“Is your husband in business for himself, or does he work for somebody?”
“He’s in an office. He has an office all to himself, and you can’t get in to see him till the boy tells him who you are and what you want. And then he’s liable to say he’s out, if you’re somebody he doesn’t want to see. I don’t imagine he’d want to see you; you ask too many questions. And those girls ask too many questions. It’s people like you that make him so late. He has to stay at the office and answer questions, and it makes him late. He’d have been here long ago, if it wasn’t for you. And I’ve got to get home and bake a cake.”
That night Mamma boasted a little about her children and didn’t seem to care whether anyone was listening.
“Betty is smarter and gets along faster in school. She can skim through a lesson once and almost know it by heart. She finishes her homework in fifteen or twenty minutes and then helps Brother do his. Brother has brains enough, but he dreams a lot. He doesn’t concentrate like Betty. He is more on the lines of a genius of some kind. Everybody says he’ll be an artist or a poet or maybe a great actor. I don’t believe he’d ever pass in school if the teachers weren’t so crazy about him. That and the way Betty helps him with his homework. My husband says Betty will make a better businessman than Brother. I hope neither one of them will have to work as hard as my husband does. I suppose they will, though, if we don’t turn over a new leaf and economize. We’ll have to for a while, to pay what we owe Doctor. I don’t imagine he’ll charge us as much as he would if he wasn’t so fond of the children. Betty’s his favorite, and I think my husband likes Brother best. I don’t know which I like best. They’re both lovely!”
During her second day at the hospital Mamma answered (if you could call it answering) most of the questions put to her, occasionally losing her temper and scolding her questioners for their inquisitiveness. For two weeks thereafter she would not open her mouth in the presence of a doctor, a nurse, or a volunteer social worker. She cried a little, smiled a great deal, and several times daily told other patients that her husband was coming for her “this afternoon.”
In vain her picture was published in all the papers, along with the scant details of the case—the date she had been found, her approximate age, a description of her clothing. There were no inquiries for her at the police stations, the other hospitals, or the morgue, and policemen assigned to the task of discovering her alleged family reported failure. The psychopathic ward was beginning to regard her as part of its permanent equipment. And then—suddenly she recalled her other name.
“Carns,” she said, and said it again, “Carns.”
She said it loudly, and Miss Fraser heard.
“What is that you’re saying? Is it your name?”
“Yes. That’s it—Carns.”
“What’s the rest of it?”
“I don’t know, but my husband will remember. He’ll tell you when he comes for me this afternoon.”
To Miss Fraser “Carns” sounded unreal, but in the telephone book she found five “Carnses.” Four of them reported that all members of their families were present or accounted for. The telephone of the fifth was no longer in service.
Miss Fraser got off the West Side subway on upper Broadway and walked downhill to Riverside Drive. She stopped at an address listed in the telephone book the address of the Carnses whose telephone had been disconnected.
It was an old apartment building, but the doorman was new.
“No, I never heard of nobody by that name,” he said. “But you might maybe find out from the janitor. He’s been here all his life.”
The janitor was away—had gone up to the hardware store. Miss Fraser talked to his wife, who first wanted it understood that her husband was not a janitor but a superintendent.
“The man at the door told me you had been here a long time,” said Miss Fraser. “Did you know a family in the building named Carns?”
“Yes, and mighty fine people. A young man and his wife and two kiddies, a boy and a girl. The little girl was as smart as a whip, and the boy was so handsome that everybody turned around in the street to look at him. I never felt sorrier for nobody than poor Mrs. Carns. She was going to send me a postcard to tell me how she got along, but I guess it slipped her mind.”
“Why were you sorry for her?”
“For losing her husband and two kids.”
“Losing them?”
“They all three died of the flu two months ago.”
Miss Fraser swallowed before she spoke again. “Where did Mrs. Carns say she was going?”
“No place specially. She was going to look for work, though I can’t think of nothing she’d be fitted for. She couldn’t be very choosey anyway, because I doubt if she had ten dollars when she left here, and she had to support herself besides satisfying all her creditors.”
“Did she owe much?”
“She owed at least a month’s rent, and she owed the doctor and the nurse.”
“Oh, did she have a nurse?”
“The doctor told her she had to get one. She herself was the most useless, helpless woman you ever seen in a sick room.”
Miss Fraser related her findings at the hospital.
“Well,” said Dr. Phillips, “it’s just a question of time till everything comes back to her. If she recalls her name, it won’t be long till she remembers the whole business. And then she’s liable to have something a lot worse than what she’s got.”
Mamma spotted Miss Fraser as she came into the ward, and called to her.
“Did you telephone my husband?”
“How could I?” said Miss Fraser. “I don’t know his name.”
“I told you his name. It’s Carns.”
“There’s no such name,” said
