Wedded to War (31 page)

“Yes.” Olmsted rubbed a hand over his face. “It is … unfortunate.” It was an understatement and he knew it. He had long dreaded having a conversation like this one, ever since he learned that more than two hundred people had to be evicted from their homes to make way for the grandest park the city had. It wasn’t exactly his fault, but he was not so guiltless that he wanted Ruby to know his part in the matter. “So what did you do?”

Ruby shrugged. “Found a place in the Fourteenth Ward.”

“And then?”

“Then Matthew—my husband—left to fight, never sent a dime, and it was up to me to fend for myself.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Couldn’t make rent, though I worked my fingers to the bone. Had to move again.”

“To Five Points?”

“I tried. The place was a horror. Listen,” she said, rising. “I’m not here to talk about myself. Trying to forget most of that and start again here, you know?”

“Quite.” Olmsted stood as well. Either a pang of guilt for her past or a glimmer of hope for her future—he could not be sure which—compelled him to press a five-dollar note into her hand before she could turn to go. “I wish you all the very best life has to offer, Mrs. O’Flannery I will tell Miss Waverly you were here.”

With tears just beginning to veil her green eyes, she said, “Thank you. No need to tell Miss Waverly—I’ll be on my way now. I won’t be a bother to you anymore.”

Mr. Olmsted watched her leave, then, wondering whether those were tears of joy or of sorrow he had seen in the Irishwoman’s eyes. Suddenly, he wished he had found out more about why she needed that money.

The teakettle shrieked in his ears, but she was already gone.

Everyone else was asleep when Ruby stole down to the linen room in the dark, a sputtering candle in one clammy hand, the burning bottle of Graves Pills for Amenorrhea in the other. “MISCARRIAGE WILL CERTAINLY ENSUE” read the label. It was exactly what she needed.

Wasn’t it?

Beads of sweat formed on her forehead as she opened the bottle and held a small round pellet in her hand. Was it a pill or a bullet? Medicine or a murder weapon? She closed her fist around it, slid down to the floor, and tucked her knees under her chin. Eyes squeezed shut, she rocked back and forth in the agony of uncertainty.

She had been so sure before. It was the only logical thing to do. How
could she possibly have a baby? Matthew would be enraged as soon as he found out. Besides, she would not be allowed to work and be seen in public as soon as she grew large, and then what would she do to survive? If the baby survived the pregnancy, how would she afford to feed it? If the baby survived infancy, would it be raised in Five Points to sell apples or hot corn on the streets? Or worse? How could she bring anyone into a world like that? It would be a mercy to the child to snuff it out now.

Death was a fate more merciful than life.

Wasn’t it?

Wet sheets hung up to dry, hovered over and around her like white, silent ghosts of soldiers who had passed from life to death at this very infirmary. Had they thought death was the greater mercy? Some probably did. But she had seen how hard most of them fought for a chance at life, even life without limb, or eye, or jaw.

We do what we can for them
, the nuns had said,
but God is the Author of Life. He gives, and He takes away. In the end, it is not up to us whether they live or die.

The words were meant to give comfort, but they tormented Ruby now.
It’s not up to us. God is the Author of Life.
A ragged groan tore its way up from somewhere deep within Ruby and filled the room. Life was not up to her. It was not her decision to make.

She had so much to regret already, so many stains she could not wash out. Part of her said one more would make no difference. It would be better, said the tempting voice in her head, to make her own life easier. She deserved a break. And yet, she could not bring herself to add the bright, angry red stain of murder to her heart.

At last, sleep overtook her, and she sank, exhausted, into it, helpless against the nightmares that ravaged her peace. The haunting wail of unborn life soared and swelled in her ears until she awoke, her face wet with tears, to hear her own voice weeping as well. She opened her fist to find the pill was still in her hand—and yet the wails from her nightmare did not disappear. They grew louder.

They were the clanging bells of a fire engine.

Through the small cracked window, she saw the Sisters flapping in the square outside, their shorn heads gleaming eerily as they screamed for help. Stooped figures of men in uniform—they must be the Metropolitan Police—were flooding in, asking where the patients were, how many could walk, how many would need to be dragged from their rooms.

The building was on fire. No one would think to look in the linen room. She had to get out.

Or did she?

This was her punishment, God’s vengeance for even considering taking the life of an innocent baby. Ruby had thought the only way to keep her terrible secret was to kill it, so she would not be cast out into the streets upon being discovered as a prostitute. And now the building itself was casting her out. This place of healing, infused with the holy Catholic faith, could not bear to contain her sin any longer. She was being purged, as she had almost purged out her own baby, her own flesh and blood.

Thick cords of smoke writhed and curled around her now, snaking down her throat and choking her.

Maybe—just maybe—this was not punishment, but mercy. Taking the life of her baby would be unforgiveable sin. But to die by accident, to never have to wonder what will become of her child, or herself again, to just have it all end—no one could blame her for dying in a fire. They may never even find her at all.

She eyed the stairway across the room, where dense black smoke came pouring down. Her eyes burned, her mouth filled with the taste of ash. The clanging alarm was drowned by the roar of fire, the thunder of falling timber as the infirmary surrendered to its foe.

Was a just God punishing her? Or was a loving God ending her miserable life as a favor to her?
Either way
, Ruby thought,
the fire is here for me.

When the horses and fire trucks thundered by the Ebbitt House in the chilled, predawn hours of the morning, Charlotte was already awake, and glad for the distraction. Ever since she had learned of the hurricane that had damaged or sunk nearly a dozen of the seventy-seven Union ships bound for Port Royal in South Carolina, she could not shake the image of Caleb Lansing drowning at sea. Official reports said his ship had come through unscathed, but she longed to see the proof in his own familiar scrawl. Unreasonable fears always loomed larger in the dark.

The darkness of this night was gone, however. The sky glowed orange with fire, not very far away. From across the street, she spied Frederick Law Olmsted’s limping gait as he exited Willard’s Hotel, and knew he was coming for her.

This time, she was dressed when she met him at the door.

“It’s the Washington Infirmary.” He was breathless. It didn’t look like he had slept at all yet that night.

“Ruby!” said Charlotte, Olmsted nodding, and they were on their way out the door. If anything happened to her, it would be Charlotte’s fault for placing her there.

By the time they got there, all one hundred four patients had been removed from the burning building, including the forty who could not walk. But when Charlotte asked if anyone had seen a woman with red hair, no one could help her.

“You must have the wrong hospital, lady,” said a policeman. “Ain’t no such thing as a redhead nun.”

“No, she’s not a nun. She’s an Irish laundress. I know she’s in there, she has no place else to go.” Charlotte’s voice rang with alarm. “Did you try the linen room? In the basement?”

“Lady, no one is doing laundry in the middle of the night. That building is about to collapse. I’m not sending anyone down there.”

“For God’s sake, check the linen room!” shouted Olmsted.

A fireman jogged over, so covered in soot his silhouette melted into the night. “Somebody still in there? The Sisters said we got all the patients out.”

“If you haven’t seen a red-haired woman, she might be in the basement in the linen room.” Charlotte shouted to be heard. “Please.”

“You go in there, son, you may not come out.” The policeman shoved a finger at the fireman.

He ignored it. “Which way is it?”

“I’ll show you!” Charlotte took off toward the wall of smoke, with the firefighter by her side.

“Stop.” He thrust an arm in front of her. “Stay here.” And he plunged through the wall of flames and smoke, while Charlotte prayed fervently that she had not just sent a young man to his death.

Please Lord, bring her out. Please let them both be OK.
She must have prayed it a hundred times. No, a thousand. The fire brigade seemed helpless to control the blazes, and still Charlotte stood, with a handkerchief pressed to her face, eyes watering, lungs starving. Blasts of heat washed over her in waves. How could Ruby still be alive in there? Every second was a minute, every minute was an hour.

Olmsted was at her side now, his intense black eyes reflecting the flames before them. “She didn’t deserve this,” he was muttering. “She just needed to get back on her feet … She’s got to be OK.”

Suddenly, out of the smoke, the firefighter emerged, carrying what looked like a giant white cocoon. It was Ruby, wrapped in a wet sheet.

A miracle that he found her. A miracle he made it out alive. But she wasn’t moving.

On the other side of the square, the fireman laid Ruby down on the cold pavement and stepped back while Olmsted and Charlotte crouched over her. “I found her under a pile of wet sheets,” he said.

November wind swirled around them, and Charlotte gently unwrapped the soggy laundry from around Ruby’s body. Was it a life-saver or a shroud?

Charlotte checked Ruby for a pulse and lifted her eyelids to see her pupils. “She’s alive. But she’s inhaled a lot of smoke into her lungs. I think she’s in shock. Quickly, let’s take her to the Ebbitt House.” She turned to the young man still standing there. “Thank you. I can’t thank you enough.”

“Just doing my job,” he said with a nod. “She going to be OK?”

“We’ll do the very best we can for her. Help us lift her into Mr. Olmsted’s carriage, won’t you?” The firefighter scooped up Ruby as if she were a porcelain doll and laid her in the backseat of the carriage.

Back at the Ebbitt House, Mr. Olmsted helped take Ruby into Charlotte’s room.

“Alice,” said Charlotte, as Mr. Olmsted lit a fire in the hearth. “We’ve got company.”

After a final look at Ruby, Olmsted limped out of the room, and the sisters went to work on their first female patient. They removed the soiled flannel nightgown, sponge-bathed her body, and dressed her in a clean hospital gown from the collection of supplies lining the walls.

The girl was a mystery. What
had
she been doing in the linen room at that hour of the night, anyway?

Hours later, when her eyes fluttered open for the first time, she had burst into tears. “I was supposed to die in that fire,” she said in her delirium.

“No,” Charlotte said, “you are supposed to live. God has spared you, miraculously, for a purpose.”

Eyes closed again, Ruby shook her head. “No,” she muttered. “Not me. God has no purpose for me.”