A Place in Your Heart

by Kathy Otten

  “Sit down, boy. You look like you’re about to swoon.”

  In two footsteps and two taps of his grandfather’s cane, Jason found himself shoved into the nearest chair.

  He leaned forward and rested his head in his hands. “I’m fine, sir. Just a little tired.”

  “Nonsense. You’re ill. My cab is out front. You shall recuperate in my hotel room.”

  Lacking the energy to argue, Jason allowed his grandfather to usher him into the waiting carriage and silently rode through the streets to the National Hotel.

  At the front desk, Foster Harrison took charge again, ordering a hot bath sent up to the room with a tureen of chicken soup and two dozen soda crackers.

  All his life his grandfather had taken care of him. Grandfather had not been an affectionate man, but he had loved Jason in his own gruff way.

  ****

  Jason slowly came awake. His face buried in a pile of soft pillows, his bladder demanded he leave the comfort of the bed and relieve the aching pressure.

  The rustle of a newspaper caught his attention. With a groan he shoved the pillow aside and raised his head. His grandfather sat in a chair near the window, immaculately dressed as usual in his gray morning coat and charcoal trousers.

  The drapes had been pulled closed, darkening the room except for a narrow slice of sunlight which cut a golden line across the carpet.

  “I’d begun to think you planned to laze away the entire day.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Just past ten. You slept through the entire evening and night. I was about to poke you to see if you were still alive.”

  He folded his paper and placed it on a small pie crust table. Cane in hand he pushed to standing.

  “There is a clean nightshirt and robe at the end of the bed. Fresh water in the pitcher and at the end of the hall is the water closet.”

  His grandfather made his way to the door, his cane silent across the carpet. I am going to step out and leave you to your ablutions. Please be presentable when I return. God knows what the servants thought when they came to collect the bath last night. You sprawled in all your glory across the bed.”

  He opened the door, still muttering, “Shameful. Appalling.”

  The door closed with a soft click.

  Jason groaned and tossed back the covers. He hadn’t even heard the servants come into the room. Or his grandfather, for that matter. The thought of his horrified expression upon seeing his grandson in the nude brought a smile to his face as he pulled on the night shirt and tied closed the silk robe.

  He’d removed the bandage when he’d bathed. He wondered what the burn looked like today. For a moment he longed for Gracie to document the healing and rewrap his burn with her honey.

  When he returned to the room, he searched for his clothes, but they were nowhere to be found. No doubt his grandfather had sent them to be cleaned. His stomach rumbled, but there was no food either. Had he eaten all that soup last night?

  He walked to the window and pushed back the drapes. On the street and sidewalk below, people and carriages hurried to and fro. Across the road a train pulled away in a huff of steam from the Pennsylvania Depot. Already exhausted, he sat in the chair and picked up the newspaper. A headline of the Union defeat at Chancellorsville and a subsequent article filled most of the front page.

  The door opened. His grandfather entered, followed by a bell boy pushing a cart of food. He transferred the tray to a table and pushed the cart back to the door.

  Jason rose, lured by the aroma of fresh coffee.

  “Eat.” Grandfather commanded once the bell boy had left. “I could see every rib and bone in your spine last night.”

  Coffee, scrambled eggs, thick slices of bread, bacon, and sausage. Jason scooped eggs between two pieces of bread and took a large bite. He sighed. Heaven.

  He ate one sandwich and piled on eggs and sausage for another.

  His grandfather tracked each movement from across the room.

  “Why are you here?” Jason asked taking a bite.

  Grandfather lowered himself into the chair by the window. “I received word you had been wounded.”

  How had he gotten the news so fast? Was he friends with every general in the Union Army?

  “You needn’t have rushed to my side. I will be fine.”

  “No grandson of mine is going to recuperate in one of those death houses.” He gave his cane a harsh thud against the carpet.

  Jason swallowed another mouthful of sandwich. “Thank you for your faith in my ability to have saved one or two of the men I treated during my tenure at Armory Square.”

  “I do not care for your disrespectful attitude. Was a similar display of insolence the cause of that assault charge and your subsequent demotion?”

  “No, Grandfather, I was quite respectful, right until the moment I punched the sanctimonious sonofabitch lieutenant colonel in the face.”

  “Enough!” His grandfather slammed down the end of his cane so hard Jason wouldn’t have been surprised to see it go straight through the floor.

  “I will allow some latitude because of the pain you must be in from that burn I saw. However.” He raised his walking stick and leveled it in Jason’s direction. “I will not tolerate such vulgar language. The army has no doubt corrupted you. I thought I’d raised my grandson to be a gentleman.”

  Jason rubbed a hand over his face, surprised to feel his fingers trembling. This tumult of emotion was wreaking havoc with his sanity.

  “I apologize, sir. That was uncalled for.” He poured a cup of coffee. “Would you like a cup?”

  Mollified, his grandfather’s ruddy complexion faded. “Yes, please. Cream no sugar.”

  “I remember.” Jason rose and passed his grandfather the cup and saucer. Returning to his seat, he poured a cup for himself, black, and took a fortifying swallow.

  “Am I your grandson?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Am I your grandson?”

  “What a ridiculous question. Of course you’re my grandson.”

  Jason swallowed down the rest of the coffee in his cup and moved to sit on the side of the bed, closer to his grandfather.

  “I ask because there was a note inside the ear of my old rabbit.”

  “A note? What note?”

  “A note, inside the head, where the ear had been mended, written in a child’s hand. It said, ‘My name is Jason. Charles is dead. I wish I was too.’ ”

  His grandfather’s face washed of all color turning almost sickly gray. Cup and saucer clattering, they nearly fell to the floor before he managed to set them on the small table beside the newspaper.

  Jason reached a hand toward his grandfather, afraid he was about to have a heart seizure.

  “I used to fear this day would come. That someone would claim you as theirs and take you away. But so many years have passed, only on rare occasions do I ever recall that you are not my blood.” His trembling hands grasped the silver head of his walking stick as if it were a life line.

  “I did not know your name was Jason. You never talked. You were crying when Cook found you hiding in the bushes in the back garden.

  “A Typhus outbreak was sweeping the city. My beautiful Julia was dying, and there was nothing I could do. Would that God had taken me and spared her, but as with the passing of her mother, it was not to be. Peter had already succumbed to the disease and their little boy Charles.

  “Julia called for her son daily, but there was nothing I could do except pray for a miracle. God granted it to me when Mrs. White found you dirty and crying, only an alphabet book in your coat pocket, and clutching that damned rabbit.

  “I could not leave Julia’s side and sent Danvers to the police station to report you’d been found. He returned saying he’d been told the city was full of new orphans because of the sickness and to take me to the closest foundling home that had room.

  “Cook fed and bathed you and dressed you in Charles’ clothes then brought you to me in Julia’s room.
Julia saw you and thought you were her little boy. I could not believe the miracle when she rallied. I brought you to her daily, and though for a time she seemed to grow stronger, in the end she passed away.

  “By that time I had begun calling you Charles and since you said nothing, I continued. Eventually, I began to think of you as my grandson. You could read and write and were tall enough to fit into Charles’ clothes. But Charles was seven when he died and had lost some of his baby’s teeth. But you were younger and did not lose yours until you reached Charles’ age of ten.

  “I could not send you to school until ‘Charles’ was twelve, but people thought me overprotective of a sickly child and you were tall and so intelligent you could easily pass for twelve, when you could not have been more than nine.”

  “I’m not thirty-two?”

  His grandfather shook his head. “Perhaps no more than twenty-nine.”

  Chaos, Mrs. McBride. I specifically asked you not to introduce more chaos to my life.

  God, he was only twenty-nine? His life seemed to be spinning out of control.

  He slipped to the floor and drew his knees up, draping his forearms on top. “There is a patient at the hospital. He says I look just like my father, his brother-in-law, Jonathan Reid. The man went missing in Philadelphia in thirty-seven with his little boy, Jason.”

  His grandfather pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his rheumy eyes. “What are you going to do?”

  Jason shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know where I came from or how old I am. But the one thing I knew for certain was that I am a doctor. Now, I’m not even that. My diplomas, my achievement awards belong to Charles Ellard, not Jason Reid.”

  “I didn’t know. You have to believe me.” He reached out his hand, his joints swollen with arthritis, his blue veins visible beneath his thin white skin.

  Jason reached out and wrapped his fingers around his grandfather’s cold hand. “I believe you.”

  Tears spilled from his grandfather’s faded gray eyes and slid down his papery cheeks. “In my heart you are my grandson. You are my world. I love you. Please, don’t leave me.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Fresh paint and new wood filled her senses as she stepped through the door of the new dormitory.

  “This is so much more pleasant,” Sister Mary said as she showed Gracie to her new room. “Not that I wasn’t thankful for our previous accommodations, but the odors at times were indeed difficult to bear. Here we can have our privacy, a chance to chat with other nurses, to support and encourage one another.”

  Sister Mary moved to the side, and Gracie stepped into her new room.

  “There is even a bathing room at the end of the hall. No more sponge baths behind a curtain in a ward full of men. I shall leave you to get settled.”

  Gracie hadn’t thought she would like living away from the ward, but Sister Mary was right, privacy was a nice thing. And a real bath too. She couldn’t wait. All of Gracie’s belongings had been brought over and aside from solid walls replacing her curtain partition; her space was the same as it had been before. Even her small rag rug lay beside her bed.

  She unbuttoned her coat and hung it on a peg behind the door. The light chatter of female voices drifted from down the hall and the lilt of feminine laughter sang out. They’d always had to be so quiet in the wards, so as not to disturb the patients. To now have this little bit of freedom to be themselves would be refreshing.

  Her small bedside table with her picture of William was where it had been. She suspected Sister Mary’s hand in arranging the room, rather than one of the orderlies.

  Her biggest regret was praying to the Father in Heaven that she not conceive a child right away. Her place by William’s side assisting him in his medical practice had come to define the woman she’d become. She hadn’t wanted to exchange that new found independence for child bearing and motherhood. At least not right away. Naively, she believed there would be plenty of time to start a family.

  Now she would never hold William’s child close and sing old Irish ballads in the night.

  Doctor Ellard’s hat box sat in the corner of the new room. She’d thought of him as Doctor Ellard for so long, it was hard to remember his name was Jason Reid. She couldn’t imagine how hard this had been for him.

  “Chaos, Mrs. McBride.”

  He’d asked her to call him Jason, as if subconsciously part of him had known all along who he was. As though Charles was merely a façade, controlled and stilted, protecting the vulnerable core that was Jason, the scared little boy who’d written that note and sealed it safely inside the rabbit.

  On top of the box was a second parcel wrapped in brown paper. She stepped over and picked it up. It was addressed to her. A frown tugged at her brow as she stared at the postmark and tried to recall who she knew from New York City.

  Lumpy and oblong, about six inches wide and eighteen inches long…Drumsticks!

  Curse of God on you! Gracie ground her teeth together to keep from screaming. Her frustrated outcry would likely be heard by all through the thin board walls of the new dormitory.

  Tears stung her eyes. The dear, sweet lad’s drumsticks! How dare that woman send them back!

  If Gilbert had been her little boy she would have treasured the drumsticks he’d been so proud of. Cared enough to come to him before he passed away. Cared enough to come and take his body home.

  She lowered herself onto her bed and tugged off the string. Unwrapping the brown paper revealed several letters—the very letters she’d written for Gilbert to his mother—wrapped around the lengths of wood. Sweet Mary, Jesus, and Joseph, she wanted to scratch the woman’s face off.

  She placed the drum sticks on her pillow and unfolded the first letter.

  My Dear Mrs. McBride,

  I want to say thank you, on behalf of all the families with loved ones fighting in this terrible rebellion, for the care and comfort you give to all our wounded boys.

  She glanced at the return address on the back flap of the brown paper wrapping. Mrs. Lydia Thomas.

  Dread, like a lump of raw bread dough, landed in her stomach solid and heavy.

  And thank you for taking care of dear little Gilbert Franklin. He and his mother lived here in my boarding house for nigh onto a year before she passed. I had always wondered what became of Gilbert and suspected he would run away rather than remain in the orphanage. He was a child who always loved an adventure, though I never imagined he would have run to war. Perhaps he wanted to make his mother proud.

  The bread dough in her stomach swelled, and she gulped down the wave of nausea that rose up the back of her throat. Hot tears trailed down her cheeks and traced her jawline.

  I am returning his drumsticks as you seem to be a woman who will cherish them as much as his mother would have. Maybe you will see them and think of him every now and again.

  Sincerely,

  Mrs. Lydia Thomas

  Gracie grabbed her pillow, hugging tight, the letters in one hand Gilbert’s drum sticks in the other. She let the tears fall and muffled her sobs against the feather stuffed bolster.

  She cried. For her own selfishness, denying William the children he wanted, the sweet babies she would never hold in her arms. For wronging a woman who had no doubt loved her little boy with all her heart. She cried for Gilbert, sending letters to a mother he no longer had, dying alone in the dark with no one to hold his hand.

  Except Doctor Ellard—Jason—had been there, working the puzzle in the night.

  What had he said? Come now, Mrs. McBride you can’t cry over all of them.

  Maybe he hadn’t cried, but he did care. He just refused to show it.

  He’d sat up with Sergeant Baker also, again working the puzzles without a word to anyone, even when he’d berated her for doing the same.

  The man who worked puzzles while keeping vigil beside a dying drummer boy. A man who kept a stuffed rabbit from childhood. A man who had no friends, yet was so desperate t
o be liked, he told the most horrible jokes.

  And in her mind, she’d always thought of him as Doctor Ellard, always called him Doctor Ellard. Had she ever called him Charles?

  He was right. She’d never seen him as a man. Knew nothing about him aside from his medical knowledge and his skill as a surgeon.

  Her gaze fell on the brown leather hat box filled with toys and books. Curious, she lifted the box from the corner and placed it on the bed. As she sat down beside it, the mattress dipped, and the box tipped against her hip.

  She flipped up the clasps and opened the lid. Taking a breath, she peered into his childhood.

  Two books took up half the space. Placed on top was a tin soldier holding a guidon. He sat astride a black horse which was mounted on a wheeled platform. Scattered throughout the box were hand-carved spelling blocks, their yellow and blue paint chipped in several places, exposing the wood. Mixed among the alphabet letters were wooden animals, a lion, dog, horse, bear, and tiger. Again the paint worn away from tiny hands wrapped around them in play. From among the animals, she lifted out a weighted leather bag and loosened the gathered top. Marbles. She poured a few into her cupped palm. Each one pristine, without a chip or scratch to mar the clay.

  A sense of loneliness engulfed her as she returned the marbles to the bag and tugged the drawstring tight. The animals were worn, but she sensed solitary play. Had he no friends with whom to share his games, to roll hoops, or build forts?

  She’d never known what it was like to grow up alone. She’d always had brothers and sisters to argue with and tease.

  “I used to wonder what it would have been like not to be alone, to grow up with parents, and maybe brothers and sisters.”

  An orphan living in a large empty house with nothing but the echo of a ticking clock. While his grandfather worked in his study, scared Jason Reid crying for his mother, wishing he was dead, alone in his large bedroom, empty except for his books. No wonder he had no idea how to make friends or woo a lady.

  And those jokes. Sweet Mary, where had he gotten the notion? A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Instead of annoying, the thought of him perusing a volume of humorous anecdotes and choosing just the right one to tell her next, somehow shifted into something sweet and endearing.