was silly. Cool flesh was a good sign. No fever. She waited. She waited for Lucy’s chest to rise and fall. Nothing happened.
“Lucy.” She shook the girl. “Lucy, wake up.” She shook her harder. “Lucy.” She sat on the bed, scooped her daughter into a sitting position. Lucy’s arms and head flopped. “Lucy.” She shook her, hard, and pressed her ear to her daughter’s mouth. Nothing. She pushed Lucy’s hair, sticky from the phlegm and greasy from days in bed, away from her face. Her sweet face. The girl was so proud of her thick brown hair. She would have to wash it, Lucy would hate to-but she couldn’t see anymore, not the dirty hair, not the still face, as the tears blinded her eyes and she curled around her little girl and sobbed.
Sometime later, she came to herself again. The kettle was singing on the stove. She tucked Lucy into bed, flipping the pillow around so her head rested on the clean side. She took the liniment from the kitchen table and went upstairs. Mary was lying in her crib, her eyes open but unfocused, the way she looked some mornings right after she had awoken. Beneath her gown, her chest and belly flexed. Dragging a breath in. Forcing a breath out. Jane opened the gown, rubbed the liniment in with firm strokes, and lifted her from the crib. She wrapped her in a light quilt and settled into the rocking chair, cradling her baby girl. She had nursed her in this very chair. Not so many months ago. She looked down. In the shadowed light, Mary’s eyes met hers. Her little body eased as she relaxed into her mother’s arms. Soon, the doctor would be here. Soon, everything would be all right. Jane cuddled her baby close. The weight, the heft of her. The life of her. She began to rock.
Chapter 41
Tuesday, April 3, and Wednesday, April 4
After Officer Durkee had removed Allan Rouse to the station for booking, Clare, backed up by the just-arrived Lyle MacAuley, insisted Russ get checked out at the hospital. He left, under protest, in his deputy chief’s care.
She wanted Mrs. Marshall to go, too. “I don’t think you should be alone,” she said. “And I certainly don’t think you ought to be driving home this late at night all by yourself.”
The older woman patted her arm. She had actually hugged Allan and Renee as they left, a shining example of Christian forbearance Clare wasn’t certain she could have emulated. “I’ll be fine, dear.”
“You’ve had a pretty big shock. Please, at least just let me call Mr. Madsen and have him take you home. You can wait here until he comes.” She looked around at the Rouses’ well-made furniture, their family pictures, the books and magazines in the glass-fronted cases. She wondered what had been earned, and what had been stolen from Jane Ketchem’s money.
Mrs. Marshall did that mind-reading thing again. “What am I going to do with the trust money?”
Clare didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Money isn’t good or bad in and of itself. It’s what you do with it.”
Mrs. Marshall bit her lip, scraping a spot in her lipstick. “It might as well have been a blood payment for my brothers’ and sisters’ lives. For my parents’ lives.”
“However they earned that money, whatever your mother did, surely she sacrificed enough to make it clean.”
“You’d think so.” The older woman’s voice regained some of its tartness. “Unfortunately, for thirty years it’s benefited the Rouse family instead of the clinic. That’s not what she wanted. I feel…” She took Clare’s hands. “I feel as if I owe it to her to do something with it. Owe it to all of them.”
“Something… that’s not the church roof?”
“Not all of it. Would you think it terrible of me if I only put in enough for the immediate work? If we had to rely on fund-raising to make up the rest?”
Clare shook her head. “I was never wild about the idea of taking the money away from the clinic. Do you want to set the trust back up again? Make payments to the board of aldermen this time, to keep it all out in the open?”
“I don’t know. The clinic’s gotten along without it perfectly well all these years. I believe I’d like to find something more personal.”
Clare smiled slowly. “Let me introduce you to Debba Clow.”
“The one who won’t vaccinate her child?”
“We’re working on that. Maybe hearing your parents’ story might help. I have her number in my-” Clare slapped her pockets, reflexively patting for her cell phone, until she remembered where it was. Her clothes were half dried by now, and smelled of mildew. “Never mind. She has a son, Skylar, who could benefit from someone with deep pockets taking an interest in him. She wants to teach him at home, and they could use aides, autism specialists, extra speech and occupational therapy-you could make a difference. And it would be”-she smiled a little-“personal.”
With a little more pressing, Mrs. Marshall agreed that they should call Mr. Madsen, and the elderly attorney seemed happy enough to be of service. “When you’re my age,” he said, “you don’t sleep all that much anyway.”
By the time they dropped Clare off in front of the historical society to retrieve her car, she was pretty well dried off. She sat behind the wheel for several minutes. Debating: Rectory? Or the hospital? She didn’t surprise herself when she went for the hospital. If Russ had been released, she’d be on her way without much time lost. If he was still there, and awake, they could talk. She could picture herself, sitting on the edge of his bed. Maybe holding his hand. And they would talk.
Her clericals did the trick again, getting her past admissions after hours. Although the security guard in charge did look strangely at her. Walking past the dark plate-glass window of the gift shop, she saw why. In addition to the reek and the damp wrinkles, her black blouse and pants were streaked with dried mud, and her hair was-well, better not to think of it. Russ didn’t care.
She took the elevator up to the third floor. “I’m here to see Russ Van Alstyne,” she said to the charge nurse. “Downstairs, they told me he had been admitted?”
“That’s right.” The nurse, a twenty-something man with curling hair, flipped open a chart. “He had to have his leg recast. And he had some signs of fluid in his lungs, so he’s being kept overnight for observation. But I’m afraid he’s asleep now.” He looked at her clerical collar. “Are you his…?”
She smiled over her disappointment. “Just let him know that Clare Fergusson stopped by to see him. Thanks.” She pushed away from the nursing station’s counter.
“Excuse me?” A voice hailed from down the hall. “Are you Clare Fergusson?” Clare turned. A pocket goddess- there was no other word for her-was walking toward her. She smiled and waved. “I was just coming out to grab another cup of tea and I heard your name.” She was tiny, curvy, with a tousle of Marilyn Monroe hair and a flawless complexion. She reached for Clare’s hand. “I just had to say thank you.” Up close, she had soft-edged lines around her eyes and overlapping front teeth that made her smile charming instead of perfect. “I’m Linda Van Alstyne.”
Clare moved her hand up and down, propped a smile on her face, said something.
“Mother Van Alstyne told me you were the one who got Russ out of the woods and to the hospital when he broke his leg. I’m so grateful. He just goes out and does these crazy things, you know.” She laughed. Musically, of course. “So I’m glad he has friends looking out for him.”
Clare said something else. She thought she might melt into the floor, like the Wicked Witch of the West. She was the Wicked Witch. She deserved melting.
“Were you visiting someone from your church?”
Clare’s mouth worked.
“Well, it’s great to finally meet you. I’ll tell Russ you said hi, okay?” She gave Clare’s hand a final squeeze and glided back up the hall to the kitchenette like the woman in the Roethke poem. Describing circles as she moved.
Clare felt her way to the elevator. Sometime later, she found herself in the chapel room. She sat for a long time in the half-light, staring at the nondenominational wall hanging at the front of the room. Just sitting. Then she
