“But you’ve come to see Sybil.”
He looked at me for a long moment, and I could read the unspoken words in that look. Sybil didn’t know he was coming, and she wouldn’t be put out that he’d been detained. She wouldn’t recognize him when he did finally get inside the hospital. And she wasn’t going anywhere.
“Please,” he finally said. “It’s the least I can do. You’ve been so kind to my wife. I see the extra care you give her. It would be a mere token of my gratitude.”
A minute later I was inside his Buick touring car and we were headed to the station.
“Where do you need to go, if I may ask?”
“I must consult with another patient’s family. In Camden.”
He took his eyes off the road to glance at me. “New Jersey? In this weather? It will take you forty minutes to get there.”
I shrugged. “I have to go.”
“I’ll take you across. It’s only eight miles or so. Let me take you.”
“Mr. Reese! I couldn’t possibly have you do that.”
“I insist. This is no kind of weather in which to be out.”
“But I don’t know how long I will be.”
He turned east in the direction of the Delaware River and the newly constructed bridge to New Jersey. “All the more reason for you not to be out in all this.”
I could see that he would not be persuaded, and in truth, I didn’t want to spend the next few hours dashing through driving rain onto train platforms. “This is so very kind of you.”
He shook his head. “It’s nothing.”
But it wasn’t nothing. Not to me.
On the way, he told me about the book printing business he owns with his mother, and that he is the oldest of five children but the only son. Three of his four sisters are married, two with small children. The last at home is sixteen. He and Sybil had been married five years, but I already knew this. I knew she had started to drift just a few weeks after their wedding. All this was in Sybil’s file. I told him the names and ages of my sisters and our ward, Alex; about losing my mother and great-uncle to the flu; and my lifelong desire to be a doctor. He shared that he, too, had lost a parent to the flu. His father.
Conrad was easy to talk to, and it seemed in no time we were pulling up in front of the Franklin Hotel, a four-story building, white brick with green trim, that had seen better days. The striped awning out front sagged with the weight of water and too many years.
“Shall I just wait right here for you?” Conrad asked.
I looked up at the tired-looking structure from a rain-streaked window. “I actually may be back out rather quickly.”
“Oh?”
I turned to him, feeling a little guilty for not telling him up front that the Dabneys might not give me even five minutes of their time. “I’m not sure how much help this family is going to want to be.”
He frowned. “Want me to come in with you?”
“No. It’s not that. They just... They don’t want to get too involved. I don’t think I’ll be long. But if you need to get back...”
“I’ll wait,” he said.
I got out of the car and ran through the rain to the front door. The foyer inside was carpeted in a floral print that had mellowed to a subtle brown. Two green leather chairs were situated around a table and a coal fire. A woman of ample size with streaks of faint silver in her hair sat behind a desk. Behind her, room keys dangled on a felt-covered peg-board lined with hooks.
“May I help you?” she said.
“Mrs. Dabney?”
“Yes.”
I took a breath. “My name is Evelyn Bright. I am a medical student and one of the care providers for Ursula at the Fairview Hospital. I’d appreciate it very much if I could ask you a few questions about what happened to her and her baby brother.”
