My Name Is Mary Sutter (5 page)

The performance ended, and Mary rose. She lowered her handkerchief, the opening Thomas had been waiting for. He touched the tip of his program to her gloved hand and said, “I am terribly sorry about your father.”

It was this simple gesture that immediately made her like him. He did not say,
How do you do
, or
Pleased to meet you.
Instead, he said the essential thing. She liked his directness; she liked that he did not inquire why she was out so soon; she liked that he hadn’t even introduced himself.

Thomas guided her by her elbow out of the auditorium to the street, conscious of the whispering their pairing induced in the other patrons.
Mary Sutter? Out so soon? And who is that young man she’s with?
As they started up State Street, his fingers moved to the small of her back, and for the first time in a long time Mary felt that someone was taking care of
her
.

Thomas was pleased to have made himself so easily acquainted with his new neighbor. He’d been nervous how she might take his overture so soon after the loss of her father, but she seemed untroubled by, and even grateful for, his boldness. He glanced over at her, uncertain what to say now that they were alone. In the twilight, Mary Sutter appeared to be older than her age.
The midwife
, everyone said of her. But there were no claims to her affection among any of the young men of Albany. They did not attribute the cause to intimidation, but rather named the distraction of the more beautiful twin sister. All this Thomas had learned one night at the Gayety Music Hall, where he had gone last week to make himself known. He would make his mark among the society of men in Albany; he would not feel unsettled, as his mother did, by the change from the country. Her preference for Ireland’s Corners was something she hid; the country was generally viewed as unsophisticated, except as a summer escape from the dust and heat. Thomas liked the city; he liked the novelty of the noise and the ready proximity to theater and dining saloons. He liked being out and about. He liked being a young man.

Though their families came from the same village, they were barely acquainted. The Fall family had lived on Loudon Road, the Sutters on Shaker Road. The Falls were Presbyterians, the Sutters Episcopalians. And though the Sutters had once owned an orchard, Nathaniel’s sale of the family land and Amelia’s practice had rendered them acquaintances only. Amelia had not delivered Thomas; another midwife had, for Thomas was born just as the twins had confined her to her bed. He was three months older than Jenny and Mary, but now he felt much younger. Years in the company of women in agony had conferred on Mary an aura of wisdom; she inspired respect and trust; it was this, Thomas thought, that made him feel so young.

The whitewashed brick homes and St. Peter’s Church reflected the last of the light; it was an Indian summer night of hypnotic beauty. At the top of the street, a few farmers’ wagons lingered in the market square; soon coal fires would acidify the air until the springtime winds scrubbed the skies clean.

In the park by the Boy’s Academy, they rested on a bench. Just across Eagle Street the pillared white marble of the medical college reflected the ghostly beauty of the evening light. Mary gazed at the building, thinking of her letter of application on Dr. Marsh’s desk and how she might soon hear from him. Twice a day she accosted the postman at the door, only to be told there was no letter. Amelia said she was being impatient, and Mary said that she could not help it
.
The anticipated letter was her distraction from grief. It was also her future.

Gaslight flickered in the lamps along State Street. Thomas and Mary sat together, the conversation arising naturally as between old friends. Soon she was telling him how just before her father died, he had apologized to her for once leaving her alone when she was a baby. Her father said he attributed her independence to this, his worst mistake, thereby taking credit for her accomplishments while completely ignoring the fact that her twin sister, likewise abandoned, was utterly uninterested in midwifery.

While she talked, Thomas studied her. She had a way of carrying her grief that gave the impression she was doing well and would continue to do well. “I am certain you were a comfort to your father,” he said.

“He died badly. I never want anyone to die as badly again.”

Mary leaned forward. Did Thomas have any ambitions?

“I am to take over my father’s business.” He explained about the orchards in Ireland’s Corners.

“My family once had orchards there,” Mary said. “Are you passionate about farming? Will the endeavor sustain you?”

Thomas thought Mary asked this as if he should question everything, but she did not appear disappointed when he said that he had no idea; rather, she nodded, as if she too found uncertainty the expected state of existence.

“You, however, have already accomplished quite a lot,” Thomas said.

“Not enough,” Mary said. Her eyes shone, and the stiff posture with which she held herself disappeared. “I want someday to attend medical school.” And she lifted her gaze to the wide pillars and high windows of the school; off to the right was the hospital wing; under its golden cupola was the lecture hall. The surgeries and laboratories resided in the wing to the left. She knew its layout by heart from having once sneaked past the clerk guarding the school from behind his desk.

Thomas studied the building, and Mary held her breath, though not consciously, but having revealed herself she felt exposed. She hadn’t meant to say what she wanted so clearly. Desire had burst out of her, as if it could not be contained. And the goal seemed within reach. Any day now, she would receive the answer; any day now, she would be the first female student of the Albany Medical College. She waited for the puzzling, troubled look from Thomas, the one that said,
You are overreaching
, the one that said,
What an absurd idea
.

Instead he said mildly, “You want to be a doctor?” There was only a slight tilt to his head, only a brief, quizzical glance, as if she had spoken in a foreign language that he had had to translate in his head, and then a wide grin blossomed on his face. The evening light was beginning to wash the color from the sky, but Mary could see clearly that Thomas’s eyes were sharply blue. Boyish, happy, his face shone with generosity. He seemed incapable of guile, incapable even of finding her ambition extraordinary. As if the entire world were an open place, holding out its arms to everyone. As if munificence were the normal course of things.

“Wouldn’t that be something?” he said, leaning back, holding her in a gaze of respect and admiration.

For the first time since her father died, Mary smiled.

They walked homeward in a companionable silence, a damp gust of wind scurrying up State Street behind them. By the time they reached Dove Street, leaves were already beginning to fall from the maple saplings lining the street. From the corner of her eye, Mary could see the curtain parting in the Sutter parlor window. Jenny had been aghast that Mary would follow her mother’s suggestion that she get out of the house; Jenny still spent most of her days in tears. The curtain’s lace shielded her face, but it was Jenny, watching.

“I am pleased to have met you, finally,” Thomas said, cradling Mary’s hand in his. She was a surprise, he thought. Though the frame was large, the hair unmanageable, the chin too square to do her credit, there was something about her manner that drew him in. He did not want to say good night.

“Thank you,” Mary said, “for the diversion of conversation and your company. I have been very sad.”

“Perhaps our families could dine together, after your mourning is over,” Thomas said.

“My mother would welcome an invitation.”

“Good night,” Thomas said. And he watched her climb her steps and enter her house before taking the adjoining stairs two at a time into the Fall home, whistling.

Jenny was seated in the parlor, looking at a book, turning the pages too quickly to be reading them. Amelia was staring at the fire, but turned when Mary came in, a look of expectation transforming her features from the sadness that had haunted her the last few weeks.

“Did you have a good time?” Amelia asked.

“Yes.”

“Who was that?” Jenny asked. In her pale face, her eyes snapped with color. Since the death of their father, she had been uncommonly quiet, when usually she was voluble, joyful. Jenny found it difficult to be serious about anything for long. Of Mary’s intensity and seriousness, she often said, “You really ought to laugh more.”

Mary turned, unpinning her hat. “Our new neighbor.”

“Did you meet him on the street?” Jenny was forcing her voice toward blandness, turning the pages of her book three at a time.

“No. He walked me home from the hall.” Mary set her hat on the table in the corner, near her mother.

“And he didn’t think you odd for going out so soon?”

“He didn’t say if he thought me odd or not.”

“Well, I thought you odd.”

“Girls,” Amelia said. The word came automatically now. She could sense tension before either of them did. She and Nathaniel had often wondered how two such different individuals had come from her womb.
Nathaniel
. She sighed. No one had ever told her that grief was a leveling of all emotion, that life would stretch before you, colorless and endless, devoid of any hope.

Mary said, “He wants us to come to dinner.”

“All of us?” Jenny said.

“Yes,” Mary said. “At least I think so. Perhaps he just meant me.”

“Oh,” Jenny said. “Well.” And she rose and left the room.

Amelia shot Mary a disapproving glare. “This is not a competition,” she said.

But they both knew that it was.

A week later, Mary stood in the alleyway behind the Dove Street house, waiting for the maid’s son to finish shoveling coal into the chute so he could come and harness the little sorrel to her gig. Last night, Amelia had been called to a delivery on Arbor Hill, but one of the Aspinwall daughters out in Ireland’s Corners was due, and Mary was going to stay at their home, Cottage Farm, until the infant arrived. Her bag rested at her feet; she might be away a week.

Though the Sutter family was in mourning, women continued to have babies. Amelia and Mary set aside their sadness to answer any summonses that arrived. It is the inescapable rule of caregivers that they have to be available despite how they themselves might feel. But Mary had found it a relief to plunge again into the intricacies of childbirth. Amelia yielded now to her in almost every respect, reserving only the most difficult deliveries for herself, but even then she taught Mary all she could. On those occasions, Mary observed over Amelia’s shoulder, mimicking her movements, mumbling to herself, finding that she remembered Amelia’s instructions better if she narrated. Twins: mother exhausted at second pass; it may be necessary to use smelling salts to rouse her. In case of cord entanglement, ease the child back into birth canal to lessen tension and slip cord quickly over neck. For asynclitic presentation (fetal head tilted toward shoulder) check carefully for bleeding afterwards; use rags to compress. Bedrest for two weeks while the mother heals; movement could cause hemorrhage. In cases of stillbirth, give child immediately to mother in order to preserve maternal sanity. Mary inhaled the information her mother dispensed. Centuries of wisdom resided in Amelia’s muscles. Often, when Mary asked questions, Amelia could not answer unless she was in the act itself, able to remember only as she performed. Instinct as textbook.

And work as distraction, for no invitation had come from next door. No word from Dr. Marsh either. Mary wrote another letter.
Perhaps my first letter of inquiry was lost in the post?
It seemed as if the universe was conspiring to teach her patience. What does Mary Sutter most desire? Let the stars withhold it.

Now, in the distance, thunder rumbled. A day of contradiction: Mary’s bonnet shaded her from a sun bright enough to strain her eyes. The alley percolated: a privy tilted a half block away; the neighbor’s poorly kept chickens flapped in protest at the confusion. An ice wagon lurched into the narrow ruts and climbed the slow rise, its wintered-over ice blocks crusted with sawdust. The last of the last, before winter set in and ice would be everywhere. The verge of deprivation and plenty.

“Miss Sutter?”

Thinking it the maid’s boy, she turned and scolded, “I thought you would never come.”

“You’ve been waiting for me?” Thomas Fall shut the gate and grinned, leaning against the whitewashed fence that separated the Fall home from the eyesore of the alley. “But perhaps you should have come around the front and rung the bell. I do not normally meet ladies here.”

“And where do you usually meet them?”

“At Tweddle Hall, where they need walking home.”

On his own ground, Thomas was self-assured, in command of his supple frame; he wore a hat to offset the flash of amusement in his eyes.

“I’m going today to Ireland’s Corners to await a birth. The maid’s son is supposed to harness the gig, but I fear he has fallen asleep on the coal.”

“May I drive you? I was on my way there myself. Father is at the farm and wishes to instruct me about preparing saplings for the winter, a concern that is not unlike your profession, which is, I believe, nursing things along.”

Not dinner with his family, but something much better. Time alone. Mary tried to discern: merely kindness or real interest? She was seeking not to make a fool of herself, as she had sought not to every time she had left the house in the last week, feigning nonchalance as she descended the stairs, as if she were glancing to the right only to contemplate the chance of catching a cab and not hoping for the Fall house door to open and for Thomas to appear.

And now here he was, more confident than she had at first supposed.

With an exaggerated sweep of his hand, he bowed, and then righted himself and smiled again. Lines radiated from his eyes, a product, Mary believed, of an abundance of happiness.

“Miss?” It was the maid’s son, blackened by coal dust. Mary turned him away.