The Pull of the Stars(73)

Bridie and I turned to each other.

Oh, the secrecy and heat of that glance.

Then, without a word, we made up the empty bed on the right, to be ready for whoever would arrive next.

When the sun came up a little later, a band of light cut in the ward’s window. Bridie looked see-through to me today, as if made of bones and light, wearing her flesh like a dress.

Bridie sneezed so suddenly that Eunice jerked and fell away from her mother.

Sorry, said Bridie, it’s the sunlight.

I told her, It sometimes makes me sneeze too.

Mary O’Rahilly reattached the baby’s mouth to her nipple, expert already.

Honor White was sleeping, and there was no other patient to hear, so I found I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to talk to Mary O’Rahilly.

I leaned over her bed and said under my breath (since I wasn’t supposed to be saying this at all), May I ask you something, dear? Something rather personal.

Her eyes went wide.

Does Mr. O’Rahilly ever…lose his temper?

A carefree wife might have answered, Doesn’t everyone?

But Mary O’Rahilly shrank back a little, which told me Bridie had guessed right.

Coming round to the other side of the bed, Bridie asked: He does, doesn’t he?

The woman was barely audible. Only when he’s taken spirits.

I told her, That’s an awful shame.

Bridie pressed on. How often?

Mary O’Rahilly’s eyes slid back and forth between us. It’s hard for him, being out of work.

Oh, I know, I said. It must be.

She assured us, He’s very good to me most of the time.

I’d ventured into these deep waters with no plan for getting out the other side. Now that Mary O’Rahilly had confessed the truth, what in the world was I going to advise her to do? She’d be taking her baby home in six days or less, and neighbours made a point of never coming between man and wife.

I made my voice firm. Tell him you won’t stand for any more of that, especially not now there’s a baby in the house.

Mary O’Rahilly managed an uncertain nod.

Bridie asked, Would your father take you in if it came to it?

She hesitated, then nodded again.

Tell your husband that, then.

I pressed her: Will you?

Bridie added sternly: For Eunice. So he’ll never do the same to her.

Mary O’Rahilly’s eyes were wet. She whispered, I will.

The baby pulled her head away and whimpered.

That ended the conversation.

Hold her upright now, I told Mary O’Rahilly, lean her face in your hand and rub her back to help her burps out.

I looked over at Honor White. Still out like a light, her head flopped sideways on the pillow.

No. Not sleeping.

My throat locked. I leaned over to examine her face. Eyes open, not breathing.

Bridie asked, What’s the matter?

I slid my fingers under the wrist that lay on the sheet. Still warm, but no pulse at all. I tried the side of Honor White’s pale throat too, just to be sure.

Eternal rest grant unto her, I whispered, and let perpetual light shine upon her.

Ah no! Bridie rushed over.

I stroked Honor White’s lids shut. I crossed her white hands on her breast.

I swayed; suddenly I couldn’t hold myself up. Bridie hauled my head down onto her shoulder and I held on tight enough to hurt. I could hear Mary O’Rahilly weeping over her baby girl.

I made myself pull back, straightened up. Bridie, could you ever go for a doctor?

When she was gone, I stared at the White boy. His little snuffles and tentative flailings. Had my donated blood and all our efforts only rushed his mother into the arms of the bone man?

Dr. Lynn came in looking worn. Nurse Power, what a sad thing.

She checked the dead woman no less thoroughly for it being hopeless. Then she filled in the certificate.

I had to ask, in an uneven voice: Was it the transfusion reaction, would you say?

The doctor shook her head. The pneumonia’s strain on her heart, more likely, exacerbated by labour, haemorrhage, and chronic anaemia. Or possibly a blood clot leading to a pulmonary embolism.

She drew the sheet up and over the statue’s face, then turned her glinting glasses on me. We’re doing our level best, Nurse Power.

I nodded.

And one of these days, even this flu will have run its course.

Really? Mary O’Rahilly asked. How can you be sure?

The human race settles on terms with every plague in the end, the doctor told her. Or a stalemate, at the least. We somehow muddle along, sharing the earth with each new form of life.

Bridie frowned. This grippe’s a form of life?

Dr. Lynn nodded as she covered a yawn with her hand. In a scientific sense, yes. A creature with no malign intention, only a craving to reproduce itself, much like our own.

That thought bewildered me.

Besides, pessimism’s a bad doctor, she added. So let’s keep our hopes up, ladies. Now, Mrs. O’Rahilly, I’ll have a look at you and your bonny newborn.

After the doctor examined Mary O’Rahilly, she peered into the White baby’s mouth. Has he kept a feed down?

I told her, Three.

Good lad. Filius nullius now, I suppose, she added soberly—nobody’s son, a child of the parish. I suppose he’ll be sent over to the institution where she was staying?