The following day dawned warm and bright as if spring had finally decided to call. Leaves seemed to have sprouted overnight on Bellevue’s trees, and tiny green shoots dotted the lawn. The shadow of Deidre’s death remained with Una along with its many questions, but with Dru’s help maybe she could solve them. In the meantime, she had to focus on her work. Failing at her studies and getting herself expelled wouldn’t help find Deidre’s killer—if it had been murder at all. And it certainly wouldn’t help her stay out of jail. Una had to keep her wits about her and remain above reproach at the school. No missteps or errors. No skipping out on lectures and no getting caught sneaking around.
The problem remained what to do about Edwin. He was a liability she couldn’t afford. At least that’s what her head told her. Her heart told her something else.
But Una knew better than to let herself be ruled by such a fickle organ. Besides, Edwin wouldn’t want to see her after she’d run from the alcoholics’ ward without a word. Or so she tried to convince herself as she climbed the steps of the hospital. The picture of his grandfather hanging in the main hall caught her eye, and her confidence faltered. They had the same sharp nose and tall forehead, but Edwin’s eyes were kinder, the curve of his lips more playful. Una’s traitorous heart squeezed. He, Edwin, deserved far better than a thief and imposter anyway.
In the past, she’d bluntly rebuffed men’s affections. “I’d sooner kiss a sewer rat than you, Patrick O’Hare,” or “Save your songs for the whores, Tafferty.” Those men who wouldn’t be dissuaded, she simply avoided until their blood ran hot for someone else—which never took long. Even Barney, whose devotion seemed more earnest, had likely forgotten her by now.
This latter tactic of avoidance wouldn’t work with Edwin, however. The slum might be a wide enough place to disappear in; the hospital was not. And the trainees had been appointed to new wards again, with Una having the unlucky fortune to be assigned to the surgical division on ward fifteen.
Not only would she be back under Nurse Hatfield’s watchful eye, but also forced to see Edwin, and the odious Dr. Pingry, every morning during rounds.
Una’s only recourse, then, was to forget her heart and snub Edwin should he come calling.
Her opportunity came that very morning when Dr. Pingry called her away from the beef tea she was brewing.
He, Dr. Allen, and Edwin hovered around the bedside of a patient who’d been shot twice during a bar fight in the Bowery. One bullet had shattered his wrist, which Dr. Pingry had “most excellently” repaired in the operating theater. The other had entered his back, breaking two ribs before settling somewhere in his abdominal cavity.
“Fetch me the bullet probe, extracting forceps, and one-half grain of morphine,” he said to her without looking up from the patient. They’d rolled the man onto his side and removed the dressing from his back. Having been inflicted only yesterday, the wound was still fresh, bleeding but a little, with an aura of blue and red bruising around it. The man groaned as Dr. Pingry placed a finger on either side of the bullet hole and stretched it open to peer inside.
Una hurried to the storeroom and medicine closet. Dr. Pingry could at least have waited until she’d gotten the morphine before examining the wound. She felt a kinship with the man. Even though she didn’t know him, she knew what life in the slums of the Bowery was like—hard, violent, and miserable. She placed the probe and medicine bottle on a rattly tray table, along with fresh gauze and a bowl of carbolized water, then wheeled it over. “I took the liberty of mixing up some disinfectant in case you want to
wash your hands or clean the probe before—”
“Had I wanted carbolized water, I would have asked for carbolized water,” Dr. Pingry said, shooting her a glare. “Your job, nurse, is not to take liberties but to listen and obey.” He grabbed the bullet probe and fingered the porcelain ball at its tip. “Well, did you hear me, girl?”
Edwin winced. Dr. Allen seemed bored.
“Yes, Doctor,” Una muttered. “It’s just that Lister—”
“Lister! Lister is a charlatan,” he said, spittle flying from his mouth and landing on the bullet probe he wagged in Una’s direction. “I have been treating patients here at Bellevue for decades with undeniable success. I
shall remove this bullet, and afterward you shall see. Rest and quietude are all this man needs.”
He bent down over the patient and was about to thrust in the probe when Edwin cleared his throat. “Perhaps the morphine first, Doctor.”
“Well, give it, then. What good are you interns if you’re going to stand around like pigeons while I do all the work?”
Una watched Edwin draw the medicine into the syringe. He hadn’t looked her square in the eye once since Dr. Pingry had called her over. What sort of man tells a woman he loves her, then won’t even spare her a glance? Sure, she’d run out on him without so much as acknowledging his affections and taken pains to avoid him these last few days, but he might at least favor her with a glare, a scowl, something!
Instead, he kept his eyes on the patient, injecting the morphine into the subcutaneous tissue of his arm, and watching as Dr. Pingry began the procedure. Una watched too, ready with a small metal basin to receive the bullet once it was retrieved.
Dr. Pingry inserted the probe several inches, rotating his wrist by slight degrees as he followed the path of entry, his face screwed in concentration. He stopped, pulled the probe halfway out, then inserted it again. The patient moaned in his morphine-induced sleep, and his eyelids fluttered.
After what seemed an interminably long time, Dr. Pingry withdrew the probe. Blood coated the shaft to the handle. Instead of using the gauze Una had laid out, Dr. Pingry plucked a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the tip. Had the porcelain made contact with the bullet, the lead would have left a mark. Dr. Pingry grumbled. Despite no marking, he set aside the probe and picked up the slender forceps. Before inserting them, he stuck his index finger in the wound to scoop out a clot of blood.
After several more minutes of poking around with the forceps, Dr. Pingry withdrew the instrument and threw it onto the tray table, splattering blood and bits of tissue all around. “The bullet is beyond detection.” He wiped his hands, then tossed the bloody hankie at Una. “See that this gets laundered and help Dr. Westervelt dress the wound.”
Dr. Pingry sauntered out of the ward with Dr. Allen at his heels. Una wadded the hankie in her fist, itching to throw it at the back of his bloated head. The splash of water drew her attention back to the bedside. She watched as Edwin dunked several strips of gauze in the carbolized water, then washed his hands and began to clean the wound.
“How do you stand that man?” Una asked, dropping the crumpled hankie onto the floor before scrubbing her own hands and coming to stand beside him.
“He’s a brilliant surgeon.”
“Is that you or your grandfather talking?”
Edwin shot her a perturbed glance before turning his attention back to the wound. At least it was something.
“Hand me more gauze,” he said.
Una wetted several more strips and handed them to him, the brief contact of their skin sending tiny jolts of energy up her arm like the staccato bleeps traveling along a telegraph wire. She was sure Dru could explain away the sensation using some medical text or other. It wasn’t, as Edwin had said, love. But she’d missed the feeling, nonetheless.
“Shall I fetch a needle and sutures?” she asked, trying to refocus her attention.
“No.” He squatted down so he was eye-level with the wound. “I’m going to leave it open in case it begins to suppurate. But we’ll cover it with an antiseptic dressing.”
“Will that kill the . . .” What was the word Edwin had used when telling her about Lister’s studies? “. . . the germs Dr. Pingry introduced?”
“No, but it will prevent further contamination.”
He worked with careful attention for several minutes, constructing a multilayered dressing of disinfectant-soaked gauze. She couldn’t help but admire his quiet patience and steady hand. The longer she watched him, the more her resolve to rebuff him faltered.
“You’re not a bad surgeon yourself,” she said when he’d finished.
He looked at her with a stranger’s coolness, then stood and rinsed his hands. “Cover the dressing with oiled silk. Beef tea and porridge when he wakes. Laudanum as needed for pain.”
Una grabbed his arm before he could walk away. “Goddamn it, Edwin, what do you want me to say?” She caught sight of the second-year bustling about at the far end of the ward and let go of his arm, continuing in a whisper, “That I love you too? Fine. I do. I love you.”
She hadn’t intended to say something so preposterous. She’d never said those words to a man before in her life. Not in jest nor in earnest. But the idea of him walking away from her, from them, made her panic. Now it hung in the air between them. I love you. Preposterous. And entirely true.
“That doesn’t change anything,” she added hastily, as much to herself as to him.
Edwin blinked several times, and his face brightened. “It changes everything.”
“It doesn’t.”
A glance at the second-year, and he grabbed Una’s hand, tugging her into the nearby storeroom. The tiny room was dark and smelled of disinfectant. Before Una could find matches to light the overhead lamp, Edwin caged her arms and kissed her. Una’s resolve failed her, and she kissed him back. She freed her hands and enmeshed them in his hair, mussing the pomade- slickened strands. She wanted to consume him and be consumed in return. They stumbled into a nearby shelf, upsetting the neatly stacked sponges and rattling the newly cleaned chamber pots. They froze, listened a moment to be sure they hadn’t raised suspicion, then giggled like children and kissed again.
Eventually, Una’s senses unclouded enough to pull away. “I have to get back to work.”
“Tell me again that you love me.”
She hesitated, feeling the words out on her tongue before speaking. “I love you.”
The truth of it frightened her. She felt exposed, vulnerable, like a boxer facing his opponent with one arm lame. “But, Edwin, we can’t—”
“Marry me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Not now, after you finish your training.” “That’s over a year and a half away.”
He ran a finger over her cheek and down the side of her neck, sending a pleasant shiver skipping over her skin. “I’m a patient man. I’ll wait.”
She leaned her head against his chest, and for the span of a few heart beats it all seemed possible—courting him in secret, completing her training and getting her certificate, marrying him and working beside him at the hospital. But then reality bullied in. She was a thief. A thief wanted for murder. Every day would be a lie.
She breathed in his scent—soap and aftershave and a hint of mint—then stepped away from him, straightening her apron and smoothing her hair. “We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“You’re . . . you’re not Catholic for one thing.” He chuckled. “So?”
“I am.” At least when it suited her. “Besides, you’re too busy here at the hospital for a wife.”
“By the time you graduate, I’ll have my own practice, and you can have as much of my time as you require.” He looped an arm around her waist and pulled her close again, whispering in her ear. “More if I can help it.”
His breath tickled her neck. “Edwin, I have to go,” she said but made no move to free herself from his arms. He kissed her again—first her lips, then the tender skin beneath her ear, then the hollow of her throat just above her collar. “Edwin . . .”
“Mmm?”
“We’d better—”
Dr. Pingry’s voice sounded from the nearby hallway. “Westervelt!” Una and Edwin pulled apart.
“Nurse! Where’s Dr. Westervelt?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know, sir,” came the second-year’s reply.
Dr. Pingry grumbled, his loud footfalls continuing down the hall. “I believe you’re being summoned,” Una said.
Edwin sighed. He straightened his jacket and fumbled for the door. He turned back to her before opening it and kissed her once more. “I’m leaving tomorrow for that symposium on Lister’s methods in Philadelphia. Will you think over my proposal while I’m away?”
“Edwin, it’s not just that I’m Catholic or that you’re too busy with your work, I . . .” But she couldn’t bring herself to tell him the truth.
“Whatever it is, I promise you, it won’t matter.” The scant light that crept beneath the storeroom door illuminated his earnest expression. “Trust me.”
Every part of her longed to believe him. She tried again to form the words, but Dr. Pingry’s rough voice from down the hall interrupted her.
Edwin cracked open the storeroom door wide enough to slip out. “Just promise me you’ll think on it.”
“I will,” she lied.
