I wasn’t staying.
Seventeen
I found Dr. Randall seated in an armchair near shelves that held the staff’s small lending library. He wore charcoal pants, a russet-hued vest, and a shirt the shade of butter. A newspaper was open in his hands. The seat of the matching chair next to his was covered by his suit coat.
As I neared him he looked up, smiled, and set the newspaper on the circular table in between the chairs. Then he reached for his suit coat, which he’d apparently been using to save the chair for me, though the commons was nearly empty.
“Good evening, Miss Wood! I see you’ve come prepared.” He nodded at the slim volume I held in my hand. “I’m lucky I found Keats in an anthology in the shelves here or you would outshine me for certain.”
“There would be no chance of that, I assure you.” I took the seat, but sat forward in the pose of one ready to rise momentarily and exit.
“I’m sure you are being too modest.”
I shook my head. “Not at all, Doctor. I owe you an apology. I misspoke when I told you I liked Keats. I don’t know why I said that.”
He smiled, surely thinking I had said it to impress him.
“I was just having a bit of fun,” I hastily added.
Dr. Randall’s smile deepened and he tipped his head toward Lily’s book. “So you don’t like Keats, but you have his book?”
“It’s not actually my book. It . . . it belongs to someone else.”
“So you have a borrowed book of Keats and you don’t like Keats?”
I mentally chewed on an answer before deciding vague honesty would actually ease me out of this doomed discussion of “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” “This person happens to like Keats.”
“Ah. A friend of yours?”
The book was technically Andrew’s now. I considered him nearly a friend. “You could say that.”
“But not a suitor.” Caution laced Dr. Randall’s words. I could tell he was a man of integrity, and not one to make advances on a woman who was already spoken for.
“No,” I said, and he visibly relaxed.
“So what about Keats don’t you like?” Dr. Randall leaned back in his chair, ready to begin an evening-long discussion.
“I don’t think you will want to get too comfortable, Doctor. I’ve misled you. I can’t even say that I don’t like Keats. I have only read one poem by him.”
“But you read that one and you didn’t like it. That means there is plenty to discuss. It’s actually better this way. If we both liked it, what would there be to talk about? And will you please call me Ethan?”
A lengthy lock of hair fell about my face. I swept back the part that wasn’t tugged into the comb. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I was taught—”
“Yes, I know what they teach in nursing school. And tomorrow on the ward you can call me ‘doctor’ if you wish. But we are both off duty. I am just Ethan. May I call you Clara?”
I cleared away a tiny tickle in my throat. “I think you should call me Miss Wood.”
He smiled. “All right, Miss Wood. Then perhaps you could call me Mr. Randall. Not ‘doctor.’ Agreed?”
“Perhaps.”
“So tell me what you didn’t like about ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn.’”
I was prepared to say my piece and excuse myself. It wouldn’t take but a few minutes. “It was too difficult to understand. I said as much to you in the ward today. I think if you’re going to write about something, then you shouldn’t be vague. Use interesting words if they delight you, but don’t shroud your meaning in obscurity. I don’t see the good in that.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I actually agree with you there, but I’d venture that true devotees of verse would say obscurity is part of a poem’s charm.”
“Which makes me, as I said, a person who knowingly deceived you. I’m not a devotee of verse. I led you to believe I was and I’m not. Forgive me.” I rose from my chair to bid him good night.
“Miss Wood, you mistake me for someone who cares about all that! Please don’t go. Please?” His eyes and voice implored me to retake my seat. I hesitated before slowly lowering myself back into the chair.
“I am not overly fond of poetry myself,” he continued. “But when you said you liked it, I was willing to find a poem we could talk about together. The after-hours on this island are far too quiet. I don’t see how you’ve been able to live here week after week after week. I tell you, I will be glad when my internship is up.”
A queer sense of allegiance for my island stirred inside me. “I like it here.”
He laughed lightly. “Truly? You don’t get bored?”
“No.”
“But you do look forward to weekends, when you can get away and reconnect with the real world, right? Don’t you find yourself growing hungry for something bigger than this?” He motioned with his hand to include the bit of borrowed earth the hospital stood on.
I had no intention of telling him what my soul hungered for, so I simply repeated what I had already said. “I like it here.”
He frowned slightly. “You’re saying you don’t look forward to the evenings you can get away?”
“We do good things here. People come to Ellis full of hope. The ones who are sent to the hospital have dreams that are twice as grand because they want so badly to get well. It’s very rewarding to see them board that ferry to the mainland at last.”
“Well, yes, of course. But I was not talking about them. I was talking about you. It’s admirable that you are content in your post here, but I can’t imagine you do not long for stimulation outside this hospital. Tell me, what do you like to do when you go ashore?”
This was a conversation I was not going to have. “If we aren’t going to discuss Keats, Doctor, perhaps I should return to my room.” Again, I rose to leave.
“Then let’s discuss Keats!” He had risen to his feet too. “Please?” He motioned with his hand to my chair. I sat back down and so did he.
He pursed his brows in contemplation, surely thinking that if the next thing out of his mouth wasn’t a Keats question, I was going to bolt.
“Perhaps I could read the poem aloud to you? Can we start there?” he asked.
“I’ve read the poem half a dozen times in the last two days. I don’t need to hear it again.”
His face brightened at this, taking it as a compliment, I think. I’d been thinking ahead to our meeting—or so it seemed to him.
“Well, perhaps I could read it again for my own benefit.” He stretched out his hand toward me. “May I?”
I stared at him. “May you what?”
He grinned. “Borrow your borrowed book.”
I hesitated a moment, but then opened Lily’s book to the first poem inside and handed it to him.
Ethan Randall smoothed the page and cleared his throat. He began to read and I found myself quickly immersed in a lyric fog of words that were both familiar and strange. I closed my eyes as the words fell about my ears. I was still at a loss to decipher the poem’s full message, but Dr. Randall’s reading voice was strong and robust and I could nearly envision the urn and its painted surface. He had been finished for a moment or two before I realized he had stopped reading. I snapped my eyes open to find him looking at me.
“Your thoughts, Miss Wood?”
“Um. What do you think it means?” I answered quickly.
“I suppose the urn is something of a storyteller. In the story there is a lovely forest, and there are maidens and men, pipers and dancers, and trees that never lose their leaves because it is always springtime on the urn. It doesn’t change.”
“It’s an in-between place . . .” I murmured, realizing this about the urn for the first time.
“Well, I guess you could say it’s in between real and imaginary. The pictures on the urn aren’t real but they’re not invisible either.”
&
nbsp; Whispered words echoed in my head. “Someone told me it’s a poem about fulfilled expectations not being as satisfying as the dream of them,” I said, more to myself than to him. “Heard melodies are not as sweet as the tunes we can imagine hearing.”
Dr. Randall nodded. “Well. Yes. Yes, I could see it meaning this. Someone told you this?”
But I barely heard him ask. Andrew’s words to me earlier drifted and an image of Edward standing next to me in the elevator replaced them. Edward was inviting me to come to the sewing floor a few minutes before five. Edward of my dreams, bidding me to come to a floor he should not have been on a few minutes before five. Edward, gone from me. Like an urn broken to bits on the ground after having been flung from the sky.
“Do you believe that?” I finally said. “Do you believe that an unfulfilled desire is better because it’s something you can still dream about?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I have never thought about it like that. When I’ve wanted something, I’ve always pursued it with the intention of acquiring it. I can’t imagine being happy with just wanting it. Seems like you’d get tired of nothing ever changing.”
“That is like saying change is always good. Change is neither good nor bad. Good changes are good. Bad changes are bad.”
Ethan Randall smiled at me and I remembered him telling me he liked talking philosophy. “Well said, Miss Wood.” He patted the newspaper that lay between us. “Speaking of change, I was reading just now about that terrible fire you survived. The criminal trial won’t take place until December, but there is already change in the works for better labor laws . . .”
His voice droned on but I felt myself physically disengage from the conversation the moment he said the word “fire.” The rest of what he said became like water falling out of a bucket, splashing over the sides of the widening rift in my carefully crafted island home. I had not known there was to be a criminal trial. I had avoided looking at newspapers, and my parents and sister never brought up the fire’s aftermath in their letters to me, because I had asked them not to. The fire hadn’t raged here and didn’t live on here. But in the streets of lower Manhattan—just as I had feared—smoke was still rising. I stared down at my shoes, fully expecting to see ashes and blood all around them.
“Miss Wood?”
I heard my name as though it had been spoken from behind a brick wall.
“A trial?” I murmured, but my voice sounded far away.
“Yes. The owners are being charged with manslaughter.”
I raised my hands to my ears instinctively.
“Are you all right?”
I sensed an edge of alarm in his voice.
“Clara?”
He spoke my name, but I didn’t care. The room felt warm.
“Let’s step outside for a moment. You’ve gone pale. You need air.”
His arms were around me as he helped me to my feet.
“The book,” I muttered.
“I have it right here. Come on. I’ve got you.”
We stepped out into the late-August evening.
Eighteen
THE sensation of being wrapped in Ethan Randall’s one-armed embrace lifted me out of the fog and by the time we were stepping outside I was fully myself again.
“I’m all right.” I gently pulled away and inhaled the moist night air.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Yes.” I turned to him, glad that the violet night was hiding my embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”
“Nonsense. I’m the one who is sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Please forgive me.” He sought my gaze. “You’re quite sure you are all right? Would you like to sit?” He led me to a wooden bench just outside the main hospital doors—a bench that family members sometimes sat upon while waiting to visit a patient who likely would not survive; the dying were the only ones allowed visitors.
“I was unaware there would be a criminal trial,” I said. “I was just surprised.”
When he said nothing I looked up. The expression on his face was one of astonishment. “How could you not know? It’s been in all the papers for weeks.”
“I . . . I don’t care much for the newspaper.”
“But surely when you’ve gone ashore you must’ve heard about it.”
I could only shake my head.
“Harris and Blanck are being tried for manslaughter, Miss Wood.”
I shuddered and looked away, toward the Jersey shore and not New York. I have always hated that word, “manslaughter.” Always. And sitting there, under that night sky and its ambivalent stars, I hated it as much as ever I had. “Slaughter” was a word that belonged only in stockyards. “I didn’t know,” I said.
“I just find that—” Dr. Randall stopped in midsentence. “Have you not been back on the mainland since?”
What did it matter now if he knew I hadn’t? He would hear soon enough. Anyone who was acquainted with me on the island was aware that I hadn’t.
“No.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Are you . . . Is it because of what you saw? Was it too terrible?” he finally asked.
Ethan Randall’s simple question filled me with simple confidence. “It was unbelievably horrible, what I saw.”
“And you really haven’t set foot back on Manhattan since?”
“I haven’t.”
“Because back in Manhattan they are still talking about it?” he asked.
“I suppose that’s part of it.”
“But you could go anywhere. You could leave New York altogether. Nurses are needed in every city, Miss Wood.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere. I like it here.”
“But you have so much to offer. You’re young. Your whole life is ahead of you.”
I rose. “Yes, well. Thank you very much for assisting me outside. I feel much better but I think I shall retire to my room now.”
He sprang to his feet. “I’ve said too much. I’m sorry. You don’t have to run away.”
“I’m not running away. I’m going to my quarters. May I have my book, please?”
I reached for Lily’s book but he did not hand it to me. “Can we not go back to the commons and continue our discussion of Keats?”
“I don’t think so.”
He handed it to me. “I’ve offended you. I’m sorry. I just don’t understand.”
“You haven’t offended me.” I took the book. I wanted to add, And you’re right. You don’t understand. “Good evening, Dr. Randall. My apologies if I have ruined your evening.”
I started to walk back into the building and he fell in step beside me.
“You didn’t ruin my evening.” He stepped ahead to open the door for me.
“Dr. Treaver sometimes plays cards in the dining room. You might find him in there,” I offered.
We stood in the main corridor, where we would part. He looked toward the direction of the staff dining room and perhaps a few games of rummy with a colleague.
“Good night, Doctor,” I said.
He turned to face me. “Miss Wood, perhaps you would consider allowing me to accompany you on a trip ashore.”
“That’s not necessary. When I’m ready to go, I’ll go.”
“But perhaps if someone accompanied you, you wouldn’t have to wait until you’re ready.”
I felt suddenly like a child in his presence.
“I’m serious,” he continued when I said nothing. “It might not be as difficult to do as you think. Sometimes fear of a thing is worse than the thing itself.”
I wanted nothing more than to make good my escape from him, but his words hung on the air between us. Despite his ignorance of what I longed for most, I knew that what he was saying made sense. As soon as the words left his mouth I knew the voice of reason had been whispering them to me for weeks and I’d be
en pretending I hadn’t heard them.
He smiled. “I know I said I don’t understand. But I would like to.”
I just nodded. “Good night, Doctor.”
I turned from him and made my way toward my dormitory. He must have been watching me walk away, for it was several seconds before I heard his footfalls on the tiles as he headed in the opposite direction toward the staff dining room.
I didn’t see how I could make Ethan Randall understand what kept me planted on the island. There were times, such as at that very moment, when I barely understood myself why losing Edward had sent me here and kept me here. I had nothing of Edward’s to show Dr. Randall or anyone else. I hadn’t a pressed rose or a note or even the memory of a lingering kiss. I had nothing tangible or intangible to prove I had lost something precious when Edward died. All I truly possessed was guilt, because Edward had been on the ninth floor waiting for me when he should have been on the floor above, where there was a way of escape.
I possessed nothing of Edward’s to prove to myself that he’d thought me worth the price he ended up paying. As these thoughts assailed me, I looked down at the book I held.
My steps stilled.
I had nothing of Edward’s, and yet I had so easily kept back Lily’s book from Andrew. How had I been able to think I could keep this book from him all this time?
I’d been drawn to Lily’s scarf because it was all that remained of the thin slice of time Andrew and she had shared together, time that Andrew, in blissful ignorance, treasured. Except it wasn’t the only tangible thing left. There was also the book. And he didn’t know I had it.
I pivoted and retraced my steps back to the main corridor. There was no sign of Dr. Randall. I headed to the isolation pavilions at the far end of the island, aware of but undaunted by the fact that I had no idea what I would say to Andrew when I handed him Lily’s book. He deserved as honest an answer as I could give him. I could tell him I had opened Lily’s trunk by mistake, I had seen the book on top, and I’d thought he might want it when he was well. That much was true. When I had first removed the book from the trunk, that had been my motivation. And now he was on his way to being well.
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