The Address(72)

The water tasted metallic, like something medicinal had been added to it. She tried to ask them what they’d given her, but her tongue became heavy and thick. A sea of sensations followed, but she couldn’t figure out where the noises came from or where she ended and the rest of the world began. She dreamed of the baby and of her mother, the two curled up in bed together. In her vision, she drew closer, wanting to pick up the baby and hold her, but she drew back in horror when she realized they were both made of ice. Cold to the touch, not human at all.

She opened her eyes to the harsh summer sun streaming through the window. The room was empty; the humid air reeked of mold and rotting vegetables. Her entire body ached, as if she’d been trampled on by a horse, and her breasts were sore and heavy. She looked to either side of the bed for a crib, for some sign of her child.

“There you are, then.” The doctor stepped into the room. His eyes had shadows under them. “How do you feel?”

She tried to sit up, but her muscles refused.

“Don’t move. You’ll need to rest.”

“The baby?”

He didn’t answer her question. “The nurses said that you’ll need to rejoin the other patients in a day or two. I tried to get them to give you a week to recover, but I’m afraid Superintendent Dent would have none of it.”

She didn’t care about that. “But where’s the baby?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Smythe. The baby died.”

Sara blinked through her tears. She hadn’t admitted to herself how eager she had been to meet this creature, even if she was bringing it into a world of pain and misery. “How? I felt it inside me. Was it too early?”

He frowned. “It was deformed. Horribly deformed. To be honest, it’s best it died, for otherwise it would be brought up in a place like this, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

She didn’t answer. “Can I see it?”

“It will be buried on the island. A boy was what you had. They bury them here. It was better you didn’t see him. Something had gone terribly wrong.”

Nurse Garelick’s beating had damaged the baby, just as she’d feared.

He reached out and patted her hand. “In any event, you’ll need to try to get stronger quickly. Don’t let this bother you. Better this way, I assure you.”

She turned away and covered her eyes with her hand. The baby had died and the only thing ahead of her was more pain, more sitting, more cruelty. The child she’d carried, Theo’s child, was now under the dirt somewhere on the island, in one of the unmarked graves she and Natalia had seen behind the Charity Hospital. No markers, just mounds of dirt that settled down as the bodies and flesh and bones melted down to nothing.

She retched and the doctor jumped up. “I’ll have the nurse bring you a bucket.”

Sara listened as his footsteps grew faint, replaced by the sounds of her own grief.



Sara had lasted two days back in her block, not talking, even to Natalia, not eating, and, more important, refusing to make mats, before she was dragged away and placed in a cell on the top floor, the same one she’d been taken to after Nurse Garelick’s beating.

Poor Natalia had tried to comfort her, and urged her to pull back from the dark place she’d been driven to by the baby’s death, but Sara would have none of it. She had been carved open by the pain and confusion of the birth, and there was no solace to be found. Not on Blackwell’s Island.

She lay curled up on the cot most of the day, lifting her head to watch the mice skitter across the floor and devour the tray that had been shoved through the opening under the door. How lovely to exist on instinct alone, to not know anything of the outside world and its delights and scandals. If she could have killed herself, she would have. One of the nurses had threatened to send her to the Lodge if she didn’t start obeying orders. “They’ll toss you around like a rag doll, and you’ll be screaming to be let back to your mates in no time,” she’d said, sneering. Sara had turned over to face the wall, and since then, the food had stopped.

She’d lost track of time. Maybe a week had gone by since the baby had died, maybe five days. Maybe five months. None of it mattered anymore.

The door latch clicked.

“You’ll stay in here until we know where to put you. Don’t mind the dead body over there. She won’t bother you.”

“Thank you, Nurse Cotter. I have your name right, don’t I?”

There was a long pause, long enough to make Sara open her eyes.

“That’s right.”

“Very well. Thank you, Nurse Cotter.”

The nurse made a clucking noise and slammed the door shut.

“Well, she’s a delight.”

Sara turned over and examined her new cellmate. The woman had survived the bathing process fairly unscathed. Her bangs were still curly and damp and her neck and cheeks red.

The woman thrust her hand out. “Well, hello there. I’m Nellie Brown.”

Sara closed her eyes. Poor child. She was yet to be broken.

“You all right?”

Sara hoped she’d get the hint and move to her side of the room. But no luck. Instead, she moved closer, studying Sara like a work of art in a museum. Which, in a way, was apt. All hard marble and stone, weighed down with no separation between her and the cot, her pedestal.