The Good Left Undone(46)
“Next time ask me before you throw me in the air,” Domenica snapped.
“Forgive me. I saw you moving to the music.”
The young man went off in search of a willing dance partner. It wasn’t like Domenica to chastise anyone caught up in the moment, especially when music was involved, but the last time Domenica’s feet had left the ground was at Carnevale, when she danced with Silvio.
When the girls asked her if she had been in love, Domenica had claimed she hadn’t been, but truthfully, she couldn’t be absolutely certain one way or the other. The only love she had known for another in that regard had not been impetuous or dramatic. There had been no falling off a mountain, no breathless moments in midair, because her first love began in friendship. She loved Silvio Birtolini first as a friend, with a love that was practical, sturdy, and, in her heart, everlasting. And even though he did not belong to her, she loved him anyway. Wasn’t that the nature of true love? To hope for his happiness more than your own? Or did that make her a sap, as the Americans called those who had no will of their own? He’s marrying someone else, Domenica, she reminded herself. He doesn’t belong to you. That settled that.
CHAPTER 17
The bucket that Sister Marie Honoré had placed under the leak in the roof over the corridor on the first floor of the hospital was about half full of rain. Domenica emptied it and returned it to the spot and waited until she heard the first ping of water through the hole in the roof.
Domenica placed the clipboard with her notes from the night rounds on a hook by the door before returning to her station in the lobby. The only sound was the ticking of the big clock on the wall. She slipped out of her shoes. It was 2:05 in the morning. Whenever she worked the overnight shift, Domenica managed to catch the clock as it read 2:05, the day and month of her mother’s birth. She yawned and thought about going down the hallway to the nurses’ station and making herself a cup of tea. One of the girls had made macarons. Instead she leaned back in the chair and stretched.
Olivier Desplierre, fifteen, was on duty with Domenica on the shift. The night watchman/janitor fought nodding off to sleep in his chair. Domenica felt compassion for the boy—he reminded her of Aldo. She placed her hand gently on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Nurse Cabrelli.” Olivier sat up.
“You’re going to get a stiff neck sleeping like that. There’s a cot in Room 13. Go.”
Domenica pulled a basket of freshly laundered cloth bandages from underneath the desk. She had begun to fold the fabric into tight squares when her eye caught a beam of light spilling out from the closed door of the chapel. Maybe a vagrant had snuck into the chapel while she made her rounds. The nuns warned the nurses about locals who used the hospital like the public park.
Domenica opened the chapel door wide and said, “Bonjour,” loudly before peering inside. The pews were empty. She exhaled. The light had come from the sanctuary lamp that flickered on the altar near the tabernacle. She blessed herself with holy water from the door-side font and was pulling the chapel door closed behind her when the entrance doors of the hospital flew open.
A raucous group of men, reeking of motor oil and smoke, their skin covered in soot, piled into the lobby. Domenica assumed they were firemen, but upon closer inspection, their uniforms, what was left of them, were once navy and white. Some of the men were shirtless; a few were barefoot. They made such a racket, Domenica could not sort out what they were saying in English because they spoke so fast. The tallest of the lot entered carrying an injured man in his arms. The men parted in deference to let them through.
The tall man’s face was covered in black soot like the others’. She wouldn’t have been able to provide a single detail about the man because something came over her as she looked up at him. The lights flickered. Her stomach fluttered. Her pulse raced. The sound in the room went away. Domenica looked at the clock; the second hand swept around its face as usual. She looked up at the ceiling, certain the bulbs had blown in the chandelier, changing the chemistry of light and dark in the lobby, but the bulbs blazed bright white.
“There’s been a fire. This fellow took the brunt of it. He needs a doctor,” the man said to her.
Olivier, roused by the ruckus in the lobby, pushed through the throng to get to Domenica.
“Call Dr. Chalfant. Ring the bell at Fatima and go get Sister Marie Bernard in the convent,” Domenica told him.
“Right away.”
“Follow me.” Domenica led the man carrying the injured sailor to the closest examining room. “You can put him down here. I’ve sent for the doctor. You may wash up in the sink.” Domenica turned to go.
The stranger grabbed her arm. “Stay with him. Please.”
“I have to admit the injured,” she said calmly. “Hospital protocol.”
“Please, give him a look. He was in the boiler room,” the man explained. “He hasn’t woken up since the explosion.”
“He’s in shock. He needs to see the doctor.”
“Please. Won’t you give him a look?”
Domenica placed her hands on the young man. She observed his injuries. When she put her hands on his face, his eyes fluttered open. “You’re going to be all right,” she assured him. She lifted his head and placed a pillow under it.
Sister Marie Bernard barreled through the door, tying a nurse’s apron over her habit. “What have we got, Cabrelli?” She washed her hands at the basin.