After the Fog (18 page)

Mrs. Sebastian drew her slender fingers through her hair as they rose up the staircase. “Oh, and Mr. Sebastian’s in-house this morning. He needed to oversee the installation of the office furniture downstairs. I said, we live right across the street from the mill, do you really need a full office here…well, never mind that, I’m sure that’s the last thing you want to hear. But, you’ll meet him today.”

“I look forward to it.” Rose traced her finger up the molded mahogany banister as they went, slipping it into the carvings. At the top landing Rose lifted her fingertip. Perfectly clean.

“I have a girl,” Mrs. Sebastian said.

Rose wiped her hand against her side.

“Irish. She dusts every surface of the home. Like clockwork. When we moved to Donora, I never thought it would mean all this soot. Not that Gary or Pittsburgh were sites of sun and clear views, but this. This is like nothing I’ve seen. I’d rather a home on Thompson Avenue if we have to live in Donora.”

“Those homes are ordinary compared to yours.”

“The smoke, though. Theresa’s breathing has never been good, but since moving here, it’s worse.”

Rose felt a surge of energy. This was her chance. She slipped out of her coat, juggling her bag, relieved Mrs. Sebastian had moved the conversation to a topic that allowed her nursing acumen to do the persuasive heavy lifting. “You don’t see signs of TB, a lump behind the ear, any infection at all?”

“You tell me.”

Rose exhaled. Yes, she thought, yes, I will.

* * *

Mrs. Sebastian excused herself, telling Rose she had a phone call to make. Rose smoothed a section of her newspaper over the chair by Theresa’s door. On top of the papers, went the bag. Another black and white uniformed maid popped out of a doorway stating that Rose would have to use her own green soap because the Sebastians had none.

Rose scrubbed up to her elbows under the maid’s watch. A family with the means of the Sebastians should have everything on hand for a visiting nurse. Certainly Mrs. Sebastian wouldn’t expect Rose to absorb the cost of basic toiletries. Rose dried off her hands and arms.

“Could you let Mrs. Sebastian know that we need the supplies for after the exam and that she should join us?”

The maid’s face crinkled in confusion.

Rose smiled. “She knows I’m here.”

Mrs. Sebastian poked her head out of a door ten yards down the hall. “I see you have everything. I have some business with the arts committee at hand.” And, she disappeared back into the room as though never there.

Rose shook her head. Mrs. Sebastian wouldn’t be attending her daughter’s exam? Either she was more vacuous than Rose had thought or it was a sign she had already decided Rose’s work was not useful.

Rose caught up to the maid and requested a set of fresh towels, a pot of boiling water for after the examination and a fresh set of sheets. Rose tapped her foot and seethed while she waited.

Any other mother who was capable of doing so, Rose would have ordered into the exam to assist. But she couldn’t yet read Mrs. Sebastian and she controlled everything. Rose’s impatience for the towels and sheets was tinged with disappointment. She was compromising the procedures she knew were in place for a reason. Yet, there she was, letting it happen. There was no excuse for this parent to not be present. This woman who had judged Rose’s home situation as lackluster did not seem to care about the health of her daughter.

Rose paced the hall hoping to draw Mrs. Sebastian’s attention. The idea of public health nursing was to educate families on caring for their family members. She could wait no longer. She bent down at Theresa’s door and turned the doorknob with her elbows to keep her hands sanitary.
Dammit.

She crossed the threshold then turned back, stuck her foot out to keep the door open and craned her neck out the door. Was Mrs. Sebastian really going to ignore home-visit protocol? If Rose even caught a glimpse of another maid she’d order her to witness the examination.

Someone in the home had to be sure the girl was receiving the proper care, especially since yesterday Theresa seemed relatively strong and was now so weak she couldn’t get out of bed, for Pete’s sake. The only sound Rose heard aside from the outside noises of the mill cranking and the tugboat groaning was the steady ticking of a grandfather clock beside Theresa’s door.

Rose took some newspaper from under her arm and laid it across a small portion of a tall dresser. She turned and finally took in the room. Everything, the walls, the spread, the knickknacks were made of or embellished with pink.

Rose didn’t realize it until that moment, but she’d envisioned a room before, dreamed of having a welcoming pink room where nothing soiled it. In reality, it was creepy. As sterile as Rose liked her life, that moment revealed that things could be too perfect, even for Rose.

The girl lay there, swathed in rose-colored covers, up to her chin, her hands crossed, one over the other, over her chest as though she might be resting in a coffin. She coughed.

Rose moved toward the bed. “Theresa?”

No response. Rose should have turned to the dresser, grabbed her stethoscope, thermometer, and notepad, but she couldn’t move. The sight of Theresa, her thick, auburn hair fanning around her head, high cheekbones, bow-lips, kept Rose standing there. She told herself she was listening to her breathing, a legitimate clinical act. But really, Rose was just staring.

Rose jumped at the sound of Mrs. Sebastian’s voice then put her hand out and walked toward the woman to welcome her into the exam.

“I was just looking Theresa over before I do a full exam. Please, join me. I need you to fill in the timeline between when we were together yesterday and right now.”

“I have a full day’s activities—a phone call into the president of the Ballet board.”

Rose nodded, struck by Mrs. Sebastian’s indifference toward her daughter’s health.

Rose felt a burst of confidence and recklessness all mixed together. Maybe it was the stress of the day, but she couldn’t hold her thoughts in even though she wanted to.

“Funny,” Rose said. “What you saw at my house yesterday, I know how bad it looked. But you never gave me a chance to explain. And yet, here I am, judging you because you appear so uninterested in your daughter’s care. But, appearances aren’t everything, are they?”

Mrs. Sebastian looked toward Theresa on the bed as the maid stepped into the doorway beside her boss. “A call, Mrs. Sebastian. For you.”

Mrs. Sebastian nodded and waved her away, watching her leave the room. She looked back at Rose. “You don’t know what our life is like.”

“Exactly.” Rose said sweetly and gently as though she were agreeing with a friend on some inconsequential matter. Mrs. Sebastian left the room, glancing over her shoulder as she did. Rose knew she was close to the edge of decorum, but she had a job to do for the next two months and future funding or not, she would not let this woman be careless with her daughter’s health.

Rose recalled Mrs. Sebastian’s words regarding the adoption, the notion that she never connected with Theresa. Rose had thought she meant that they hadn’t bonded at the beginning, but it didn’t appear as though the two were especially close even after twenty years. Rose told herself to feel sorry for Mrs. Sebastian. She may have had all the money and things she could want, but strained or not, Rose’s relationship with Magdalena was surely more intimate than what she saw here.

Rose thought if she saw Mrs. Sebastian as having a weakness, Rose would not be so intimidated by her. She went to the bed and lifted one of Theresa’s manicured hands then the other placing them at the girl’s side. Rose lowered the covers to give her body some air.

Theresa stirred, stretching then contracting, her head off to the side, a peaceful picture even in the context of what her mother described as a lifelong illness. Rose instinctively smoothed Theresa’s hair back from her forehead.

A shadow fell over Theresa and Rose looked up from her patient. A man, Mr. Sebastian, Rose guessed, stood over the bed.

He ran the back of his hand over a section of Theresa’s hair. “My daughter is dramatic, believe me, this talk of TB or some new fangled diagnosis of asthma or whatever you people dream up won’t be founded. Let’s simply call her healthy so my wife…we just wanted to get on the books with you and Dr. Bonaroti that’s all. My Theresa is, well, I care about her…”

His voice cracked and he drew a deep breath. Rose was unaccustomed to men tearing up and less for it to be a man who runs one of the biggest, most important mills in the country. Was there something more to Theresa’s case than she’d been told? Rose backed off, giving him space.

“She is lovely. And there are ways to ease her difficulties.”

He nodded still gazing at his daughter, a loving expression on his face, much like she’d seen on Henry’s many times. Mr. Sebastian wiped his tears away with the heel of his palm.

Theresa coughed and shot up, eyes wide, shoulders folding in on every drawn breath. Fear swamped her face. Mr. Sebastian gently pushed Theresa on her back, telling her to calm down and breathe. Rose grabbed her stethoscope, put the buds in her ears and focused on the sounds of Theresa’s heart and lungs.

Rose moved Mr. Sebastian’s hands and helped Theresa to sit. She supported the girl’s chest with one hand and rubbed her back with the other, hoping to show Mr. Sebastian how he might better alleviate his daughter’s breathing, that reclining might not help in her case. Rose watched, trying to discern what sort of cough and hacking this was that afflicted Theresa. Listening with the stethoscope revealed wheezing, but no mucus or blood, just a dry, violent cough.

Rose’s soothing touch took effect and Theresa fell back, her coughs subsiding to a few per minute. Rose pulled the second bed pillow over and stacked it on the first, resting Theresa against it.

Mr. Sebastian got up and left the room before Rose realized that’s what he was doing. No matter, most men didn’t stick around for nursing tutorials, couldn’t manage that type of care for plenty of reasons. The fact that he had been there at all was what had surprised Rose.

Theresa smiled at Rose through her still strained breath.

“Okay, Theresa,” Rose said. “Good to see you again. I’m going to listen to your heart and lungs one more time.”

Rose placed the stethoscope against the pink nightgown and looked into Theresa’s face. Their gazes met and Rose felt…something. Rose looked away to concentrate better.

“Yesterday was amazing. Awful, I mean,” Theresa said in between deep breaths.

“Shhh, I need to get your pulse.”

Rose lifted Theresa’s right wrist and turned it upward to place her fingers where she could feel the thumping of Theresa’s blood, and determine whether her heart was beating efficiently.

She glanced at the wrist for the blue veins that would guide her fingers then glanced back and stared. Across Theresa’s wrist was a chocolate mark, the shape of Florida or one of the great lakes. It looked like…Rose drew back.

Theresa looked up quizzically.

Rose looked toward the bank of windows near the bed.

“Don’t worry. My parents would have caught my cough by now if it were contagious…”

Rose lifted Theresa’s hand and ran her finger around the brown shape. “Where did you get this?”

“You never saw a birthmark before?” Theresa said.

Rose traced it with her fingertip. It couldn’t really be the same. She narrowed her eyes, locking on Theresa’s face, trying to see...something. Theresa hacked into her hand. Rose rubbed her back for support until Theresa finished coughing then sat on the bed with the girl. Rose lifted her wrist and put her fingers over the mark yet again.

Theresa smiled through her calming breath. “What’s my pulse?”

Rose dropped Theresa’s hand and went back to the dresser. She had no idea what the pulse-rate was. She wrapped her stethoscope around the instruments on the dresser. “You don’t have TB. That much I’m sure of. You’re just…your father mentioned asthma. I think that diagnosis is correct. There are some new medicines, but, well, let me talk to Dr. Bonaroti and I’ll get back to your parents.”

“I think it’s the smoke-line here near the zinc mill,” Theresa said. “Did you see it out there? Doctor Bonaroti mentioned the awful zinc mill smoke at my initial appointment, that it might bother me.” Rose stiffened and faced Theresa. “Smoke line? Every step you take is directly out of one smoke line then into the next.”

Theresa’s eyes were closed and she had pulled her blankets back up to her neck. She nodded, showing Rose she was listening even though clearly ready to sleep again. Rose fussed with her instruments, shifting them in and out of inconsequential groupings. “You live here, you live with smoke. It runs through us like blood. I tend to think it’s the mill itself that’s most dangerous.”

When Rose turned back to Theresa she had fallen asleep. Rose went to the bed and lifted Theresa’s hand again, looking at the mark. She drew her forefinger around it again. Perhaps it looked more like Maine. Perhaps Rose’s memory had been wrong all these years. Maybe she didn’t remember exactly what the birthmark looked like. It wasn’t as though other babies didn’t have birthmarks on their wrists.

Theresa flinched, but didn’t wake.

“Well, someone finally quieted her down a bit,” Mr. Sebastian said from the hall.