The Moon by Night (21 page)

“My age,” Dr. White scoffed. “I'm twenty-two. You make it sound as if you're Methuselah. Anyway, Mr. Irons-Winslow seems to be the type of man who wouldn't have tolerated any man speaking to you in such a manner. What would he have done?”

“Oh, he would have hit him,” Cheney said lightly. “And he would have been wrong too, just as I would have been. We were wrong a lot together.”

“But so right for each other too,” Dr. White said, sighing. Women sighed over Shiloh a lot, Cheney had found.

And no wonder,
she thought as she remembered how she had seen him for a few moments that morning with an objective eye.
Oh, how I wish he would come back and want to work with me again! How I miss him! Perhaps someday…

Lord, please—someday
.

****

The patient sleeps intermittently, min. two hours, max. four hours. Sleep appears to be sound. When awake, patient lucid and responsive. Tolerates barley water, beef broth, thin gruel. Temp normal, resps shallow but steady, heart rate slightly elevated but still w/in normal parameters considering severity of injury
.

Cheney read over the notes she had made in Cornelius Melbourne's file, then closed the folder. Straightening her back, for she had been rather hunched over, sitting on the high stool at the laboratory worktable, she rubbed her lower back as she looked blankly around the cellar. She had that irritating nagging feeling that she was forgetting something, but so many things had happened this eternal day that she couldn't pin down exactly which patient or event or crisis or person the forgotten thing pertained to.

Here we have one major forgotten thing along with ancillary forgotten things,
she mused. She stared into space a few moments longer, trying to pin down the faint but annoying buzz of her mind trying to bring something to the forefront of her thoughts.

No wonder I'm so dazed. It's ten o'clock, and I got up at 4:34
. She recalled Shiloh's time telling with amusement.
It has been one long, hard day. Poor Mrs. Green…poor Mr. Green…

She slid off the stool, then took the file to put it on the table by the east stairwell, by her medical bag, so she would remember to take it back up to the nurses' station before she left.

Just beyond the stairwell were the supply storage shelves, three deep and floor to ceiling, much like stacks in a library. They were just dark monolithic shadows now, for the only light in the lab was the single lantern that Cheney had lit as she sat at the lab table halfway across the cavernous room. Turning to go back into the laboratory area, she thought she saw a dark shadow moving back behind the first row of shelves. She jerked around and stared hard, her heart thumping.

Nothing.

She stared until her eyes felt as if they were starting out of her head. “Is anyone there?” she called. The tremulous note in her voice shocked her when she heard it. Self-consciously she turned her back to the depths of the far side of the room and muttered, “I must be really, really, tired….” Her voice sounded hollow and false—which indeed it was. Cheney didn't talk to herself. She never had. Right now she was showing some sort of absurd bravado.

To whom?
she mused.
My imaginary friend back there in the stacks? Really, Cheney, take hold of yourself and get to work
.

With determination she went to her microscope workstation that the carpenters had finished that very day. Basically it was just a slab of satiny smooth oak. Two rows of three gas lanterns hung on the wall above it, with about six inches of space between the globes. On either side of the slab two more lamps were permanently mounted, with the lines running underneath the counter. If one used all of the lamps, it provided a glaring incisive light, but the drawbacks were the heat and the fumes. Still, this examination required the best light, so Cheney lit all of the lamps. Carefully she calibrated the glow so that it was at a maximum advantage for the microscope, not too dim or too glaring. Then she placed the microscope just so, testing it at different magnifications and resolutions, looking at a selection of test slides she kept for the purpose. She was concentrating hard on the slide with a cross-section of epidermis. If she could get the light and resolution right so that she could clearly see the cells, her microscope should be set—

She whirled around. She had heard a sound down at the far corner on the east side of the morgue that she couldn't see. Her heart was pounding.

“Who is that!” she demanded harshly.

Nothing. Not a sound.

With determined steps she went to the lab table, reached under and grabbed an enormous heavy-duty oil lantern, then marched over to the east end of the room. She looked up the stairwell, stretching up into a dim block of light—nothing. She went to the door to the outside steps, went outside into the small square landing. Nothing. She looked at the shelving, considering, then with exasperation she thought,
It's a rat or two, maybe an entire family, you ninny. Calm down. Trooping all around and jumping at every sound is silly. You won't see anything, and then you'll…you'll…think it's a family of invisible mice! That's even worse!

“Ohh, very funny!” she growled. Hurrying, defiant, she marched to the morgue and wrenched the door open, holding the lantern up high. Miss Anders, their young woman who had contributed such helpful information about lymph glands, was to be picked up in the morning, so Cheney knew she would see her covered corpse on the slab just to the left of the door. But she had forgotten about the young woman who had been in Cornelius Melbourne's carriage accident, and it startled her to see another covered corpse on the lower slab just to her right. Instantly she remembered who the woman was, but still Cheney found the sight unsettling.

Though the gray blanket covered her completely, her hair had tumbled to the side and swept the floor. The young woman's hair was much like Cheney's own—thick, dark auburn, curly. Cheney stared at it, bemused for a moment, then grabbed up the widemouthed flask that housed the tumor they had removed from Rebecca Green only that morning.

Just this morning? Will this day never end? Oh, how I miss Shiloh! How I wish he were here; how I wish he were with me all the time, helping me as he used to….

She realized that she was standing in a morgue staring off into space and daydreaming. With determination she set her shoulders, took the flask to the microscope station, and began the examination.

With a cancerous mass, the surgeon generally tried to scoop the entire tumor out whole. If it could be removed in that manner, it made the examination easier and increased the certainty of accuracy in determining if the entire tumor had been successfully removed.

It was necessary to examine the entire tumor as minutely as possible. If all of the exterior surfaces of the malignant tissue were completely enclosed with healthy cells, then one could be sure with a high likelihood of accuracy that the entire tumor had been removed.

Cheney had been studying tiny segments of about a quarter of the tumor when she began to see surface lesions.

She and Dev hadn't gotten it all.

Sighing, she leaned back and closed her eyes.

Why, oh Lord, why?

She heard no still small voice. She saw no burning bush or fiery writing on the wall. All she heard in her head was her own voice saying with quiet assurance,
The Lord is good, and His mercy endureth forever
.

“Amen,” she said, but she felt weary and discouraged.

Still, she kept doggedly working. She made notes and made meticulous drawings of what she was seeing so that Dev could visualize where the additional cancerous cells were located. After her exhaustive study of the tumor, she dissected razor-thin sections for slides, mounted them, and put them in a small slotted tray for storage in the cold, airtight morgue. They would be preserved well enough to be studied for several days, and she intended that Nia and Dr. White should spend some time studying the cellular pathology of cancer.

She took the tray to the morgue, pulled open the heavy door, and kicked down the doorstop. The storage shelves in the morgue were on the back wall, and Cheney walked between the six slabs carefully, as the stone floor was slippery. Then, before she really took in what was happening, the vertical rectangle of light cast through the doorway on the far wall from the lamps outside grew thinner and thinner. Then it vanished at the same moment she heard the door close.

Cheney was in the blackest darkness.

She panicked. Dropping the tray of slides, she whirled around, raced to the door, and hammered on it. “Let me out! Help me! Help! Help!” she screamed. She beat the door with her fists, bruising them. She went on in this hysterical manner for what seemed like a long time.

Then she remembered that the door had a handle on the inside.

Frantically she felt for it, pushed it down, gave the door a shove, and shot out.

Someone grabbed her, and she started fighting.

“Cheney! What—ow! That hurt!”

It was Dev.

“Oh, Dev,” she cried, collapsing onto him and throwing her arms around his neck.

He held her. “Cheney, dear, why did you shut yourself up in the morgue? Don't you know that you must kick down the doorstop to keep the door open?”

She pushed back from him, the distress on her face turning to anger. “Oh! You're such a…such a…man! Of course I know to kick down the doorstop, Dev, I'm not stupid! And I did! So of course someone released the doorstop and shut me in!” she blustered, planting bunched fists on her hips.

“Who did?” Dev asked, mystified.

“Someone!”

“But Cheney, why would anyone do that?” Dev asked, quite reasonably.

“I don't know! Someone who thinks it's funny that I'm down here getting spooked by invisible mice and hearing things!” Cheney almost shouted, waving one arm so violently that she would have clipped Dev right on the chin if he hadn't ducked.

Dev sighed. “Cheney, do you have any idea how very odd that sounds?”

“Oh, you don't understand, you never—Wait!” She feverishly grabbed Dev's arm. “You just got here, didn't you? Of course you did. You weren't here when I went into the morgue. How did you come down, Dev? By the east stairwell?”

He shook his head. “No, by the west stairwell. I came in the front doors and straight down here because I saw the lights from the walk outside and knew you were down here working.”

“But did you see anyone? Down here, I mean going up the east stairs? Or maybe out the door?”

“No, Cheney. I didn't see anyone, and I didn't hear anything except you scr—I mean, calling out,” he answered cautiously.

“You didn't?” She let her hand fall, and her shoulders sagged. “I was so sure…I just know I kicked down the doorstop. I've gone into that morgue a hundred times, Dev, and I never shut myself in.”

“I know, Cheney, but it could easily happen,” he said, putting one arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. “Did you look down at it to see if it was all the way down before you went in?”

“No,” she said wearily. “But I never do. You must be right, of course. No sane person would play such a silly trick.”

Dev hugged her. “You look exhausted, Cheney. Why don't you quit for the night and go on home?”

She clapped a hand to her forehead. “Oh, Dev, I had slides from Mrs. Green's tumor. That's what I was putting up. We…we didn't get it all, Dev.”

He grimaced. “I was afraid of that. You know, I told you I thought I saw something odd just underneath the principal mass. It was so hectic trying to get it excised and closed up before anything else happened. Anyway, Cheney, just forget all about everything. Do you realize you've been here for over seventeen hours? Go home. Get some rest.”

“But the slides—”

“I'll do new ones.”

“But Ira Green—”

“I'll take care of it.”

“But—”

He pulled her to the table and picked up her things, then drew her, protesting, to the stairwell. “If I have to take you home myself, I will,” he threatened.

Cheney sighed. “I am very tired. I suppose I would do better tomorrow after I've had some rest.”

“Yes,” he said as they went up the stairs.

After a few moments of silence he muttered, “Invisible mice?”

She intoned, “If you ever tell anyone, I'll never speak to you again.”

Dr. Marcus Pettijohn trudged up the four steps of his narrow row house, unlocked the creaky oak door, and went into the vestibule. The pervasive aromas of these old row houses lingered on forever, it seemed: fried onions, fish, and the rank damp of the cellars. Wrinkling his nose in disgust, he climbed the two flights up to the parlor. It was dim and smelled musty and oily from the six tallow candles.

His wife looked up and smiled dreamily. “Hello, my love. I'm so glad you're home. Did you bring me something? Something nice to eat?”

Setting his medical bag on the console by the door, he leaned over and gazed at his ghostly dim reflection in the mirror of an age-blackened trumeau hung over the table. His face looked thin, but his features were still smooth and fine, his eyes a light blue, his sandy blond hair and mustache full and thick. Behind him, his wife's reflection was like a disembodied blob floating in the shadows of the darkened room. She wore a white cap over her jet black hair, and her face looked huge underneath it. She was half reclining on a recamier, wearing a light blue dressing gown and white morning dress, which completed the impression of a big shapeless form floating behind Marcus. His rather feminine features hardened.

“No, I didn't bring you something nice to eat,” he answered, going to a tea table by the settee and lifting a crystal decanter. “I brought you some more medicine. Did you drink all the brandy, Manon?” He spoke in French, for his wife spoke no English.