Florence Adler Swims Forever(54)

“Do you think she knows?” Esther asked.

“I don’t have any indication that she does,” said Dr. Rosenthal. “I spoke with the superintendent and several of the nurses on the ward, and no one’s noticed anything out of the ordinary. They said a few friends of Fannie’s popped by yesterday afternoon, but everyone seemed to be in high spirits.”

“Which friends?” Esther asked, but Dr. Rosenthal gave her a look that indicated he wasn’t the keeper of Fannie’s social calendar. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re fine.”

“So, you still think there’s a chance someone told her?”

“I think maybe I was just hopeful that there was an explanation for the high readings.”

“Have you spoken with Isaac about any of this?”

Dr. Rosenthal shook his head. “We haven’t seen him in several days.”

Esther cocked her head to one side. What could be keeping Isaac from the hospital? Really, it was absurd. With no child to look after and a job that, by Joseph’s account, he performed only adequately, what else did he have to do besides visit his bedridden wife?

“You must be just missing him,” she said. “I think he visits directly after work.”

“He must,” said Dr. Rosenthal, who looked far from convinced.

Out of the corner of her eye, Esther noticed that Gussie was out of her chair and hopscotching her way across the hospital’s lobby.

“Can we go up, Nana?” she asked, her voice very close to a whine. Esther abhorred whining.

“Going to see your mother now, are you?” Dr. Rosenthal asked, tussling Gussie’s hair. She ducked out of his reach and hid behind Esther’s skirt.

Dr. Rosenthal gave Esther a kind, if not slightly regretful, smile and began to move toward the stairs. When he was several feet away, he turned back.

“You know, Mrs. Adler, when Superintendent McLoughlin first presented this plan, I thought it all rather peculiar. Perhaps even cruel.”

Esther narrowed her eyes at him. Hiding Florence’s death from Fannie might be unconventional, but she’d never once thought of it as cruel.

“But Fannie’s almost a month further along now, further than she made it with the last baby. So, who’s to say?”



* * *



On the ward, several of the nurses greeted Esther by name.

“Good morning, Mrs. Adler.”

“Morning, Mrs. Adler.”

Dorothy, whom Esther had unfortunately come to know quite well, had taken it upon herself to establish more casual terms: “Morning, Mrs. A.”

In Esther’s opinion, Dorothy spent far too much time standing around and gossiping. Even when she was being useful—changing the sheets or giving Fannie a sponge bath—she was always so terribly slow that Esther fought the urge to yank the bedsheet or basin from her hand and do the task herself.

Esther nodded grimly at each of the nurses as she passed and tightened her grip on Gussie’s hand. As they approached Fannie’s room, she leaned down and hissed in Gussie’s ear, “Remember. Not a word about Florence.”

At the door, which was ajar, Esther paused, forced herself to rework her facial muscles into a more pleasant composition. She practiced a smile. Those were always difficult. Grins were more manageable. She might have stood in the corridor all day, putting off the inevitable, had Gussie not broken free and zipped into the room ahead of her. By the time Esther rounded the corner, the girl was already in her mother’s embrace.

Fannie peppered Gussie with kisses, exclaiming how much she’d missed her between each breath.

“I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you!”

Esther stiffened. Mothers today were so much more demonstrative than those of Esther’s generation had been. She wasn’t sure what it got them, other than whining children.

She watched as Fannie made room for Gussie in the bed, patting the spot beside her. She folded her tall and lanky daughter under her arm like she was no bigger than a kitten.

“Where have you been, my sweet girl?” Fannie cooed. “Having all sorts of adventures without your mother?”

Gussie merely smiled and burrowed her head into Fannie’s chest. Fannie’s stomach had grown rounder, her breasts larger, in the four weeks since Gussie had last seen her mother. Esther wondered what the girl made of it all. Did she remember that Fannie had looked like this once before? It was hard to know what Gussie recalled from her mother’s last pregnancy.

“I brought you something,” said Gussie as she unfolded a piece of blue construction paper she’d tucked away in a pocket. Esther had never seen it before, and her chest tightened as she watched her daughter purr over its unveiling.

“Oh my!” remarked Fannie, in an unusually high voice. Esther walked around the bed to get a look at her granddaughter’s work.

Gussie had made a collage of babies, each one cut out from a magazine or newspaper. There were pictures of the Dionne quintuplets, a few babies that had been clipped from newspaper advertisements, and smack-dab in the middle of the collage was a photograph of the Lindbergh baby.

“Oh, Gussie,” said Esther, unable to hide her disappointment. How had she missed this? Had she been paying so little attention to the girl?

“I love it,” said Fannie. “How did you know I would?” She kissed the top of Gussie’s head and handed Esther the collage. “Mother, will you put this on the dresser? Somewhere I can see it?”