After Alice Fell(19)

“I didn’t hear you near,” I say.

“Soft soles. Best for the patients.” His thin lips purse, then widen into a smile. “I know why you’ve come.”

He reaches out a hand. I don’t take it. He curls his fingers back.

“Dr. Mayhew,” Cathy says. “My sister-in-law needs solace.”

“Then I shall give it to her.” He rolls his wrist and gestures toward a door off to the right. “Let us talk.”

The walls of Lemuel Mayhew’s office are thick plaster, yellowed from smoke. They are plain adorned, save a large poster on the wall behind his desk. A pen-and-ink of a man, his head diagrammed into phrenological parcels and the phrase Know Thyself printed across his neck. A fern lounges on a wide windowsill.

Mayhew settles in his chair and leans back. The coils squeak. He steeples his fingers and taps them to his lips. “I am as inconsolable as you are.”

“Are you?”

“Any loss of life is untenable. But I am glad you’ve come, so I can share the news in person. We’ve done a thorough investigation. It’s all to order.”

“Then how did she get on the roof?”

“The roof.”

I roll my fingers around the chair’s cushion. “She was under your care. You should know how she arrived on that roof. Since you have investigated.”

“Yes, I do. It is . . .” He shrugs, then reaches across the papers on his desk, sets aside the ashtray used as a weight, and flips open a folder. “Mm. Unfortunate. We were, of course, trying to spare you.”

“Spare me what?”

“The reports are public, Mrs. Abbott. We must state for the board the doings of the hospital.” His chair wheels roll back and forth on the wood floor. “And also consider the family. Miss Snow was a troubled young woman.”

“I would like to see.”

“See what?”

“The roof. Her room. Her records.”

“The report of her death will be public. The treatment records, however, are sealed.”

“Then anything that can explain to me why my sister is dead.”

He blows a breath through his nose and closes the folder. “Your brother says you were a nurse during the conflict? Are you still?”

“No.”

“Duty for the cause, then.”

“Dr. Mayhew—”

“Do you recall some of your patients, how they screamed all night of battle? ‘We just need to take the hill’ or ‘Get ’em again.’ Over and over, that mewling cry.”

“What does this have to do with Alice?”

“When they died, did you write their folks of those nights? I don’t think you did. I think you instead gave them succor and told them their son had died in peace.”

“I don’t know your point.”

“My point is that your sister had much the same horrible nights. I think she wished them to stop.”

I swallow. It is like gulping a stone. Or the truth. “So she jumped.”

“Yes.”

Three stories. Four at the apex.

“Why? How?”

His palm glides over the papers before him. They crinkle and the folds return, though he keeps his hand flat like an iron. “I think when someone wants to . . . end their life, they find a way.” He touches the side of his nose, as if we’re sharing a secret. “I will never make suicide a part of the record.”

“No. That’s not right.” My breath stutters, and I gasp. “She wouldn’t do that.”

Cathy rests her hand on my wrist. Her grip tightens as I try to pull away. “It’s kind of you to keep that out of public circulation.”

“It is heartbreak enough that it occurred.”

I twist my arm to release from Cathy’s hold. “There were bruises, Dr. Mayhew, that do not . . . Here.” I touch my wrists. First the left then the right. “Her thighs. Her ankles. Here.” My forehead is hot where I draw the bruise. “How did she get those?”

“We are a progressive hospital, Mrs. Abbott. Our treatments are meant to provide calm. Patients work in the gardens, in the farm. We grow all our own vegetables. Raise our own meat.” He gives a sharp laugh. “These patients were better fed during the war than all the rest of us, with our shortages and rations. Better fed. But it doesn’t calm everyone. Some must be taken to hand. Other treatments provided. And they work. They do what they are intended to do.”

“What treatments?” I lean forward, gripping the edge of his desk. “What treatments?”

“Industry and good clean air on the whole.” He smacks his hand on the desk. “I shall assuage you. Come. Look.”

We move to the second-floor landing. Mayhew taps a barred window, pointing to the roofs of buildings below. One metal door is locked on our left and another to our right. “Our own gristmill. And there, the herb garden.” He puffs his pipe and exhales. “In the spring there are calves. There’s a cooper here. Been here since the building opened. We do go through buckets.”

“It is all very industrious.” Cathy dabs her handkerchief to her forehead.

“The men’s wing is to the right. Women to the left. The Owens wing. Charming woman, if somewhat bullish. Ran a school for young ladies. In Munsonville. We are much appreciative of her benevolence.”