God or the universe, Jed wasn't sure, had a peculiar sense of humor. The majority of the time, he felt he was the only one who appreciated the ironies and amusements that appeared on a near daily basis. He preferred to pay attention to the juxtapositions which only brought him a wry sense of enjoyment; he avoided thinking about Bullen, drowning in his own blood while the very President congratulated them on being such skillful healers or risking his own integrity to save his brother's life by violating Ezra's bodily wholeness. Mary, helping him most when he sought to reject her most fiercely, least bothered by the crude sexual advances he'd made, most silent when he hurt her most cruelly. Mary, whose bright eyes could be so soft, who offered him her proximity and care at every turn, denied to him, and Eliza, who'd run as far as she could, inextricably his. They were lashed together on a ship he knew was wrecked and he saw the years to come like the wreckers on the shore scavenging him, piece by piece.
Mary had chided him, more than once, for his propensity to melancholy. She did not say so exactly, but he grasped she found it self-indulgent and even unmanly. She was much more at ease with his storms and tantrums and thus he allowed himself to unspool his rages at Hale as a relief to his over-matched emotions. He had not yet found an adequate replacement for the surcease the morphine had brought at those times; he had not the liberty to go for the long, furious walks in the woods he'd taken as a boy. At day's end, his mind was often too tired to force it into the necessary contortions to read the German medical texts he had stacked about his room like a city of spires. Prayer had never helped him. At best, he had played clever games with the words of a sermon or psalm, made a cipher in his head to decode other, other-worldly messages. More often, his mind wandered to dark places, like the look on his father's face when they'd talked about the War, or the first patient whose eyes he'd seen go blank in death, suffering unremitted even at the final moment.
He heard Mary's voice in his head "we made a Pact!" enough that he had redoubled his efforts toward equanimity. Neither he nor the hospital could afford for him to drown his sorrows, real or exaggerated, with the needle's syrup or grey ruminations. He must every day dedicate himself to the gold strewn in the dross of his desires; he must every day be a surgeon and physician, a Union officer, an honorable man. To that end, he found that looking at the world as a colossal joke was often best for him though he could see Mary's disapprobation at times. He was always pleased when she joined him in the jest; he had an idea that Yankee women were a bit more willing to observe the absurd than the languid Southern misses and matrons he'd grown up with. The best days were the ones where she laughed aloud at a moment of his wit or a raised eyebrow; then, so briefly, they had union.
He had initially had such a moment when Private Lightfoot appeared in the ward, both feet injured; he allowed himself the levity as he could see the damage was easily reparable, though would require the soldier to retreat from the field of battle for some time. He remembered nearly nothing else of the young man, not the color of his hair or whether his build was lean or robust. He associated the name with the pair of feet and Mary's eyes, the color of cinnamon, under delicately quirked brows. Private Lightfoot had had the good luck to arrive with a small group of injured men. The wards were not full and they were able to give the men more space. He found Lightfoot and Mary at the far end of the former back parlor, where the ivory plaster was dingy but not peppered with the old blood of young boys.
As he approached, he was first struck that Mary appeared to be sitting closer than usual to her patient. He was startled by flicker of possessive jealousy that came in between his heartbeats; he was neither entitled to it nor did it do honor to the emotions he was willing to admit he had for her. She was sitting in a straight-backed chair and as he walked closer, he recognized her posture was rigidly canted toward the bed. Her head was angled down so that the nape of her neck was exposed beneath the elaborate loops of braids. Lightfoot sat partially upright, propped up by pillows and had his arms extended before him. Jed was puzzled. As a physician, he had learned to be most suspicious of the atypical and the tableau before him was steeped in it.
"Ah, Nurse Mary. How goes it for young Private Lightfoot here?" he asked, taking in the dullness of the man's eyes, his disheveled sandy hair.
"Dr. Foster. I think, that is, I think that Private Lightfoot is not doing as well as we would wish." Jed's concern ratcheted up sharply. He had seen Mary in a variety of situations and, without fail, she radiated calm and competence. Under the greatest pressure, she might bite her lip or flush along her cheekbones. This was something new. Her voice had changed, was even lower and softer than he was accustomed to, but she sounded younger, unsure. She glanced at him and held his gaze; he did not expect to see such frank appeal.
"Well, what seems to be the trouble here?" He adopted a matter-of-fact, even bored, tone he'd often found could manage patients and staff alike. He'd never needed to use it with Mary before.
"Private Lightfoot, he, well, he feels he is not himself. I told him I would find you so we could address his… trouble, but he was reluctant to have me leave. So, I am glad you have come." Jed shifted and looked down from Mary's face. He saw her right wrist and hand were held entirely by both of Private Lightfoot's. He took a moment to observe the man; he was fit, with firm muscle cording his arms, probably from manual labor. His hands were held tightly, the white strain evident beneath the grime Mary had been unable to scrub away. He could not see anything of her right hand, but the forearm was held stiffly before her, the sleeve protector pulled taut. He knew Mary to be unbothered by the men who pawed at her skirts, who tried to grasp her hand as it swung by. He admitted to himself he knew from personal experience she was strong and lithe and would pull herself, inviolate, from any lewd overtures. Why was she still holding Private Lightfoot's hand?
"Jed. He won't let my hand go." He heard what she said and how she said it.
"Mary, are you in pain?" he asked, noting the tightness around her mouth, the sheen in her eyes. The soldier remained oddly silent, as if in another sphere.
"A little." The admission cost her. She ducked her head, embarrassed to complain.
"Well, then, Private Lightfoot, you must give Nurse Mary back her hand now, so she may assist me. She has more need of it than you," he tried, mildly jocular, hoping to find some connection with the man. He saw Mary try to pull her hand back, the tension arching her back, but nothing happened.
"Mary?"
"I, he, he won't let go," she paused, dropped her lashes, "It hurts, Jed."
"Lightfoot, enough of this! You will let Nurse Mary go, now!" Jed took a step forward, prepared to remove the man's hands from Mary with whatever strength it would take.
"I can't." Finally, the man spoke. His voice was monotone and now his eyes flicked to Jed's face. "I can't, don't you understand, I have been altered! How can you not see it?"
The inquisitive physician in Jed would have had ascendance now, but for the urgency of helping Mary.
"Whatever do you mean, altered? Never mind. Let her go at once!" He was tempted to raise his voice but something in him told him not to.
"I am made of lead. I am a bullet. I am death." The words tumbled out, uneven, as if the man had hardly ever put words together in English before, but there was no trace of accent, no accounting for it. "Can't you see? My flesh, it is all gone, gone and this body—I have been replaced by a leaden automaton! Where has my soul flown? Lead, lead, dead."
Jed began to understand. There were men who were shattered by battles, loss of comrades, the stink of death and mud. Most often, their complaints were cardiac, but not always; Da Costa in Philadelphia had named it first but surgeons in the field had all seen it by the end of the first year of the war. And then there were men, boys mostly, who walking down the path of life found themselves at a vast chasm. Some were enchanted and repeatedly walked up to the edge, Sisyphus with their souls as stones. Others, luckless, fell in and were irretrievable, entirely mad. There was no way to tell what ailed this boy; he must solve what he could and help Mary. Suddenly, he recalled a story told in a lecture in Paris.
"Mary, what is his Christian name?"
"I think Daniel," she replied promptly. He was sure she knew the Christian name of every man in the place as he knew every wound.
"Daniel, you must listen to me" he began, "Daniel, I know you are struggling, you are ill, but you are wrong. Daniel, you must listen to me—you are not made of lead," he went on.
"You are lying to me!" Jed could tell from Mary's expression that Daniel Lightfoot had tightened his already fierce hold.
"Daniel, listen to me. I am your doctor and your superior officer. I will never lie to you. You are not made of lead. I understand. Your flesh," he paused, unsure how far he meant to go, "Your flesh…"
"Is lead, a bullet, dead—dead- dead!" Daniel exclaimed, the whites of his eyes the brightest part of the room. Jed was shocked no other patient had noticed, but until now, they had spoken in low tones, almost whispered. Mary made a nearly imperceptible moue of distress.
"Daniel, you are right, your flesh has been transformed. But not to lead, never that. Your flesh is butter, so bright and yellow, warm, it is soft, it may melt…" He used the voice a man would use to gentle a wild colt. Daniel appeared to be listening, cocked his head to the right.
"Butter, Daniel, fresh from the dairy, so good, so good, so soft…" Jed lulled.
"Ah." That from Mary, as the two fists fell away from her. She brought her hand close to her bodice, quickly cradled and obscured from view. He wondered how hard it would be to examine her, how much she would resist, how hard he would find it to see just a patient's hand.
"Daniel, you must rest now. We will make sure you are safe. Nurse Hastings will come until you are well." The man seemed convinced, at least for the moment. Jed worried less about Nurse Hastings's safety; her intrinsic self-absorption would protect her from getting too close and her greater experience of acutely ill men would make a more obvious difference in this case. He must make sure that none of the younger nuns were assigned to sit with Private Lightfoot. And he must have someone with him, even through the night, until the storm passed from him or they found a place to send him. That was another problem for another day.
"Come now, Nurse Mary. We must finish our rounds," he said, a hand at her left elbow, guiding her lightly from the room. As they passed into the hallway, he murmured, "Of course, we will go to the study… I must examine your hand before you rest."
"Oh no, that will not be necessary, Dr. Foster." He sensed she was attempting to regain her shaken poise, but he could not let her go unexamined. At best, she might bruise only, but he had seen the strength of the man and the degree of pain in Mary's eyes.
"I must insist, Nurse Mary. And then perhaps, we will find a cup of tea…" He imagined pouring out the cup for her, the steam rising like a reverie towards her soft, red mouth.
They walked to the study. It was a room full of bookcases, with books largely unread. Their dark spines, brown and red and blue, cast the room in gloom on even the brightest of days. It was now later in the day, the light slanting more acutely toward the earth. He gestured toward two armchairs, upholstered in bottle green. She sat, curiously passive, and the dark green behind her set off the milky pallor of her cheeks. She still cradled the right wrist before her.
"Mary, I need to look at your hand." He said, trying to keep his voice low and even. She still had the look about her of a startled fawn. She had been so still so long this day she appeared unable to regain a sense of ease.
"No, no, it's nothing," she demurred.
"Mary," he paused, "Dear Mary, you must let me look at your hand." He would brook no refusal, the physician in him almost offended by her rejection, the man understanding how she wished to pretend the afternoon had never happened. He got up from his chair and knelt before her, reaching out for her hand. Slowly, she untucked her arm from where she had held it close and extended it to him.
Jed took her hand in both of his as carefully as he could. He slid the grey linen sleeve protector off her and rolled the printed cotton of her sleeve up to the crook of her elbow. The skin of her forearm was pale and unblemished. At her wrist, the marks began. They were red, rounded like the pads of fingertips, a terrible bracelet. There was swelling that circled her wrist and extended into the back of her hand. She held her fingers partially curled and he glanced at her before trying to straighten them. She nodded and he proceeded, stopping at the small sound she made that spoke of pain.
"Oh, Mary. I'm sorry to hurt you. Can you move the fingers yourself?" Swelling and bruising would reduce, likely quickly as she was young and healthy. Altered mobility would be a sign of fracture and longer healing; with any luck, she would regain full use of the hand but it would take longer and be much more inconvenient. He looked down and saw she was able to move all her fingers, but very slowly. He noticed her fingers were quite slender, nails trimmed close, and she wore no ring. That was a blessing, he thought, for given the force of Lightfoot's clasp, the ring might have cut her badly as well as broken the phalange and even the joint of the knuckle.
"I think just bruising and swelling—if there is a fracture, it is small, a crack. You would need to rest it and compresses would help. For the pain, that is, there is whisky or… I could get you the morphine." He hated to offer it to her but he hated to withhold it based on his own fears of oblivion. She shook her head.
"Neither, I think. What was wrong with that boy?" Mary asked. He knew both that she was truly concerned about the patient, but also that she wished to deflect his attention from her. He chose to answer, yet still held her hand in his, her palm up.
"I cannot say, not with certainty. Some men—on the field of battle, they break. The body survives but the heart is, is compromised. That is usually what they complain of, a heavy chest or breathing too quickly to catch a breath." He studied the hand in his, the creases feathered, several small calluses present he suspected were new.
"But you said, you aren't sure? What else could it be?" she persisted.
"Mary, there are illnesses we can see but the shadow of, like the flicker of light through the trees. There are men, women too I would guess, whose minds and souls are collapsed? Devastated? They behave strangely, speak in tongues. They believe—like Daniel—they are altered, unreal, that angels speak to them. I had heard a lecture in Paris about Charles VI, he believed he was made of glass; the lecturer also spoke of men who thought they were made of hay or butter, who were afraid they would catch fire or melt. I did not like to tell the man he is anything other than human, but I could not see how he would let you go sooner or without greater force. I was afraid he would harm you more. Mary, why didn't you call for help sooner?" He asked the question that had confounded him since he came upon them.
"At first, I thought he was frightened and only meant to hold my hand a moment. The men often do, especially after a nightmare. Then, when he didn't release me, I believed I could calm him, but he held me only tighter. The more I pulled, the tighter his grasp became. The other men were resting and I knew you would make your rounds soon. I thought it would cause the least disturbance to simply wait, but I am glad you came when you did." She finished, nearly swallowing the last part.
They sat in silence. He thought of how he had felt, the jealousy present but dismissed, the anger and fear for her. Now he was before her on his knees, with her hand in his. The moment had shifted; he was no longer Dr. Foster at all, but only Jedediah and she Mary. The gloom had become an enchantment—the cool air refreshed his heated skin. He looked up into her sweet face, her brow slightly creased and lips parted. With his gaze, he asked more than he could utter, "Mary?"
She only bent her head in the slightest nod. Mindful of her injury, he lowered his mouth to her palm and kissed it. Her skin was warmer now, but not as warm as his lips upon her. He moved to kiss each bruise on her narrow wrist, fingerprints orderly as one of the nun's rosary beads. He wished to gather her in his arms and kiss her upon her parted mouth and let her hair down over them both, but he only pressed kiss after kiss in her palm. Each one was a declaration, a memory he wished to share with her—the hot afternoon on the veranda, the morning of the daffodil, the evening she fed the little stray—every moment his heart had leapt and insisted, this was his love, his only love. He would let there be no past, no future to contend with now.
"Mary, oh sweetest Mary, I love you! I love you so dearly!" He spoke softly but with intensity, not the pure exclamation of youth any longer. The words hung in the air between them until he felt her lift her other hand to his cheek.
He thought she might look downcast, a mournful Madonna, ready to deflect his announcement with talk of honor and renunciation. Instead, she looked at him with a golden gladness, a rare sort of smile on her face. It was, he realized, the smile he'd expected to see on his bride when the pastor allowed them to kiss but Eliza had been prim and contained, a Protestant saint. All of Mary's love was in her face and he knew he could have anything he asked of her, so he considered while her unharmed fingers stroked his cheekbone to his beard. She eased her thumb across his lower lip and he felt the strongest urge to taste her.
"Mary? Can you- do you, love?" He was inarticulate, transfixed by her. Her wide skirts were against his knees and he could feel her legs through the layers of cotton and lace.
"Jedediah, I can not say it. If I do- You are married. There is an end to it. But," she paused again to give him a brilliant smile, "I believe the answer to any question you would ask of me is yes." He had a moment of disbelief. Any question? Her oblique acknowledgement of his love and hers in return was obscured to him as thoughts made questions rushed through him. Would she let him kiss her mouth? Could he hold her in his arms? What would she truly say if he asked to take her to his bed, finally to have a woman beloved, reaching for him, holding him, all he wished for in a wife?
He looked into her dark eyes. He saw what he had seen, her love and desire, her pain forgotten. He knew from the flutter of her breath he could have any yes he wanted. And then he understood what else she was telling him. She trusted him, a man she had nursed from the throes of morphine, the man who argued with her and teased; she trusted him to only ever ask for what would be good for her to give. He saw himself the man he was to her— flawed but strong, kind, protective, worthy in every way. Her hand against his cheek told him he was the object of her total longing. He had always seen Mary as threaded through with steel, but she seemed to have her own glass delusion; he understood she believed he would keep the most fragile parts of her intact. She had made him see the depth of her affection more clearly with her response than any simple "I love you" would have done. He chose to ask the right questions for the day.
"Mary, may I call you Molly?"
"Yes, Jed."
"And, when we are alone, will you always call me Jedediah?"
"Yes, Jedediah."
He paused. He must consider the ramifications of intimacy. She did not trust him so that he might act as her father or guardian but that he would be her partner and friend.
"Jedediah?"
"Yes, dear Molly?"
"This is real. It is not a fairy tale. You do not have only three wishes to ask of me." He heard the cadence of his questions and saw her amusement. The color had come back to her and her injured hand lay more easily in his, even as the bruising grew darker.
"Yes, well, then. Shall I get you that promised cup of tea then?" He stood as she nodded, knees creaking a bit. He was no longer a young man but he was thankful now for his age. He bent briefly beside her before he left the room to kiss her smooth white forehead, to stroke the curve of her cheek with his thumb.
Today, it would be enough to bring back her cup of tea and watch her drink it. To know that she was Molly now, not only Mary or Nurse Phinney. Tomorrow would do for Lightfoot—time a cure or the asylum beckoned. God, or the universe—who could say?—had a peculiar sense of humor and Jed remembered that California's climate was salubrious, but not for the longevity of marriages. Eliza had deployed this information, somewhat desperately, as evidence of the cosmopolitan modernity they would be inhabiting. Jed worried a little about Mary's response to any separation, but consoled himself that a Yankee Abolitionist could be expected to be in favor of emancipation. Now, he walked a little more quickly; his Mary was waiting for her tea.