Ruth was already at the dining-room table when Henry and I came down to breakfast the following morning. The front page of the Hickory Daily Record was spread flat on the table in front of her, and next to the articles about the war, I could read the headline: NURSES SAVE THE LIVES OF MAYOR FINLEY’S DAUGHTER AND GRANDSON.
“So,” Henry said to his mother as he placed his napkin in his lap, “what do you think of your daughter-in-law now?”
I wanted to hush him—he was baiting her terribly—but I couldn’t help but smile. All last evening, Henry had treated me kindly. Even tenderly, rubbing my shoulders, stiff from my day’s work. Of course he didn’t make love to me or even kiss me, but he told me repeatedly how proud he was of me. How grateful he was that I’d agreed to marry him. I would never understand my husband.
Ruth looked up from the paper. “You actually put your mouth on that baby’s mouth?” she asked. “Wasn’t it covered in all sorts of…” She shuddered.
“I cleaned him off quickly,” I said. “And I blew into his nose, not his mouth. I held his mouth closed.”
Ruth tapped the article with her fingertip. “How did you know what to do?” she asked. “How did you know how to deliver a baby?”
I shrugged. “I’m a nurse,” I said, a bit of pride creeping into my voice. “That’s what nurses do. Though to be perfectly honest, this baby really delivered himself.”
Ruth let out a worried sigh. “So now you have the polio germs inside you, don’t you?” she asked.
“It doesn’t work that way,” I said. “The baby doesn’t have polio and probably won’t get it. The virus doesn’t cross the placenta.”
“Hush.” Ruth shuddered. “This is not a conversation for the breakfast table.”
Hattie brought us plates of eggs and grits and bowls of blackberries. “You famous now,” she said to me. “Can I touch you?” She poked my shoulder with her finger and I laughed. “How’s my little Jilly doin’?” she asked.
“She’s doing very well, Hattie,” I said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she could go home today or tomorrow.”
“Praise Jesus,” Hattie said as she headed back toward the kitchen. “Adora don’t know what to do with herself without her baby girl in the house.”
“Well,” Ruth said to me as Henry and I began to eat, “I received a phone call this morning from Madge Pilcher. She wants you to join us at our book club meeting tonight.”
“I wish I could,” I said, “but I know I’ll be too tired after working all day. Please thank her for the invitation.” I kept my smile to myself. Was I finally to be accepted by Ruth’s social group? I was not a bad person. I could still hold my head high. How was it that I’d forgotten that about myself?
“I’ll drop you off at the hospital,” Henry said between sips of his coffee, “but then I need to get to the factory. The phone isn’t working for some reason and I have to get that taken care of, but I’ll try to get back to the hospital later today.”
“Oh my,” Ruth said suddenly, her finger marking an article on the front page. She looked up at us. “Life magazine is coming to the polio hospital tomorrow! Did you know?”
Henry and I shook our heads. “They’ll probably want to interview my marvelous wife,” Henry said.
“Oh my gosh, I hope not,” I said, overwhelmed by the thought.
“It says here people are calling Hickory ‘polio city’ now,” Ruth said, looking at the article. “It says people roll up their car windows and cover their noses with handkerchiefs when they drive through town.”
“What nonsense.” Henry got to his feet. “You ready, Tess?”
* * *
There was excitement at the hospital when Henry dropped me off that morning. People were still talking about the mayor’s grandson, who was by all reports doing very well in the hospital. Even more exciting to everyone, though, was the upcoming visit from Life magazine. Sometimes in the throes of our work, we forgot what Hickory had accomplished: the creation of a fully functioning hospital in fifty-four hours. We now had ninety-two patients, an exhausted but determined staff of nurses and doctors, and dozens of cooks, custodians, maintenance men, and community volunteers. And we were saving lives every single day.
Amy Pryor was far more comfortable now that she was no longer pregnant, and although the compressions of the iron lung made it hard for her to talk, she was able to ask me about her baby. As I washed her face and combed her hair, I told her every detail I could recall about him, choking up a little, remembering how I felt as I held him in my arms while waiting for the ambulance.
“He’s perfection,” I said. “I can’t wait until you can hold him yourself.”
“Neither can I,” she whispered.
Jilly was able to go home that afternoon, and I was relieved by the timing. A damp, dark ward was to be opened in the basement of the stone building the following day, and our colored patients were going to be moved into it. I would have hated to see Jilly leave my ward and my care. I had to pry her doll away from her that morning. Toys could not go home with the children from the hospital, but as I’d promised Honor, I scrubbed the doll clean with disinfectant and dressed it in a new jumper and blouse I’d found at a toy store. I gave it back to Jilly once she left the building. She was still a bit weak, but she walked out of the hospital on her own two healthy legs into Honor’s embrace. Honor lifted her up and covered her face with kisses until Jilly protested, pleading to be let down.
One of the volunteers scrubbed Jilly’s bed and it was quickly filled by another patient. The epidemic showed no signs of abating.
My path crossed with Vincent’s only a few times that day, and each time I felt that pull, that longing that was never going to leave me. Just being able to glimpse him occasionally over the course of the day fed my soul. Of course I wanted the polio epidemic to end. It needed to end and it would end, but then Vincent would be gone. I dreaded the day he would leave and I would have to face the rest of my life without him.
Henry sent a note to me, delivered from the factory by that same young man, Mickey, who had given me a ride to the train station so long ago. The one who’d told me about Violet’s connection to Henry. He hadn’t given me as much of a warning as I’d needed, I thought. Things have gone to the dogs in my absence here, Henry wrote in the note. The phone still isn’t working. I need to stay late tonight. Let Mama know.
I got a ride home from one of the other nurses that evening. The house was dark and I remembered that Ruth was at a book club meeting. Hattie had left some chicken and collards for me in the refrigerator, and I was eating at the kitchen table when the doorbell rang.
The sun was beginning to set when I opened the door, the sky a dewy pink through the trees. A policeman stood on the step, hat in his hand, and it took me a moment to recognize him as Teddy Wright. I didn’t like Teddy. I’d never forget how coolly he’d treated me at the police station after the accident or how he’d seemed to follow me in his police car when I walked into town. Seeing him gave me a sour taste in my mouth.
“Good evening, Mrs. Kraft,” he said.
“Hello, Teddy.” I heard the chill in my voice.
“Is Hank home?”
“No, he’s not.”
“Is he at the factory?”
“I don’t know where he is tonight,” I said. I knew he was at the factory, but I felt obstinate. I didn’t feel like helping Teddy out. “Can I take a message for him?”
He looked past me as though he thought I might be lying. “You got a pen and paper? I can write it for him. And an envelope.”
I hesitated before asking him in. “Follow me,” I said as I headed toward the library.
He hung back in the doorway of the library, taking in the walls of books as I opened the desk drawer where Henry kept his stationery. I pulled out a sheet of paper and an envelope and invited him to sit at the desk.
I waited as he perched on the edge of the chair and jotted a note. He sealed it in the envelope and wrote “Hank Kraft” on the front, underlining the name several times to drive the point home that the note was for Henry and no one else.
“You got some of that sealing wax?” he asked.
“Sealing wax?” I repeated. “No. Sorry.”
“This is for his eyes only,” he said, handing the envelope to me.
“Of course,” I said, then added, “You still don’t think much of me, do you?”
“I know you saved that baby,” he said. “That’s one point in your favor.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“Just be sure you give that envelope to Hank right quick,” he said, and he let himself out of the house. From the library, I watched him get into his police car. He turned the car around in our driveway and took off toward town.
I looked at the envelope in my hand. What was so important? I wondered. And why couldn’t Teddy just tell me his message and let me pass it along to Henry myself? My curiosity got the better of me and I knew I was going to read the note. I could steam the envelope open over a teakettle, although I wondered if that worked in real life as well as in fiction. I was certain to ruin the envelope, at the very least. So I would open the note the usual way and then put it in a new envelope. Simple. I used the letter opener on Henry’s blotter to slice the envelope, then pulled out the sheet of paper, flattening it on the desk. I lit a cigarette, then sat down to read the note.
Hank, the chief got some questions about you from the OPA today. The chief was in the dark, I could tell. I don’t think they know anything about Lucy helping. I didn’t let on, just listened and acted like I don’t know anything. They might have been talking about getting a search warrant. The chief told them they were barking up the wrong tree. Just wanted to let you know. I’ll keep my ears open. Teddy
I must have stared at the note for five full minutes as I tried to make sense of it. What was the OPA? Did it have something to do with the factory? And what had Lucy been helping with?
I put the note in a new envelope and simply left Henry’s name off the front. Suddenly exhausted, I climbed the stairs, quickly washed and changed into my nightgown, then fell into bed, leaving the note on the nightstand. I heard the front door open a while later and listened to the footsteps downstairs long enough to know it was Ruth and not Henry. I rolled onto my side and the moonlight reflected off the mirror of the armoire. I sat up with a gasp. Did the money in the armoire have something to do with Teddy’s note?
I got out of bed quietly, not wanting Ruth to hear the creaking of the floorboards, and turned on the night table lamp. I opened the beautiful carved mirrored door of the armoire and was greeted by the soap-and-pipe scent of Henry’s clothes. I spotted the leather tab on one side of the false bottom and lifted it gingerly. The bundled money was still there. As a matter of fact, I was certain there was quite a bit more of it than there had been. On top of the bundles lay three large manila envelopes, identical to the envelope Lucy had wanted to deliver to someone across the river and the empty envelopes I’d seen in his desk drawer.
Each of the envelopes had a white label affixed to the front, and each label had two or three letters on it. Initials? I lifted the top envelope and sat down on the edge of the bed, listening for Henry’s car in the driveway. This label bore the initials R.T.D., written in Henry’s hand. I turned it over and saw that it was only closed with a clasp. I pinched the two sides of the clasp together, lifted the flap, and slipped my hand inside to withdraw the contents. Gasoline rationing coupons, three booklets of them. Class C. And a red Class C sticker for a car. I knew what Class C stickers were. Most people had A stickers, allowing them three gallons of gasoline a week. Some people, traveling salesmen for instance, had B stickers entitling them to eight gallons a week. Class C was reserved for doctors, the police, and anyone else who shouldn’t have their gasoline limited. I stared at the coupons. Where had Henry gotten these and what was he doing with them? He’d told me something about factory truck drivers being entitled to more gas. Maybe that was it? Maybe R.T.D. was one of Kraft Fine Furniture’s truck drivers? And what exactly was Teddy warning Henry about? My head hurt from trying to figure it out. There was only one person who could explain it all to me, and I was married to him.
* * *
It must have been close to three in the morning by the time I finally fell asleep and Henry still wasn’t home. I’d lain awake, feeling alternately angry at him and worried about him. When I woke at six-thirty, he was getting out of his bed, running his fingers through his hair. I was instantly awake and I sat up in bed and reached for the envelope from Teddy on the nightstand.
“Teddy dropped this off for you last night,” I said, holding it out to him.
Henry frowned as he took the envelope from me. “Teddy Wright?” he asked. “From the police?”
“Yes.”
I watched him tear open the envelope. His frown deepened as he read the note. He folded it up again and put it back in the envelope.
“What is it?” I asked innocently.
He shook his head, getting to his feet. “Nothing important,” he said. “I can drop you off at the hospital this morning, but then I’d better get back to the factory.”
“Is it something personal in the note or police business?” I prompted. “Teddy seemed pretty anxious for you to get it.”
“I told you, it’s nothing.” He folded the envelope and slipped it in the pocket of his pajama top as he walked toward the door. “I’ll use the shower first, if you don’t mind.”
“I know about the armoire.” I blurted the words out and he turned to me.
“What are you talking about? What about the armoire?”
“The money. I saw it weeks ago. I saw that leather tab and thought something had gotten stuck in the crevice between the floor and the back of the armoire. I pulled on the tab and the bottom came up and I saw the money.” I stopped briefly for breath. “Why do you have it stashed away like that?”
He said nothing for so long that I was sure he was going to simply turn away from me without an explanation. That was so like Henry whenever I asked a question he didn’t want to answer. Instead, he sighed and sat down on the bed again. Our beds were so close together that our knees nearly touched.
“Look,” he said. “I believe in having a nest egg. You know what happened in ’29, when the stock market crashed? That affected my father and a million men like him. I just feel better having some of my money in cash here at home.”
“What’s in those manila envelopes on top of the cash?” I asked.
He gave me a tired look. “This is business, Tess,” he said. “It doesn’t concern you and please don’t worry about it. It has nothing to do with the police or the note from Teddy and you’re just going to work yourself into a tizzy. Trust me, all right?” He gave me a completely sincere look, so sincere that I nearly believed him. But I was utterly perplexed. He was a wealthy man. He had no need I could think of for this extra cash. Our new house was already paid for and there was plenty of money for furnishings and décor.
He leaned toward me and touched my cheek tenderly. “I’m sorry you’ve been worrying about this,” he said. “There’s no need to. Everything is fine.”