Chapter 12
C
harlotte hurried across the street, reaching Michael's office as the skies opened and the rain fell as if blasted through a hose. At least it wasn't raining sideways this time.
She entered without knocking and pushed the door closed. No one waited in the visitor's chair, nor was Michael at his desk. Shaking most of the rain from her hat, she hung it and her coat on the rack behind the door. The exam room was empty as well. The stringent bite of carbolic acid used as a cleanser made her nose itch. She continued through to the door of his living quarters and knocked.
“Just a moment,” he called out. Within a few seconds, Michael opened the door. His surprise at seeing her was obvious. “I didn't hear you come in.”
Charlotte clasped her hands at her waist. “I should have knocked on the outer door, but it was raining pretty hard.”
“No, no, that's fine,” he said. “I leave it unlocked just for that reason.”
The tension between them was too much. They were treating each other almost like strangers, and it made her heartsick. Had their bond finally snapped?
“Michael, Iâ”
“Charlotte, I'm sorry,” he said, overriding her own apology. “I've been a complete ass about . . . everything.”
She didn't try to hide her relief. “I'm glad you figured it out, because I wasn't quite sure how to say it.” They both laughed, and some of the tension ebbed. “But I was a bit of an ass too. And I'm sorry. I think we've both been through some difficult times of late.”
His blue eyes filled with understanding as well as curiosity. “Come inside and have something to eat. I was just heating some chicken soup Mrs. LeVoy gave me.”
“Something else I need to apologize for,” she said as she followed him into his quarters. “I was supposed to be cooking for you.”
Michael shrugged. He grabbed another bowl from the stack beneath the sink, then filled it from a pot on the stove. “It's not a problem.” She sat down, and he set the bowl in front of her along with a spoon and a linen napkin. “I think it's time we talked about what's been bothering us.”
Her hands trembled at the thought, but the idea of the rift between them getting larger scared her more than sharing her secrets.
He sank onto his chair across from her, shoulders slumped. “Last night at Eddington's, I was trying to be the big brother after not being there for you the last several years.” He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “Alaska can be a hard environment for a woman, Charlotte, and I don't want to see you hurt.”
She turned her hand so they were palm to palm and grasped his. “I know. In a way, I do appreciate it, but I'm a big girl, Michael. I've seen and . . . and done things that give me a little more experience and wisdom than you might expect.”
He squeezed back, concern on his face. “Some of those things were rather painful, weren't they?”
Charlotte's throat tightened. She could only nod, unable to speak.
Michael drew in a long, slow breath, then let it out in a shaky exhalation. “I know how that feels. There's something I've needed to tell someone for a long time, and I just couldn't. I thought coming out here, finding some sort of normalcy away from all the reminders might help, but it hasn't. Not really.”
His voice cracked, and when he continued, she saw such sorrow in his eyes she could have wept for him.
“While I was at the hospital,” he said in a near whisper, “there was a soldier there. Private Isaac Barnes. He'd been wounded by a landmine in Germany and sent stateside after he'd recovered enough to travel.” Michael let out a short bark of a scoffing laugh. “Recovered. The poor bastard had lost all his limbs and suffered a disfiguring head wound that caused seizures and fits of rage. He either slept or was agitated, with moments of brief lucidity between morphine doses.”
Charlotte squeezed Michael's hand, not wanting to interrupt the horrific story he needed to get off his chest.
“His parents came to bring him home. We told them he'd require round-the-clock careâtoilet, feeding, hygiene, and bathingâand that it was better for him to stay in a hospital permanently. They were older, you see, and we didn't think they'd be able to handle his needs. They didn't have much money to pay for such care. They'd sit at Isaac's bedside, talk about selling part of their land, their possessions. After they left for supper one evening, Isaac called me over. âDon't let them,' he said. âI'd rather die than see them go through that. Morphine. Something. Please, Doc. Please.'”
Michael focused on Charlotte, his face drawn. “He was asking me to put him out of his misery, to save his parents from heartache and debt. I started to argue with him, but he had a seizure. I was going to ignore his plea, then he asked me again two days later. After another seizure, one that required a nurse to help hold his thrashing body before it rendered him semicomatose, I made up my mind.”
“Michael.” Charlotte swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat. “Your oath.”
“Do no harm.” His eyes hardened. “Wasn't it more harmful to have Isaac and his family live that way for years, maybe decades? The least I could do was treat him better than we'd treat an animal.”
He was on the defensive, but she hadn't meant to sound accusatory. She could only imagine the struggle he'd faced.
Michael shook his head and took another deep breath. “I prepped a syringe with digitalis, kept it in my coat pocket until he had another seizure. I didn't have to wait long. I had the nurse usher his parents out, then administered the dose. Once his heart rate had dropped, I called his parents in, told them the last seizure had been too much, that his heart hadn't been able to take it. He died with them crying on either side of him, their heads on each of his shoulders and their hands twisted in his pajama top.”
Charlotte closed her eyes, her fingers wrapped around Michael's, tears trailing down her cheeks. How horrible to have your child die in your arms.
“ âHe's at peace,' his mother kept saying, âHe's at peace.' So it was the right thing to do, wasn't it?”
Charlotte was nodding before she even looked at him. His expression was defiant, but in his eyes there was the need to be told it was all right. “Yes. Yes, it was, Michael.”
Relief washed over his face, and he bowed his head. “You have no idea what it's been like, living with this. Knowing I've taken a life, even if it was for the best.”
Charlotte squeezed his hands as tightly as he squeezed hers. His fingers trembled. His jaw muscles stood out under the paleness of his skin. Finally, the trembling stopped, and his muscles relaxed. Michael drew in a long, slow breath and released it with a sigh. Confession was good for the soul, they said.
“I do know,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.
Michael's head came up slowly, the question he hadn't voiced plain in his red-rimmed eyes.
“Guilt. I know the guilt you're suffering.” Charlotte tried to moisten her lips with her parched tongue. She'd never spoken to anyone about her indiscretions. Only Kit and Richard knew, and Richard, the bastard, didn't matter. “I did something that I thought was for the best.” The lump formed in her throat again. It took two hard swallows to clear it enough to be able to speak. “I still believe so, but maybe it was for a selfish reason.”
His fingers tightened around her trembling hands.
She squeezed back, grateful to have him listening without judgment. At least not yet. “I'd been seeing Richard Hamilton. Going to dances and lectures, that sort of thing.”
“I remember your mentioning him in a few letters,” Michael said when she paused.
“We were friends, then things changed.”
Tension vibrated through his hands, and he frowned. “Did he do something untoward?”
“He didn't.
We
did.” Her face and body heated. She couldn't believe she was telling her brother about her love life. About this much of it. “We had relations. Intimate relations.”
“Oh,” he said, sounding relieved. “I mean, it's not something you want to think about involving your sister, but women nowadays are taking all sorts of aspects of their lives into their own hands.” He stopped, reading the expression on her face. “There's more.”
Her entire body felt cold, and she shivered. What was he going to say? What was he going to think? When she'd asked if Ruth was pregnant, he'd been shocked, practically insulted that Charlotte would ever think such a thing. Good girls didn't have sex. They didn't get pregnant. And they certainly didn't do what Charlotte had done.
“Charlotte?”
“I don't want you to hate me, Michael.” She gripped his hands so hard she thought she'd break his fingers, but he held on. “I couldn't stand it if you hated me.”
“There is nothing you could ever do that would make me hate you.” Tears filled his eyes. “You are my sister, and I love you more than anything in this world. Tell me, if you think it will make you feel better, but it's okay if you don't.”
He was giving her an out, a way to avoid revealing herself at her worst. He'd confided in her, trusted her to hear his confession and relieve his conscience. Michael had set the ball rolling, and now her own guilt pushed against her skull and compressed her chest. She had to tell him or she'd shatter into countless pieces.
“A year ago, I got pregnant.” She said it fast, the words tumbling out with barely enough pause to take a breath. “When I told Richard, he wanted me to marry him. But he didn't want me to keep working. Wife and mother only, no more articles or anything like that. I didn't love him, not enough to marry him. Not enough to lose everything I'd worked for. And to be honestâ”
The next words stuck in her throat. They sounded so wrong, so selfish in her head. But they were the truth, her feelings then and her feelings now.
“I didn't want a baby, Michael,” she managed to say. “I didn't want to be pregnant. I didn't want Richard. I had plans and ideas that didn't include any of that. So IâI got the name of a doctor in Buffalo, and Kit drove me up. We told everyone I was going for a long visit at her family's place to get over breaking it off with Richard.”
Michael stared at Charlotte across the table, his jaw muscles tight. What was he thinking? She didn't want to know, not just yet. She had to finish this first.
“They were nice, really. Very understanding. It was well after regular hours, of course, and the shades and curtains were drawn.”
The doctor's office had been above a drugstore on a dingy street. The nurse had her and Kit sit in a little room, separated from the two or three other women with appointments that night. Charlotte never saw anyone, but heard muffled voices and sobs. She'd always remember the antiseptic smell and the sobs.
“The nurse told us some of the women who came there were like me, unmarried girls âin trouble' who didn't want a baby. Some had beaus who wouldn't marry them. Others already had families and were too poor or too sick to take care of another baby. We all had our reasons, and no one reason was better or worse than the other.”
Richard's voice sounded in her head.
Abortions are for poor, desperate women. Not for women of our class.
A cramp pinched Charlotte's hand, and she realized she was squeezing Michael's fingers hard enough to hurt herself. “Sorry,” she said, loosening her grip.
He shook his head as he stood. For a moment, she thought he was going to walk away from her, and her heart sank to the pit of her stomach.
But he didn't. He came to her side of the table and knelt down. Michael wrapped his arms around her shoulders and drew her into a hug. Charlotte embraced him and started to tremble. He wasn't angry or disappointed. He understood. She'd lost over a year by keeping secrets, fearing he'd be disgusted with her.
Charlotte buried her face against her brother's neck, taking in the scent of starch and carbolic acid, as a sob ripped through her chest. Guilt and shame and anger, suppressed for so long except in the late-night darkness of her bedroom, finally found their way out. She tried to say more, to explain herself, but every time she opened her mouth, there was just more sobbing, more tears, more body-wracking shivers.
Wrung out, her limbs like water, Charlotte eased out of his arms and slumped in the chair. Michael handed her a fresh handkerchief from his pocket. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. He dried his own tears with his napkin.
“I wish I had been there for you,” he said, his voice rough.
“I couldn't tell anyone.” Her throat was raw, her voice scratchy and low. “I was so stupid. Richard was horrible, and I didn't want to admit I'd been fool enough to be with him like that. And I certainly didn't want to marry him.”
“I'd like to punch him in the face,” Michael said.
Charlotte managed a wry grin and cupped his cheek. “I know. Me too.” They both laughed quietly. Then she took a deep breath, ready to tell him more. “But it wasn't all his fault. I made the ultimate decision. I didn't want a baby, not even to give it up later, because I had other plans for my life. I wasn't ready to be pregnant, let alone a mother. I don't regret my decision, but at the same time I feel terrible that I don't. Does that make any sense?”
“No one can blame you for your feelings, Charlotte.” He tucked a damp tendril of her hair back behind her ear.
“I can blame me,” she said. “Mother and Father would have had a fit if they'd known, but maybe telling them wouldn't have been so bad. I don't know. I'll never know.”