“He is not.”
“And your name, miss?”
“Just call me Sophie.”
She invites us to please have a seat. When she returns ten minutes later I can’t tell from her face what kind of reaction Candace had to the news that Kat is here.
“Mrs. Hocking is waiting for you on the patio,” the nurse says. “She is most anxious to see you. You will both be safe if you keep your distance. The disease is only catching if you breathe the air she coughs, and our residents work very hard to limit their coughs. I will take you back in a moment, but first may I have a word with you, Miss...?”
“Sophie will do.”
She smiles politely, but with puzzlement, and I follow her a few yards away from where Kat sits on a sofa gazing down at her lap, at the doll with the cracked cheek.
“Mrs. Hocking is very weak,” the nurse says. “I don’t want Kat to be frightened of how her mother looks. She had been doing so well, too, but she took a turn after hearing of the death of her father—”
“Candace’s father is dead?” I blurt.
The nurse blinks at me. “Why, yes. You didn’t know?”
“I didn’t. When did he die?”
“Well, I would say it was about a month ago now.”
I can’t help but wonder how Candace’s father met his end. Martin told me Candace’s father wasn’t in good health, but not that he was near death. I search my mind to recall if Martin was home with me in late March or away. I wouldn’t put anything past him. Not now.
“What happened?” I ask.
“There was an automobile accident. In Los Angeles. His carwent off the road and overturned. He perished underneath it, I’m afraid.”
“Was there another vehicle involved?”
She raises an eyebrow. Why would I immediately want to know that? I could see she was wondering.
Why, indeed.
“What I mean is, does anyone know what caused the accident?” I add.
She shakes her head. In the end it perhaps doesn’t matter now if Martin had a hand in this. What does matter is that with Candace’s father dead, there is now one less person who will take Kat to raise if Candace cannot. I sense an arrow of hope shooting through me. Candace can’t raise Kat alone in her condition. She will need help.
“So you’ll tell the child? About her mother? About how she looks?”
“Yes.” I turn and walk back to Kat.
I kneel down so that I am looking up at her. “We’re going to see your mama, love. She’s been sick, you know, and sometimes when we’re sick it makes us look tired and it’s hard to laugh and smile and look happy. But she’s very glad you’re here. All right? She’s very glad.”
I stand and hold out my hand. Kat grasps her doll tight with one hand and me with the other.
The nurse opens a door that leads to a long hallway that goes both right and left, and we head down the one that ends at an open door and sunshine.
And I feel my heart tearing in two.
21
I’ve heard that tuberculosis has long been called consumption because it slowly consumes you until you are nothing but skin and bones, a living soul trapped inside a body that is wasting away. Not only that, but the disease, which lives inside your lungs, seeks to infect those close to you by crawling inside your spit and your breath so that when you cough, it might also consume them. Those who can afford the fresh air and care of a sanatorium might live with the disease for a stretch of years; a few may even beat it. But those without wealth are almost always devoured by it. I witnessed the ravages of untreated consumption often enough in the tenements and in Ireland before I left.
When I see Candace, I see why the older name for tuberculosis lingers. She is lying on a wheeled lounge chair at the edge of the patio, still in shade but as close to the brilliant sun beyond as she can be. She is pale, gaunt, and hollowed out. Her blond hair, which in the photograph that Kat has is golden and luxurious, isnow dull and thin. Still, I see hints of her former beauty as Kat and I close the distance, in the swanlike shape of her neck, in her porcelain-doll lips, and in the grass green hue of her eyes. She tries to rise out of her lounge as we near her but falls back against her pillows. She instead stretches out an arm for Kat as tears begin to trickle down her face.
“My girl!” she says in a still-lovely voice. “My baby girl! You’re here! You’re here.”
