An empty metal bowl hit Giuliana in the chest, and she caught it without thought.
With almost catlike reflexes, the nurse managed to stay on her feet and even grabbed the cart before it could topple over.
At the sound of the crash, another nurse hurried over.
“For goodness’s sake, Miss Croft, how many times have I told you to put the bedpan beneath the bed, not in front of it?” the first nurse said.
The other one blushed. “I’m sorry, Doctor Sharpe.”
Doctor?
Giuliana stared at the woman. Only now did she notice that the stranger wasn’t wearing a white, high-collared smock and a small cap, as the nurses did. Instead, she was clad in a dark brown skirt and a white shirtwaist that contrasted with her fiery red hair, which, instead of being swept up in the latest fashion, was neatly tied back.
“It’s all right,” the doctor said to the nurse, now in a milder tone. “Everyone makes mistakes. Just see that it doesn’t happen again.”
The nurse nodded and began to gather the scattered supplies.
The lady doctor stepped closer to the bed.
Giuliana was still staring at her. In Sicily, only men could become physicians, and she’d had no idea that there were women doctors in Merica. In her five years here, she hadn’t encountered any.
“I know what you’re thinking,” the lady doctor said. “But I can assure you that I was trained by some of the best physicians in the country, and my medical skills are just as good as those of my male colleagues.”
“Better, actually,” the nurse said with a smile.
Dr. Sharpe laughed. “Don’t let them hear that.” She looked at Giuliana. “Your husband will receive the best possible care.”
“He is not my husband. I am his sister. Giuliana Russo.”
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Russo. I’m Dr. Lucy Hamilton Sharpe.” The doctor offered her hand.
After a moment’s hesitation, very aware of any dirt or fish smell that might cling to her own fingers, Giuliana wanted to reach out and then realized that she was still holding on to the metal bowl.
“Why don’t you give me that?” Dr. Sharpe took it from her and handed it to the nurse before shaking Giuliana’s hand.
If Giuliana had expected soft skin and a dainty touch, the doctor’s handshake proved her wrong. This wasn’t the hand of a spoiled, wealthy lady who had never needed to work. It was the strong, slightly callused hand of someone who was no stranger to physical labor.
Curious, Giuliana studied her, noticing the freckles on her nose that indicated that the doctor had spent some time in the sun without protecting her fair complexion with an umbrella, as the other ladies in San Francisco did.
A cough from her brother reminded her that she wasn’t here to stare at the lady doctor, as fascinating as she was. Quickly, she wrenched her gaze away. “Can you help my brother?”
Dr. Sharpe looked down at Turi, who had opened his eyes and peered up at her with a feverish gaze. With a steady hand, she pulled the blanket down a little and opened the top two buttons on his shirt.
Giuliana watched with wide eyes. Back in Santa Flavia, opening the shirt of a man you weren’t related to would have been considered very forward. Of course, Miss Sharpe was a physician. How else was she supposed to examine him?
The doctor took an instrument out of a leather case. Two black rubber tubes led down to a bell-shaped piece of ebony that Dr. Sharpe held to Turi’s chest.
“What is that?” Giuliana asked.
The doctor pulled the ends of the instrument out of her ears. “It’s called a stethoscope. It allows me to listen to his lungs and heart.” She gestured for Turi to open his mouth and peered into his throat. When she straightened, she looked from him to Giuliana. “He’s suffering from bilateral pneumonia.”
Giuliana bit her lip. She hated letting on that she was just an uneducated girl from a tiny little fishing town in Sicily. But, as her mother would have said, family was more important than pride, so she asked, “What does this mean?”
“It means that he has an infection in both of his lungs. They’re filling with pus and other fluids. That’s what makes it so hard for him to breathe.”
“But you can help him, yes?”
Now it was Dr. Sharpe’s turn to bite her lip. “We can try, but it’s a very serious illness, Miss Russo.”
Turi weakly squeezed her hand and sent her a questioning gaze. Unlike Giuliana, he had never learned more than a few words of English. Not necessary, he’d said. He didn’t need it out on the boat, and they would return home to Sicily in a year or so anyway.
“She says you’ll be just fine,” she said in Sicilian and tried not to flinch as she looked into his eyes.
He nodded and closed his eyes again. His sweat-dampened hair, as dark as her own, fell onto his face, emphasizing how pale he was.
Gently, she reached out and swiped an errant strand from his forehead.
“You’re hurt,” Dr. Sharpe said, pointing.
Giuliana peered at her own scraped hand. It was like looking at a stranger’s appendage; she didn’t feel any pain at all. “Oh.” It had probably happened when Turi had collapsed and they had tumbled to the pier.
“Let me take care of that.”
Shaking her head, Giuliana hid her hand behind her back. Bad enough that they would have to pay the ward fee for Turi; if there was to be any money left to send home to their family this week, they couldn’t afford treatment for her too.
“It’s all right,” Dr. Sharpe said, the expression in her green eyes kind. “I won’t charge you for it. I’ll have to wait until Miss Croft returns with the mustard plaster for your brother’s treatment anyway.” She gave the nurse a nod, which had her hurrying off.
Reluctantly, Giuliana brought her hand out from behind her back.
The doctor pulled over a stool, sat, and gently cradled Giuliana’s hand. She took a tiny medical tool from the cart next to her and, with a light touch, started pulling wood splinters from Giuliana’s skin. When she was finished, she spread ointment over the scrapes and covered them with gauze. “There. Keep it dry for a few days, and you’ll be fine.”
“Thank you.” Giuliana wasn’t worried about herself. Her only worry was for Turi. She put her hand in her lap and looked over at him
. Oh please, Madonna. Help him.
The nurse returned, her arms piled high with supplies.
Dr. Sharpe used a metal bowl and a spoon to mix some yellow-brownish powder—probably the mustard she had mentioned—with a white substance that looked like flour. Then she poured in a little water from a pitcher next to Turi’s bed. Finally, she added a few drops of a liquid that smelled like the kerosene they used to light their lamps at home. After stirring everything into a smooth paste, she spread it over a clean piece of cloth, which she then placed on Turi’s chest. As she turned away from him, she gave the nurse a stern glance. “Watch the mustard plaster closely, please.”
“Is it dangerous?” Giuliana asked.
“No. But if we leave it in place for too long, it will burn his skin.”
“I’ll keep a close eye on him,” the nurse said.
So would Giuliana. She was determined not to leave his side until he was well.
“Miss Sharpe?” a man in a three-piece suit called from the entrance of the ward. “We’re waiting for you in the operating theater. Or have you finally seen reason and admitted that assisting in a surgery would be too much for a woman’s delicate sensibilities?”
“While I appreciate your concern for my ‘delicate sensibilities,’ Dr. Ferber, they are much more insulted by your attempts to keep me out of the operating theater than by witnessing a man being cut open to save his life.” Dr. Sharpe looked him straight in the eye, her voice never wavering. “By now, you should know that I’m not the sort of woman who’s prone to fainting spells. And, by the way, it’s
Doctor
Sharpe, not Miss.”
Both Dr. Ferber and Giuliana stared at her.
Despite her concern for Turi, Giuliana struggled to hold back a smile. Dr. Sharpe sounded a little like Giuliana’s strong-willed
nonna
, who’d never been afraid to voice her opinion. Judging by the look on Dr. Ferber’s face, it didn’t make Lucy Sharpe any more popular than it did Giuliana’s grandmother.
Dr. Ferber shook his head at her before disappearing down the corridor.
Lucy Sharpe followed. At the door, she turned back around and said, “I will be back later to check on your brother.”
Nodding, Giuliana sat on the stool the doctor had vacated and started holding vigil over Turi’s labored breathing.
* * *
With a gasp, Giuliana awoke from a nightmare in which Turi was drowning at sea, calling for her, but she couldn’t get to him. Pressing a hand to her chest, she looked around.
Night had fallen. Turi was next to her in his bed. She must have fallen asleep, and her head had dropped onto the mattress. Yawning, she sat upright on the stool and rubbed her eyes.
He’s fine. See?
But maybe he wasn’t. His breathing was rapid, and he was tossing and turning. “Mamma!” he cried out. The rest of what he was saying didn’t make much sense. Was he dreaming too? Hallucinating?
“Turi, wake up,” she whispered in Sicilian, trying not to disturb the other patients, most of whom were asleep. “You’re just dreaming.”
He didn’t react.
With a lump in her throat, she reached out and touched his cheek. Heat radiated from him like from a cast-iron stove.
Turi started flailing his arms. The back of his hand hit her shoulder, nearly throwing her off the stool.
Two nurses hurried over and secured his arms to the bed’s metal frame.
Never opening his eyes, he struggled against them. A week ago, he would have been able to shake them off easily, but now he was too weak.
“No, no!” Giuliana jumped up to protect him. “Let him go. He did not hurt me.”
“He’s hurting himself, miss,” one of the nurses answered.
“What’s going on here?” A confident voice rose over the commotion. Dr. Sharpe crossed the men’s ward toward them. The sleeves of her blouse were wrinkled, as if she had pushed them up her forearms.
“I believe Mr. Russo has taken a turn for the worse,” one of the nurses answered.
Dr. Sharpe bent over him, felt his pulse, and listened to his chest again. “If you’d rather wait outside, Miss Russo…,” she said over her shoulder.
Giuliana planted her feet and stayed next to the doctor at Turi’s side. “No,” she said firmly. She wasn’t the sort of woman who was prone to fainting spells either. “I stay.”
The doctor glanced up and gave her a short nod before bending over Turi again. She peeled back the blanket and unbuttoned his shirt all the way down.
Despite his fever, Turi’s skin was pale and had a grayish tint. His belly, white and streaked with fine, reddish-blue veins, looked like marble.
A moan came from Turi, but he didn’t wake as the doctor felt his arms and legs and then covered him up again.
When Dr. Sharpe straightened and turned to Giuliana, her expression was grim. “That’s what I feared. The infection has spread. Now he’s suffering from sepsis, a poisoning of the blood.”
Giuliana clutched the doctor’s sleeve. “Help him, please.”
Dr. Sharpe’s gaze dropped to the floor. “There’s nothing I—or any other doctor—can do. All we can do is try to get him to swallow a little water or broth to keep him hydrated…and then wait to see if his body is still strong enough to battle the sickness.” She softly squeezed Giuliana’s fingers, which still had a death grip on her sleeve. “I’m sorry.”
No, no, no, no.
Giuliana didn’t want an apology. She wanted Turi to recover. Slowly, she unclamped her fingers from the doctor’s sleeve and dropped back onto the stool.
* * *
The first light of dawn filtered in through the hospital
’s barred windows. Giuliana watched and listened as the world outside awakened. The hooves of a horse clattered over the cobblestones, and milk cans clanked against each other as a dairy wagon made its way down the street.
Dr. Sharpe went from bed to bed in the men’s ward, checking to see how each patient had fared during the night.
Did the woman ever sleep?
Anxiously, Giuliana waited until the doctor reached Turi’s bed. They nodded at each other. “He did not drink the broth. But he stopped moving like a sardine on the pier. Maybe he sleeps away the sickness. That is what our papà always did when he was sick. He went to his bed with the fever, and he slept and slept, and when he got up, he was good again.” She realized she was babbling and snapped her mouth shut.
But Dr. Sharpe wasn’t paying her any attention. She was staring at Turi. Instead of listening to his chest with her stethoscope again, she lifted his arm and moved his fingers.
Giuliana held her breath. What was the doctor doing? It wasn’t Turi’s arm that was hurt.
Slowly, Dr. Sharpe lowered his arm back to the bed and turned toward Giuliana with a serious expression. “I’m very sorry. He’s gone.”
“What? No, no, no.” He couldn’t be gone. Not Turi. Giuliana gripped his hand, which lay stiffly on top of the blanket. “He only sleeps. He is not…”
“I’m sorry, Miss Russo. He slipped away some time during the night. I’m sure he didn’t feel any pain.”
Blood roared through her ears, and she saw the compassion on Dr. Sharpe’s face only as if from very far away. “No. It’s…not possible. This cannot happen. It cannot.” She bent her head and pressed her face against his chest. It wasn’t moving up and down in a painful struggle for breath anymore.
The truth hit her like a hard punch to an already bruised area. Her brother was dead. Never again would she hear his triumphant laugh as he jumped onto the pier after making it back with a boat full of crabs. Never again would she watch him nearly choke on his food because he couldn’t gobble down the spaghetti she’d made fast enough. And he’d never again set foot onto their island, never see home again.
Tears burned in her eyes, but she couldn’t cry. Too many thoughts were tumbling through her mind. What would happen now—not just to her, all alone on this side of the ocean, but also to their family back in Santa Flavia?
As the oldest, Turi had taken their father’s place as the breadwinner of the family. He’d tried to sell enough fish to earn a living, but their region was so poor that he barely made enough to keep their younger siblings from starving. Finally, he’d come up with a daring idea. Like other young men from their village, he wanted to go to Merica, the land where everything was possible, and work there for a year or two.