dr. Goodenow, dressed in black coat and hat. He carried his medical bag. Either David’s wife had died or the fever had broken.
“Is she . . . ?” She must hope for the best.
He shook his head.
Gone. David’s wife was gone. Once again everything she’d counted as certain shifted. God had granted her heart’s blackest desires.
David knelt by the bed and stared at Aileen’s still body. Peace at last, but at such cost. He shuddered over the violence of her delirium. Over and over she had begged for her child. He had promised . . . he didn’t know what he’d said. With her last gasp, numbness had settled in. Unrepentant until the end, she had used her moment of clarity to curse him. The words—uncharacteristically free of vulgar language—still rang in his head.
I hope you suffer the way you made me suffer.
He had recoiled and instinctively looked to the doctor. The man was gone. No one else heard Aileen. Only him. No one else witnessed her bitterness. He could be thankful for that. She had no right to curse him. He had given her a home and his name. She was the one who had lied and cheated. Not him.
Instead of unleashing the anger, he forced himself to turn back to her. At the threshold of death, blame ought not be affixed. This shaky marriage had been built by two willing participants. She’d needed a father for her baby. He’d believed her tale, believed himself capable of such sin, and offered her the answer she sought. Yet he’d never been a husband to her.
David took her lifeless hand. A stranger to death, he knew not its character, but even he recognized the chill in her flesh. Still, he held on, staring at her for untold minutes, waiting for some sign that this too was one grand deception.
It was not.
The doctor returned to confirm what David already knew. Aileen was dead.
Their two-month marriage had been excruciating and exhausting. The child he’d hoped to gain from their union proved his mother a deceiver. He had nothing to celebrate from their time together and no direction for the future.
“What now?” he managed to ask.
“You will need to make funeral preparations.”
He didn’t know where to begin. Other than grandparents, his family had not known death’s cruel sword. He had no experience with its responsibilities. Perhaps Prosperity would help. She had buried two parents.
He began to rise. Then sank again.
Foolish thought. After the pain he’d caused her, she would not look at him, least of all help him. No, he must do this himself. There was no one to notify beyond Aileen’s few friends at the grogshop. She’d never attended a church and had no kin on the island.
He groaned and buried his head in his hands.
The doctor placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll get through this. I lost my wife many years ago. It’s difficult, but you will survive.”
The man did not know that he harbored no love for Aileen. David would not mourn her as much as he would mourn his failures with her. That would be impossible to forget.
“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered.
“You must live for your son.”
“My son.” David brushed away the doctor’s consoling hand and strode to the window overlooking the other officers’ quarters. “You know as well as I that he’s not my son.”
The doctor paused so long that David would have thought he’d left if not for the man’s reflection in the window.
“He is your son by law.”
“Did you ever raise a child that wasn’t yours?” David spat.
Again the long pause. “My wife died in childbirth. The baby was stillborn. I would have given everything to have my wife back. I would have even given up my insistence on a child of our own, but it was too late. I had refused her wish to take in an orphan. If I had listened to her . . .”
David could not absorb another man’s pain. Not now. “At least your wife loved you.”
“Perhaps too much.” The doctor shook his head. “I didn’t deserve such devotion. We are selfish creatures by nature, and I am no exception. But that baby downstairs needs a father.”
David couldn’t bear to look at the boy. What sort of father could he be? “How can I?”
“You give him a home and a future,” the doctor said.
David turned away, even though he knew the doctor was right. Caring for Aileen’s child was the greatest thing he could do to atone for his sins, the one thing he could still promise her. It would also be the most difficult.
David’s wife had died, and Prosperity had wished it. For that she could never forgive herself.
“We will go now, Doctor?”
He shook his head. “You must watch that child in your arms until another can be summoned.”
Her heart sank. One more moment with David might break her resolve. Yet what woman threw herself at a widower on the night of his wife’s death?
“I know this is difficult.” Dr. Goodenow stood at her side now, hand upon her shoulder. “Think of the child, not his father.”
How easy to say and hard to do. Her thoughts ran wayward, unbridled in their conflicting passions. “Another officer’s wife?”
His somber expression softened. “The hour is late, but if a light burns in another window, I will inquire if someone might come to assist you. But I must caution you that dawn is not far away. Doubtless everyone is sleeping.”
“The midwife, then.”
“I sent her home, as there was nothing more she could do.” He drifted toward the door.
A creaking on the stairs sent her heart racing and her gaze flitting upward. David appeared, step by painful step. His shoulders now bowed. His countenance had age
d. His gaze passed over the doctor and landed on her. Oh, those blue eyes! Bright as a summer sky and deep as an ocean. They said more than words ever could. Regret and pain and sorrow.
She caught her breath at the immensity of his anguish.
His gaze drifted down to the babe in her arms, asleep still, unaware that his mother had left this world and its sorrows behind.
“Thank you,” he croaked in words barely audible.
She swallowed the protests that rose instinctively to her lips—that it was nothing, that any woman would do the same, that she had only done what must be done.
“Please stay,” David said, looking not at her but at the baby.
“I cannot.”
Surely he knew that, but his gaze rose again to her face, and she nearly cried out at the torment in his eyes.
“I don’t know what to do.” He licked his lips. “The baby. Everything. Please help. As a friend.”
No words could be crueler. Every part of her longed to agree, but that would be terribly wrong. “Your wife has passed.”
He flinched as if she had just fired a musket, but her statement wiped away the anguished husband and rejuvenated the soldier. “I will need to make arrangements. For the burial. And for the child.”
A shiver ran down her spine. She preferred the despairing husband to the emotionless soldier. “I will ask Gracie—she’s a laundress at the hospital—if she will nurse the boy.”
He stared at her.
“Your son will require a wet nurse.” She was certain she’d said this before, but he seemed to have forgotten. “Gracie is nursing her own and might be able to take on another baby. If not, she may know someone who can.”
He nodded, but she doubted he would remember come morning. She looked for the doctor, who would confirm the need for a wet nurse, but he was gone. He must have slipped out to find another officer’s wife.
“Mother’s milk is best.”
David avoided looking at her. “Then do make inquiries, Miss Jones.”
The stiff formality slapped her across the cheek. She could barely draw a breath. This was as it should be, but not as she wished. “I will.”
It was the only proper thing she could do.
14
Prosperity was true to her word. Later that day, before the last of the officers’ wives left David’s quarters and returned home, a wet nurse arrived to take the squalling baby.
The buxom Negro girl looked barely twenty, if that. Gracie by name. A slave, most likely, hired out to the hospital. Her wages would go to her master. For this service, David wanted the fee to stay with her. After all, she was giving of herself, perhaps diminishing what she could give to her own baby in order to sustain Aileen’s child.
The girl expertly quieted the babe with a few soft words and jiggles, much as Prosperity had. For the briefest instant, a fierce longing swept through him. Prosperity. Dear Prosperity. His betrothed and beloved. Now no longer his.
“You be needin’ someone ta nurse dis boy every day,” the girl said, drawing David from his regrets. “Every three ta four hours.”
He dragged a hand through his tangled curls, painfully aware of the depth of his exhaustion. “I will pay handsomely.”
He named a price, and her eyes rounded. He must have offered too much. Too bad he hadn’t thought to ask the other officers what was a reasonable rate.
“I got my own babes,” she protested. “An’ I does laundry at de hospital.”
“I realize that.”
“I kin only nurse him early in de mornin’ an’ before supper. I cain’t be leavin’ my babes ta live here.”
“That’s not what I intended.” But he had no idea what he intended or what needed to be done. A widower could not raise a baby, even if he wasn’t a soldier. David’s work meant long hours away from home. What was he supposed to do with this child all day? No matter what the doctor tried to impress upon him, this product of Aileen’s wild ways was not his responsibility.
“Ya need someone ta take care of dis boy, ta feed him when I cain’t be here.”
“I know.” His head split from the piercing squalls, well-meaning condolences, and ricocheting emotions. He drew a deep breath and began again. “I realize that must be done, but I don’t know how to do it.” He wished to wake from this nightmare that heaped on difficulties like bricks. “I need someone to take care of him until I figure it out. Could you take him for just a few days?”
The girl glared. “Don’t you be shovin’ your chile off on me. Miss Prosperity done tole me what ya done ta her, how you be runnin’ off with a no-good woman. She too proper ta say anything, but I ain’t got no problem speakin’ my mind. This babe needs ta be fed. You pays me for dat, but I ain’t gonna raise yore chile for you.”
“I’m not asking for that.” Wasn’t he? Didn’t he want every trace of Aileen wiped from the house? He had not shed a tear when the doctor laid a sheet over her. He’d quickly agreed to the commander’s offer of a plain pine casket. He looked forward to the body’s removal to chapel. He’d already contemplated burning everything she’d purchased, but the child would still remain.
“He need a mama,” the girl asserted with the conviction of a matron of forty.
Prosperity. No other name came to mind. No other woman could bring peace and proper balance to his wildly careening life, but she would not even look at him.
“How?” he croaked.
The girl shrugged. “Do what ya must.”
David had seen this often enough. A widower was soon surrounded by women eager to become his next wife. He need only select among the prospects. That would likely prove true here also—if he didn’t have the responsibility of a mixed-blood baby. That narrowed the field considerably, even to nothing.
“I nurse him as long as I kin,” the girl added, “but I cain’t promise ta do it fer long.”
“Do you know someone else?”
She shrugged.
His desperation grew. “There must be someone who would take him.”
The girl’s expression twisted. “Ain’t no one gonna accept dis babe. Ain’t white. Ain’t colored.”
The truth of her words pushed past the pain and exhaustion. This baby had no future. None. That’s what the doctor had been trying to tell him. If he didn’t give this boy his name, the little one had no chance.
The revelation cleared the fog from his head. “I must be his father.”
She nodded with what appeared to be approval. “He still need a mama.”
David had been given his marching orders. Find a wife. Not only a wife, but one who would accept a mixed-blood child and meet the approval of his commanding officers. He might as well have been asked to build a tower to the moon.
Gracie reported that she’d agreed to nurse David’s son before and after her workday. That ought to have brought Prosperity comfort, but the girl added that she’d prodded David to remarry.
“Remarry!” The idea vexed her. “He is newly widowed.”
Gracie shrugged. “Gotta git that po’ chile a mama.”
Of course. Marriage was a practical necessity. Some woman would be dazzled by the adventurous life of an army engineer’s wife. That woman could not be her, though it stung to think of David married to yet another woman.
Each day she asked Gracie if anyone visited David. Each day the answer was no.
Her heart buoyed, though she managed to hide that reaction from Gracie.
Eventually she must make peace with David, but the pain was still raw. Anger, fear, despair. The emotions swirled like the rushing tide through an inlet. Each night she prayed for guidance. Prayer brought conviction but no easy path. She must face David before she could move on.
To that end, she determined to pay a visit with Gracie after work on Friday. “Might I go with you tonight to Lieutenant Latham’s quarters?”
The woman clucked her tongue. “Gracie cain’t tell Miss Jones what ta do.”
Her hands paused from folding bed linens. “Are you saying that
it’s not proper? I’m simply paying my condolences.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“No one would have cause to gossip.”
“Do it matter what people say?”
It did. It mattered a great deal. Her tenure at the hospital was already on shaky ground. “Perhaps I’ll wait.”
“He not wait fo’ you, no sir.”
That did not sound like David. At least not the David she knew. “Love is patient.”
Gracie harrumphed. “Fo’ a fool.”
“Do you think me a fool?”
Gracie picked up her empty basket. “Love done make every one o’ us a fool at one time or t’other.” She gave Prosperity a stern look. “Alls I’m sayin’ is don’t be doin’ nothin’ rash in the heat o’ things jes’ ta ease the ache in yo’ heart. Else you find yourself with a whole pile mo’ heartache.”
The truth of her words sank into Prosperity over the following days. In the calm of dawn after morning prayers, her thinking was much clearer. In those hours she could lay out David’s character and actions without the confusion that dogged her later in the day. David had betrayed their vows. Not only had he wed another, but that marriage had been necessary because he had been with this woman in a sinful way. Even though the child was not his, he must have believed it was. Betrayal in thought was as wrong as betrayal in deed.
Still, on her daily walks to the hospital or to market, her gaze wandered to every uniformed soldier she passed, alternately hoping and fearing that it would be David. Her breath would catch until she was quite certain it was not him. Then her fragile hope would collapse.
“Come now, Miss Jones,” Dr. Goodenow said as he walked her to the hospital one Monday morning. “Enough of the gloom.”
She paused on the corner of Fleming and Thomas, where they now parted ways. “Is that an order, Doctor?”
He laughed. “It is. Come, let’s continue to the hospital.”
“I thought you understood . . .”
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