Left Me Creased

Just a few weeks before now Richard might have waited, might have lied to Jimmy to spare his feelings about Mr. Thompson; but the words meet a nice girl had burrowed into him and were keeping time with his heartbeat no matter what his friend to erase them. So when Mickey Doyle, with his sputtering laugh abruptly cut by his neck brace, neighed that "The Irish chippy's kid was in the hospital with polio," Richard's voice became so uncharacteristically loud that even Jimmy seemed to look at him—really see him—for the first time in weeks.

"Hngh. Emily. Her name. Is Emily."

"Who cares?" quipped Doyle, putting on his hat. The image of his windmilling limbs hitting the white cloth of the table gave Richard a little peace. With the same part of his brain that could fire his Smith and Wesson into the face of a twelve year old boy, he got up from the sofa with the unyielding joints of an automaton and told Jimmy he had to leave, vaguely feeling the other man calling his name like a bullet in the shoulder as he raced down the steps. Tonight couldn't be about Jimmy or Nucky or liquor or the war swirling just over all their heads.

He ran. He ran harder and faster even then he'd run after the dog in the woods, cursing, for the first time he realized, that his half-dark world wouldn't let him drive a car. Somehow, after a time, he found himself in a white, white hallway and recognized the coldness and the sterile smell with its hint of blood. There were more people calling, demanding to know his business, but he could not bring himself to stop. He couldn't waste time waiting for his stupid mouth to speak to them. His feet wouldn't let him stop.

Then he collided with her eyes.

He saw that she had been sitting there for days. Her hair was half undone, the plum fabric of her dress crumpled and matching the bruised circles under her eyes. The lips she had always kept a tender shade of rose were bloodless as the rest of her face. She had taken off her pearls and was winding and winding them around her shaking hands like a rosary. Suddenly Richard had absolutely no idea what to say to her. He reached up to take off his hat and realized that it had fallen off somewhere en route. His hand flexed itself helplessly in the air before dropping. Then involuntarily his throat hummed and her head snapped toward the sound. He turned as red as she was pale.

"Mister Harrow?"

He watched a hundred emotions play across her face, struck by its openness as he had been in the living room that night when the words had come tumbling out of him. He saw surprise, confusion, panic, utter total exhaustion, and finally relief. She was glad to see him. He felt something in his chest, like when you click the safety off a Colt.

"Ma'am." He had always had difficulty with saying Mrs. Schroeder. "I came. As soon as I. Heard."

He forced himself to take a few steps toward her and forced himself not to reach out and touch. She mouthed: "Thank you," her voice useless as his.

"Hm. Why is. No one here with you?"

There would have been judgment in his voice if he could have still managed intonation, judgment against Nucky Thompson, the doctors and nurses. He knew not who.

"Mr. Thompson is in Ireland burying his father." Margaret's voice was raspy from God knows how long without sleep. "He's taken—"

She cut off abruptly, her eyes going wide before him.

"There's…there's no one else."

I'll stay. He didn't have to say it. She let out a shaking breath, making a helpless gesture with her hands towards the door with its black word. Richard, after yanking his gaze away from her, went to the door like a string was pulling him. Looking in at the rows of tiny white beds he picked out Emily's curly head instantly. Even through the thick glass he could hear one child coughing raggedly. Several of them were crying. Emily slept sound as an angel.

His mind swerved suddenly. And the children's faces morphed into the broken bodies of a hundred young men in a white place just like this one. Richard felt the cold of doctors' hands and the cold of morphine cut through only by hot screams that severed down to the bone. It was only much later that he realized some of them must have been his own.

These kinds of places were not meant for boys to become men, not for little girls who dreamed of silver shoes. Was it all just war dressed up in different skins? He had lost Emma, lost himself, was losing Jimmy and now Margaret might lose this precious child. Richard came back to the present by way of the feeling of the wall he placed his head a little too hard against. He wanted to bang against it again and again until his skull split open like fruit. Suddenly out of his mouth there came a few strangled, inarticulate sounds that were not sobs because he had no tears left to shed. He heard the shattered thing that wasn't his voice gasp out:

"Why. Is this. Happening."

"Because I have brought it upon us."

His head whipped back toward her. She was standing a few feet away from him now, her eyes jeweled with tears.

"God is punishing Emily because of something I have done. He knows I don't care what happens to me. But my baby—my baby!"

She began to sob, loud and ugly, so hard she couldn't breathe. The closest thing he could compare it to was the feeling of shrapnel. Somehow then he was entirely supporting her, her tears soaking his shirt. He had gone forward or she had fallen or both. With his automaton joints he put his arms around her and found the way they fit together, resting his chin on top of her hair while her weeping shook his body like a bombing raid.

"My sins," she kept howling. "My sins, my sins. Richard, it's all my fault."

"It's not true," he said. He wanted to say, because there is no God. And if there is I hate Him. He wanted to say, Hush…hush, Margaret, but his mouth hated the softer sounds. So he found himself repeating:

"Don't. Don't, ma'am. Don't."

And hoping—not praying—that she understood the rest.