Heart of the Lonely Exile (26 page)

Tierney stared at them. For a moment, he seemed to step inside his da's shoes. As he stood there watching Evan Whittaker and Nora, something deep within him wrenched and caught.

He liked Nora. Indeed, he liked her a great deal. Seeing her so, looking ill and distraught—with the Englishman standing at her side as if he had every right to be there—he felt a fierce stab of alarm for Nora, then an ever sharper plunge of outrage.

It should be
Da
with Nora now. Da should be the one looking after her and Daniel, not Evan Whittaker.

Forcing himself to look away, Tierney's gaze found Daniel. He was lying on his side in a big, comfortable-looking bed. The bed linen was tucked snugly under his chin. His eyes were shut.

He looked
dreadful
—thin, and ever so ill! His face was ablaze with the strawberry rash, and he didn't seem to be moving at all.

But as Tierney stood staring at him, Daniel's eyes fluttered open. He stared back at Tierney, his gaze slowly registering surprise. Then his mouth went slack with a weak, lopsided grin.

Relieved, Tierney grinned back and raised a hand in salute. “Well, then, and aren't you looking swell, Danny-boy? A bit like a scalded pig.”

Daniel's grin tilted even more, but he said nothing.

Clearly, he was too weak even for jokes. Sara Farmington cleared her throat meaningfully, and Tierney nodded to indicate he understood. With a final wave, he turned and followed her out the door.

He started to go without saying anything more, then changed his mind. Just outside the door, he turned back.

“Nora?” he said uncertainly. “Is she—”

Sara Farmington didn't wait for him to finish. Her face reflected a weary sadness when she answered. “Yes. It's scarlet fever. The doctor just ordered her to bed a few moments before you came.” She paused, glanced away, then looked back at him. “Tell your father. He'll want to know.”

More troubled now than when he came, Tierney whipped around. Tugging his cap down hard on his head, he hurried down the walk without answering.

26

'Tis hard to see God's lights above,
While clouds and darkness bound us;
'Tis hard to hear God's words of love
With storms like those around us.

MARY KELLY (1825–1910)

S
ara Farmington sat in a dilapidated wooden rocking chair just inside the door of the hospital room. With a lump in her throat, she observed the two men in Nora's life. Whether her heart ached more for Evan Whittaker's desperate watchfulness or Michael Burke's grim mask of helplessness, she could not have said. Like two sentinels they stood, one on either side of Nora's bed, each seemingly unaware of the other's presence as they kept their silent vigil.

Perhaps the obvious anxiety of the two men only served to intensify her own fear for Nora, who had become a friend. Until taking Nora into their home, Sara had never felt the need for a woman friend. Over the years, Ginger, who had been with their household ever since Sara could remember, had become a kind of older sister and confidant. Yet, there had always been an elusive air about the West Indies housekeeper, a subtle quality of self-containment, that Sara had known, even as a child, would not be breached.

Besides, in the absence of a mother, both Sara and her brother, Gordie, had come to accept Ginger's influence in matters of discipline. Consequently, Ginger's involvement in their lives, while one of love and nurturing, was also necessarily one of authority.

In Nora Kavanagh, however, Sara had at last discovered the kind of friendship other women her age seemed to take for granted. Nora had gradually relaxed enough to laugh in Sara's presence, even to share a secret now and then. More recently, they had gone on numerous Christmas shopping expeditions together. Sara had even managed to coax her new friend into accompanying her to mission bazaars at the church and on her bi-weekly visits to Grandmother Platt—“Grandy Clare.”

Grandy Clare had taken to pressing at least one gift—some small frippery or knickknack—upon the two of them at the end of each visit. Wide-eyed, Nora would balance Grandy's gift on her lap with the greatest of care all the way home as if it were a priceless, irreplaceable treasure.

Wonderfully free of pretension, Nora had an almost childlike appreciation of the smallest things that never failed to delight Sara. In spite of her widowhood and the tragedy of her life, she had somehow retained an air of girlish innocence about her that Sara suspected would never quite fade. Younger by more than seven years, Sara invariably felt herself to be the older.

Leaning wearily back in the rocker, Sara reflected on the past few days. Daniel was getting better. His skin was still blotched, and he was terribly weak from days of fever and lack of nourishment, but yesterday he'd begun to sit up for brief periods of time, had even walked around the room once or twice on wobbly legs. With the wonderful resiliency of the young, he was already taking soft food at regular intervals and showing every sign of a speedy recovery.

Sara's gaze returned to the hospital bed. She bit her lip in apprehension at the sight of Nora's small, still form, flanked by Evan and Michael Burke. For two days Nora had been like this, motionless and deathly quiet, except for an infrequent whimper or an abrupt cry of pain. While the scarlet rash that marred her pale skin was not so angry or pervasive as Daniel's had been, her fever remained dangerously high—high enough that Nicholas Grafton had warned them of the likelihood of convulsions. He made no attempt to disguise his concern about the dropsy that had set in during the afternoon, leaving Nora's face and extremities severely bloated.

After another brief examination late in the evening, he had drawn Sara to one side, warning, “She couldn't be much worse and still be alive. Her kidneys aren't functioning as they should, and it's putting enormous strain on her heart. I think we'd best hospitalize her right away.”

Stunned and frightened, Sara had hurried from the cottage and gone in search of her father and Evan. Now, hours later, she sat wringing her handkerchief into a thin rope, waiting, praying for some improvement in Nora's condition. For one of the few times in her life, she felt afraid and utterly helpless.

A shadow fell across her vision, and she looked up. Michael Burke was standing in front of her. Lately, his features seemed set in a permanent frown. He had taken to passing a hand over his chest in a distracted gesture that made Sara wonder if the gunshot wound he'd received months before was still plaguing him.

“Did the doctor say how long it might be before he comes back?” he asked, putting a fist to his mouth to stifle a yawn.

Sara shook her head. “Just that he had a baby to deliver. I'm sure he'll be here as soon as he can.”

He gave a vague nod, saying nothing.

The lines around his eyes had deepened with fatigue, Sara noticed, just as his normally light brogue had thickened. The poor man had neither slept nor shaved in two days; he hadn't been home since learning of Nora's illness. He looked drawn and worried and terribly sad.

He walked away, returning to his bedside vigil without another word. Watching the slump to his shoulders, Sara could not help but wonder if the ordeal of the last two days was not forcing the widowed policeman to relive the agony of his wife's death.

Eileen Burke had died of cancer years before, when Tierney was still a small boy—a prolonged, agonizing death, according to Nora. Had Michael waited beside
her
bed, as he now waited beside Nora's?

What excruciating pain it must be for such a man—a man accustomed to rescuing and taking care of others, a man who seemed to live most of his life from a position of power and authority—to simply stand by and look on as the one he loved most in the world slipped away, beyond his reach.

The likelihood that he had passed this way before, through this shadowed valley of despair, made Sara want to weep aloud for him. She ached for his pain, longed to comfort him. As she silently grieved for
Nora's
agony, so did she also grieve for Michael Burke's.

Hands clenched behind his back, Michael stood beside the hospital bed, across from Whittaker. Other than a tacit acknowledgment of the other's presence, neither had made any attempt to engage in conversation since Nora's admission to the hospital. They talked with Sara Farmington and the nurses. They spoke with the doctor. But to each other, they offered no more than a brief nod or a shake of the head as they stood watching Nora's agony in silence, powerless to help.

With Eileen, he had waited alone
….

Tierney had been too young, too much the child, to suffer more than brief intervals of the sickroom. Even at the end, as Eileen finally slipped away, Michael had stood by her bed alone until it was over.

Her agony had gone on for months. Months of watching the cancer destroy her womanhood as it stripped her of her dignity, her youthful beauty, her will to live. To Michael, it had seemed like forever.

He had done everything he knew to keep her with him, had urged her to fight long past the time when she had the strength to fight. When she finally gave up, he attempted to ward off the Grim Reaper for her. Eileen had even attempted a weak joke, about what kind of foolish disease was it, that would dare to go head-on with Michael Burke.

But she had known—they had both known—who would ultimately win the battle. At the last, she had wanted to die, had murmured that he should let her go, should quit fighting the inevitable and release her to the peace of death.

He had fled the room, shutting himself inside the supply closet across the hall, cramming a towel against his mouth to muffle the explosive cries of his rage and anguish. When he returned to the room, Eileen scarcely knew he was there. Minutes later, she was gone.

Never before, and never since, had Michael known such anger as he knew during the last hours of her suffering. Anger at the demon-disease, at the impotent doctors, at God—but mostly anger at his own unfamiliar helplessness.

Now, feeling his throat tighten with unshed tears, he drew a shaky breath and straightened his shoulders. For an instant his gaze met and held Evan Whittaker's. Seeing his own despair mirrored in the Englishman's eyes, Michael clenched his hands even more tightly behind his back and looked away.

With a force of will he had mastered during the time of Eileen's illness,
he put aside the image of his wife's tormented face, her pain-wracked, wasted body, the sound of her voice crying his name.

At last he turned back to Nora. Nora was still alive. As far as he could tell, she was not dying. At least she seemed no worse than she'd been when they brought her to the hospital. There was still hope for Nora.

The beginning of a prayer rose in Michael's heart, and he closed his eyes to let his spirit give it voice.

Evan supposed he shouldn't be surprised to realize that Michael Burke was praying. The man was a Christian, after all. Why
wouldn't
he pray, especially at a time such as this?

Still, it
did
surprise him, perhaps because the brawny Irish policeman always appeared to be so self-assured, so confident—as if he had any and all situations under control.

For his own part, Evan had been praying most of the evening. Indeed it seemed he had not
stopped
praying for days, what with Daniel's ordeal with this dread disease, and now Nora's.

The boy had been extremely ill—frighteningly ill. But Nora was much, much worse. Dr. Grafton's insistence that she be hospitalized at such a late hour indicated with a chilling certainty just how critical her condition must be.

For the first two hours after her admission, the private room had been alive with frowning nurses and two grim-visaged doctors, in addition to Nicholas Grafton. That Lewis Farmington had wielded his considerable influence, Evan had no doubt. An Irish immigrant on her own would not be afforded a private room, even if by some miracle there had been money to pay. But a private room
and
the finest in medical attention?

Only a Lewis Farmington could arrange
that.

Evan could not help but wonder about the dangerously ill immigrants who had no Lewis Farmington to do battle for them. For them, there would be no hospital room, no doctor—not even a place of refuge or shelter from the cold.

Evan had seen for himself what became of the homeless, destitute immigrant who had no “people in the city”—no friends to provide haven or hope. Twice now he had visited the abysmal Five Points slum district
with Pastor Dalton. He had looked into the eyes of the homeless, the ill, and the dying, and found himself devastated by the anguish and utter hopelessness that looked back at him.

He could only wonder at the courage and the vision of a man like Jess Dalton, who dared to think he could actually make a difference amid such an ocean of misery. During his last visit to Five Points, Evan had felt a stirring in his spirit that later, in the comfortable warmth of the Farmington cottage, had seemed to strengthen to a challenge. And he had known then, with no small amount of apprehension that God was confronting him, forcing him to face his feelings of horror and outrage—and asking him what
he
was willing to do to make a difference.