The Children on the Hill(28)

All living things were related to each other in some long-ago way. Vi knew that. The parasite. The worm. The great white shark with rows and rows of teeth. Vi herself. They were all connected. Vi’s skin prickled a little when she thought about it.

She loved it when Gran told her about evolution, how every animal on earth came from one long-ago ancestor. One creature, slick and gasping, that had wormed its way out of the ocean.

We are stardust, like the Joni Mitchell song.

I am, I said, like Neil Diamond sang.

Gran said people were not done evolving yet; that it was an ongoing process. “Think of it, Violet,” she’d said to her once. “Human beings are a work in progress. And what if we as scientists, as doctors, can find ways to help that progress along?”

A gold pack of Benson & Hedges sat next to an ashtray full of cigarette butts. Vi ran her fingers over the pack. To the left of the cigarettes was a white metal cabinet that held all the medications Gran used in her experiments. It also held the chloroform and the killing jar Gran used when it was time to put an animal out of its misery. Part of being a doctor, she’d explained, was not letting any creature suffer.

Last month, she’d brought Vi down to the basement and taught her how to use the killing jar. An unfortunate mouse had undergone a treatment that hadn’t worked. It was no longer able to eat or drink and was just curled up in the corner of its cage, twitching.

Vi knew she shouldn’t feel bad, but she did. She felt bad for every single animal that didn’t make it. But Gran said the rodents had served a greater purpose, given their lives so that she could learn things that would help her heal her human patients.

Following Gran’s instructions, Vi had unscrewed the lid of the chloroform and squeezed the eyedropper the way she had been shown.

Gran explained that, like ether, chloroform was used as an early anesthetic for surgery—they’d probably used it at the Inn, back when it was a Civil War hospital, for amputations on the soldiers. They’d soaked a rag with the sweet-smelling liquid and held it over the patient’s face. But Vi had been taught that too much for too long would paralyze the lungs.

“Careful, Violet, don’t spill,” Gran had warned as Vi soaked the cotton ball, held with forceps, carefully placing it into the glass jar that had once held string beans or beets from the garden. Gran lifted the animal gently from its cage and handed it to Vi. Vi stroked the mouse’s tiny white head, an I’m sorry stroke, felt its solid little skull beneath its silky fur, the scrabbling of its paws, the quick beat of its heart. She dropped the mouse into the jar and screwed on the lid.

She’d prayed to the God of Mercy: Let it be over soon, then bit her lip and waited, telling herself she’d hold her breath until it was over.

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

Doctors didn’t cry. Doctors didn’t let emotions cloud their thinking or get in the way of doing what needed to be done.

Vi had never once seen Gran cry.

At first, the little white mouse had struggled, scrabbling frantically at the glass, trying to climb the smooth walls with an energy Vi couldn’t believe the poor creature possessed. Then, after about thirty seconds, it stopped moving. Went to sleep.

Vi let out the breath she’d been holding.

“Don’t take the lid off yet,” Gran had instructed. “Make sure it’s gone. Watch for respiration.”

Vi watched the mouse, saw its breathing slow. At last, there were no movements.

She was sure it was dead, but she waited another thirty seconds, looking at the second hand of her Timex. Tick. Tick. Tick.

She stared down at the jar in her hand, wondering if the mouse’s soul was trapped in there, hovering like a moist puff of air. If mice even had souls. Gran didn’t believe in souls. She believed in the id, the ego, the superego. She believed living creatures were a complicated mix of cells, chemicals, and neurons. But souls? Spirits? Where was the proof of that? Where was the evidence?

“Well done, Violet,” Gran had said, putting a hand on her shoulder and giving it a squeeze. Then she’d dumped the mouse into the metal trash can. Later, when she wasn’t looking, Vi had taken it out, brought it outside, and buried it in the garden, marking the spot with a little black stone.



* * *



NOW VI TRIED opening the cabinet where the killing jar and chloroform were kept, but it was locked.

There was an empty martini glass to the right of the microscope. A sunflower plate covered in sandwich crumbs.

To the left of the microscope was a stack of books: a medical dictionary, Physicians’ Desk Reference, an anatomy book, the Atlas of Surgical Operations.

Next to the stack was one of Gran’s notebooks: a composition book with a black-and-white speckled cover, a pen resting on top.

Open me if you dare, it taunted.

Gran kept a whole series of notebooks. She wrote everything down: patient notes, results of her experiments.

Vi reached for the notebook as sweat gathered between her shoulder blades, making her whole back feel chilled.

Shoulder blades were reminders that we’re not all that far removed from the winged beasts, Vi thought. Sometimes she could almost imagine it, what it might be like to have wings, to soar. In her dreams, she often flew. She opened her bedroom window and flew out into the night, circling over the house, over the Inn, going up higher and higher until everything familiar was just a speck.