With Every Breath (38 page)

Only in private, though. In public he could revert to the stern, uncompromising man she knew so well. At the end of May, Trevor got into a huge argument with her mother when he insisted another servant be hired so that Kate could have a few nights off each week.

“Kate has been working two jobs all her life, and you can afford to hire another girl to serve the meals,” he said.

“Kate likes working at the boardinghouse,” her mother hollered back. “And I can’t afford the expense.”

“Try again,” Trevor snapped. “All your rooms are rented, and a little basic math tells me exactly how much you’re taking in every week.”

“What makes you think that’s any business of yours?”

“It’s my business if I can’t court the woman I have serious intentions toward because she’s dropping on her feet from exhaustion!”

Trevor won. A new girl was hired, and with Kate’s newly liberated evenings, she started spending time with Trevor at a cozy tavern near the Navy Yard, where the crab chowder was spicy and the fiddle music lively. She loved it there, and the sound of fiddle music no longer made her want to weep. Instead she wanted to dance. On Sunday mornings Trevor walked her to church, and in the afternoon they played badminton on the lawn.

But always in the back of Kate’s mind was the fear for his health, lurking like a grinning demon. Trevor’s moratorium on discussing his job effectively quelled the arguments between them, but it couldn’t stop her brain from indulging in its regular
obsession. She still prayed every Monday when he swabbed his throat for a test, and then heaved a sigh of relief when he came to dinner on Monday evenings, giving her a wink as he walked in the door and took his seat at the table.

They both knew what that wink meant. It was the only reference he ever made to the fact that he needed to be regularly tested to catch the first hint of a relapse into tuberculosis.

Kate only slipped once the whole summer. They were having dinner at her mother’s table when Trevor mentioned that he and Oskar Holtzmann were meeting for a regular game of backgammon at a local pub. Although Trevor always knew which of his patients were in the contagious stage of their disease, that wasn’t the case with Oskar. And he probably didn’t wear a mask at the pub.

Kate stiffened. “Is that a good idea? If there isn’t adequate ventilation in that pub and you’re sitting close together . . .”

There were no angry looks or words. Trevor simply pushed back from the table and walked to the front door. She couldn’t believe it! She’d been a saint all spring and most of the summer, and now he got prickly at her first little slip? The chair upended behind her as she dashed after him. She grabbed his arm just as he made it to the door.

“Don’t leave.”

He shook her arm off and walked out the door.

She was stunned. She stepped out onto the sidewalk to yell after him. “This isn’t working for me!” she shouted at his retreating back.

Trevor lifted his hand in a wave but didn’t turn around as he continued walking down the street. Why did Trevor have to be so touchy? Couldn’t he understand her fears at all? For a solid three months she’d been a model of stoic deportment, and the one time she slipped, he had to flee without saying a word. She’d
been letting Trevor win all summer by stifling her fears, but she doubted she could do it for the rest of her life.

Trevor once said he vowed to live every day to its fullest. He knew his life might be cut short and chose to proceed at full speed, never letting dark fears cloud his days. Why couldn’t she be equally as trusting? She needed a sense of control over her life, but how could she surrender that to Trevor when he couldn’t be bothered to protect his own health?

She was due to meet him at the hospital after work the following evening to see the new rooftop retreat that had finally been finished. Whenever he spoke of the roof Trevor burst with pride, and she was itching to see it. But after his abrupt departure, she couldn’t be sure she would even be welcome.

And did she even want to go? Quite frankly, their little experiment wasn’t working out so well for her. Trevor was happy as a clam since they’d stopped arguing about his chosen profession, but
she
was still roiling with anxiety whenever she thought about it.

She slammed the door and marched back into the house.

27

K
ate still simmered with annoyance as she approached the hospital the next afternoon. He hadn’t contacted her to say if she was still welcome to visit the rooftop, but she’d come this far and wasn’t going to be turned back.

Barking in the distance snagged her attention. Princess strained at her collar from where she’d been tied to an elm tree. It was always like this with Princess. Whenever she saw Kate, she bellyached to follow, even though she ought to know by now that Kate couldn’t take her into the hospital.

Kate knelt beside the dog, giving her a rousing scratch behind both ears. If she married Trevor, she would move out of the boardinghouse and could finally have her very own dog.

Not that Trevor had asked. To the bottom of her heart she wished he would quit this line of work, and perhaps he sensed that. He made it plain he would tolerate no nagging from her on the subject, but she didn’t know how much longer she could pretend not to care.

Princess whined when Kate tried to disengage. Princess was a smart, intuitive dog, but how could Kate make her understand that the patients upstairs had weakened lungs and couldn’t have
a dog nearby? Her fur carried tiny specks that made it hard for them to breathe.

Trevor told her that Princess fussed and bellyached every morning, which was ridiculous. Trevor was the most predictable man ever born, and Princess ought to have a little more faith in him.

Kate’s hand stilled as she stroked the dog. How could she expect Princess to grasp the nature of the work Trevor left her for each morning? Or that he’d been thrilled to learn that his new stepmother in Scotland would present him with a little brother or sister by the end of the year. Did Princess even understand there was a place called Scotland? Or the moon? Or the Milky Way? There was no way a dog could grasp those places, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist. It just meant that a dog’s mind could have no perspective for knowing such things.

A startling thought broke through.

Just as Princess couldn’t possibly understand human concerns, how could Kate possibly understand what was in the mind of God? God never asked her to understand Him. He asked her to
trust
Him. She would never comprehend why Trevor had been struck with such a terrible disease, but perhaps it was part of a plan no human mind was equipped to understand. She lived in a tiny corner of Washington in the final decade of the nineteenth century, while God ruled over a vast universe encompassing past, present, and future. How could her paltry human mind begin to grasp such complexity?

Trevor believed he’d been
called
to help find a cure for tuberculosis. That was the word he used over and over.

And yet she doubted him.

Was she any better than Princess, whining and straining at her collar every time Trevor left for the hospital to pursue his calling? Kate didn’t know why terrible diseases like tuberculosis
existed or why some of the heroic doctors who tried to cure it would fall victim to the disease, but that was a limitation of
her
mind, not God’s plan.

She was tired of doubting and living in fear. It was impossible to know if Trevor would find a cure next week or in the next decade, or maybe he would never find it. Maybe he would die an early death, but maybe not . . . and she didn’t want to be like Princess, crying out every time she feared for the future. It was time to take a leap of faith.

Wasn’t the willingness to believe despite uncertainty the very essence of faith? Even now, a pull of energy and a sense of purpose gathered momentum inside her. A life of great purpose and fulfillment lay before her, if she could just be bold enough to step through the door into the unknown.

She bowed her head, opening her heart to the call flowing through her with an indomitable surge of hope and energy. It was a beginning. A quest. This was the path she was meant to walk. She and Trevor were going to embark on this calling shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart. Whatever blessings or perils came their way would be faced together. She was ready to step forward in the confidence and conviction that she was doing the right thing.

She hugged Princess and looked up at the perfect blue sky, unspeakable in its beauty. At long last she was ready to step into the future, blindly but with absolute trust. It didn’t matter that there were no guarantees to protect her, for her life was going to unfold exactly as God intended, and she was ready now to accept the challenge.

* * * *

Trevor waited with growing impatience for Kate’s arrival. Was she still going to come? He’d spent the afternoon installing
the last of the planters on the rooftop. He wanted everything to be perfect the first time Kate saw the roof. Some of his fondest memories had been those afternoons last summer when he and Kate daydreamed on this roof. How different it looked now, and she had been a part of that. He returned to his desk to finish paying the last of the bills for the rooftop’s newly delivered plants.

As he expected, the hospital superintendent thought the rooftop retreat was an absurd waste of funds, but tensions between them eased after Mr. Lambrecht learned of Nurse Ackerman’s crimes. It didn’t hurt that the surgeon general was back on Trevor’s side. Andrew Doyle had been sentenced to three months in prison for breaking into the Norton Boardinghouse and planting “evidence of mischief.” Given the fraudulent forms Andrew manufactured, Trevor could have brought additional charges for slander, but his lawyer drafted a document offering to drop the charges so long as Andrew and his mother ceased their vendetta. The document was signed, notarized, and the pair of them had left the city after Andrew’s release from prison.

He was just finishing the bills when Kate finally arrived, her face glowing with good health as she leaned against his open office door. “Hello, Trevor.”

He shot to his feet. By heaven, she looked pretty with her hair piled atop her head like that! The schoolboy in him wanted to yank the clip out and watch it come tumbling down, while the man in him wanted to bury his face in it and smell her clean feminine scent. But the best thing was the light in her eyes. It sparkled with that rare combination of humor and intelligence that always dazzled him.

“Kate,” he said, nodding. “Running a little late, are we?”

“I was waylaid by Princess. Besides, I couldn’t be certain you’d want to see me after my fall from grace last night.”

It hadn’t been easy to walk away from her like that, but it had
to be done. Kate was going to make them both miserable unless she came to terms with his calling, and he couldn’t afford to yield even an inch. She’d take a hundred miles if he did.

“I always want to see you,” he admitted. “You’re like a splinter beneath my skin I can’t stop thinking about.”

“Good heavens, is that the elevator? It’s magnificent!” She brushed past him down the hallway to the oversized brass doors that had been installed beside the washrooms.

He grinned as he cranked open the doors and guided her inside. The space was large enough for two gurneys and an attendant. She watched as he turned the lever to direct the car up. The doors closed, and the floor beneath them lifted.

She gasped and clutched his arm. The elevator moved very steadily, but people were usually startled the first time they felt the floor beneath them shift into motion.

The elevator jerked to a halt, and he held his breath as he turned the lever to open the door. What would she think of the rooftop? Maybe it would be a disappointment compared to all the fancy parks that dotted the city. The doors slid open, and he tried to imagine seeing it through Kate’s eyes. The cracked asphalt had been replaced with slate tiles, and the brick walls supported planters overflowing with flowering begonias, salvia, and trailing ivy. Rows of comfortable chaise lounges were propped up so that patients could look out over the treetops. The sun was beginning to set now, and the patients had been moved downstairs. They had the rooftop all to themselves.

“It’s so peaceful up here,” she breathed as she stepped out onto the tile. “You even added plants!”

“Someone once told me a little greenery was good for the spirit.”

They moved to the far wall, where they could look out over the trees.

“The patients love it up here,” he said quietly. “Up here they can have a tiny slice of normal life and can enjoy a sunny day. They say . . . they say . . .” His throat closed up, and he had to stop speaking. Where had this surge of emotion come from?

It was embarrassing to get choked up like this, but he had walked in the same shoes as his patients. He had lived their fear, endured their pain, and suffered their isolation. He knew how precious this retreat was for people who had only a few months left to live.

Kate stepped closer and clasped his hand. She probably knew exactly what he was feeling, but he still blinked a little faster so she wouldn’t see his eyes misting up. He took a deep breath and started again.

“The patients say it’s easier to feel at peace up here. And that is very important to me,” he managed to choke out.

A breeze rustled the leaves, summoning fleeting memories of the mountaintop. It was easier to feel closer to God here. It was easier to accept death as a natural part of life, merely the final chapter of one adventure before another began. This rooftop haven might be the best thing he could ever offer his patients, but it was a gift worth having.

Kate slid her arms around him and laid her head against his chest. She was probably going to be deafened by the pounding of his heart. “I’m so proud of you,” she said. “It’s perfect.”

They stayed on the rooftop long after the sun slipped below the horizon. Throughout the city the gas lamps were lit, and the stars emerged in the night sky. He felt like he could stay up here with Kate forever. She lay on a chaise beside him, her fingers casually linked with his.