Chapter 11

When Davey returns to the apartment that evening, accompanied, this time, by his mother, sister, and an insistent Les, he finds Katherine, Crutchie, and Jack all huddled together on the bed. The sight is almost comical, Jack, almost a foot taller than both of them, sandwiched between them in the first peaceful sleep Davey's seen him in all day. Crutchie is sprawled on his front, crutch abandoned on the floor, with one thin arm slung over Jack's chest, a veil of protective instinct. Jack's head is nestled on Katherine's stomach, carefully orientated so that that the soft fabric of her dress doesn't press against and irritate his wounds. The delicate fingers, still tangled in Jack's curls, suggest that she was stroking his hair when they all fell asleep.

"Oh." Sarah lets out a soft gasp, her hands coming up to cover her mouth as her eyes scan the horrendous extent of Jack's injuries.

Esther shushes her, requests various supplies of her children and, once they're out the room, bustles over to the bedside, shaking both Crutchie and Katherine awake. Crutchie sits up, bleary-eyed, as is soon persuaded to retire to his own bedroom, having been assured several times that should Jack's condition change even slightly that he will be woken at once. Katherine, however, is more difficult to remove. Having ushered Crutchie out, Esther turns to Katherine, who is just staring down at the boy in her lap. Esther's brisk demeanour softens as she wanders over and squeezes Katherine's shoulder.

"You should go home and get some rest."

"I don't want to leave him." Katherine blinks up at her and Esther is painfully reminded of her own feelings when Mayer was injured.

"I'll send Les to get you if anything changes –"

"But –"

"Katherine – it is Katherine, right?" Esther asks, perching on the bed beside Katherine. The younger woman nods, dropping her gaze to Jack's bloodied face in her lap. "I'll make sure he's okay. I'll treat him like he's one of my own." Just seeing him lying there, so much like her Aaron, he might as well be her own. She squeezes Katherine's shoulder again, trying to provide what meagre comfort she can. "It sounds like you need to have a conversation with your father anyhow."

Katherine can't believe she's forgotten how this all started – how she started this all off by giving Jack that stupid book. She nods slowly and stands to gather her things.

Esther watches her slope out of the room, sees the final backward glance at Jack's sleeping form, and wants desperately to say something, to offer some comfort to the woman. Comfort isn't easy to come across these days, it seems. She stays silent. Katherine leaves.

On the bed, Jack stirs, as if he can sense the loss of her presence, as if Katherine's absence is itself a presence, something hollow and disturbing, looming over his trembling frame. It's enough to bring Esther's attention back to him. She has to hand it to Katherine and the boys, they've done their best to take care of him and even she has to admit that there's little she can do. The fever will get worse no matter what she does. Her eyes light on his wrist, the joint's unnatural twist barely disguised by the grubby bandage that she had wrapped around it just a few days ago. He hasn't been taking care of himself properly. When did he ever?

"Mother?" Esther turns to see Sarah hovering in the doorway, her eyes fixed not on the woman she addresses, but the man on the bed.

"Come in; set it down here." Esther tells her, the firmness of her tone enough to snap her daughter into action. Sarah enters, in her arms a wide, shallow bowl of cold water, a cloth draped over the side, and she sets it down beside the bed.

Esther crosses the room, business-like, and begins, with gentle fingers reddened from years of work, to unwind the bandages that span Jack's torso. He shifts in his sleep, flinching from her touch as her fingers brush across the swollen purple bruises that decorate his abdomen in a garish pattern. When she exposes the wound, or rather, wounds – the bottle had pierced his side in more than one place – it's difficult not to wince with vicarious pain at the sight; swollen, angry, bleeding.

As she finishes redressing it, Jack's eyes blink slowly open, clouded by fever, glassy and unfocused.

"Mrs. Jacobs?" He croaks.

"How're you feeling Jack?" She smiles a bit, stroking his hair back from his sweaty forehead. His guard down, Jack keens into her palm like a cat, relishing the gentle touch.

"Like shit." He grumbles, his eyes starting to drop closed before snapping open wide, flitting between Esther and Sarah. "Shit. I's sorry, I shouldn't 'a sworn in front o' a lady."

"It's alright, Jack." A smile tugs at the corners of the woman's mouth.

"I needs you to do somethin' fo' me." He coughs.

"What might that be?"

"There's some money between some drawin's under the bed. I's savin' for a ring fo' Kath."

Well. Esther looks down at the young man on the bed and marvels once again at him. She will never, ever, no matter what story Davey and Les come back full of on any particular day, understand this boy. He's dying. And he's not thinking about himself.

"That's wonderful, Jack." She says softly. It's like he doesn't hear it.

"'F I don't – 'f I don't make it-"

"Jack –" She interrupts, seeing her daughters eyes widen as she scurries out of the room.

"No, I ain't stupid." Jack forces his eyes open and props himself up on one elbow with strength he didn't even know he still had. "'F I don't make it, I needs you to take that money. I needs you to show it to Kath. I needs her to know I's serious 'bout wantin' to marry her. An' then I wants you to use it to help Crutchie." Esther stares at him in disbelief as he looks up at her through hooded, fever hazed eyes, clutching his ribs as if his own arm wrapped around himself is the only thing keeping him from falling completely to pieces. "He ain't got nobody. You needs to look after him for me."

"Jack –"

"Please." He sounds tired. Defeated.

"Of course." She confirms, leaning down and helping to ease him back down onto the mattress. He winces, but doesn't complain even when she perches next to him and cards her fingers through his hair.

"Thanks." He mutters, eyes closed, already slipping back into that burning, feverish sleep. Then he adds: "Mrs. Jacobs?"

"Mm?"

She continues to stroke his head. Looking down at him, she's reminded of Aaron. Tears well in her eyes at the thought of the little boy she'd lost. He'd looked so much like Jack, with his dark curly hair and his easy smile. Her perfect firstborn. In his little coffin, he'd looked even more like Jack now, pale and drawn. She almost doesn't hear him when he mumbles:

"I wish my mama 'ad been like you."

…

By the time Katherine lets herself into the Pulitzer family home, it's almost ten in the evening. She knows that her father will be in his study. So, that's where she goes.

She doesn't bother to knock on the tall, oaken door. Such behaviour, she knows, is the height of rudeness to her father and, somehow, she doesn't feel like being very polite. She pushes it open with no warning, the brass knob slamming into wall on the other side.

"How could you?" It's less of a question, more of a snarl. Behind her, the door slams closed.

Behind his mahogany, bridge-like desk, Joseph Pulitzer looks up at her over the gold rims of his glasses. The ornate golden desk lamp throws his face into peculiar shadows, the deep lines carved into the stone of his forehead cut even deeper in the low light. He leans back in the plush leather chair and removes the cigar from between his lips, looking his daughter up and down like a wild animal examining its opponent. Here, in the study with the green patterned wallpaper, they are in the jungle.

"Katherine." Tapping the ash from his cigar, he places it down on the intricately engraved ashtray on his desk and reaches up to remove his wiry spectacles, carefully folding them away.

"Don't you Katherine me!" She snaps. "How could you do such a thing?"

"I assume you're referring to that distasteful business with Mr. Kelly." He says, the sentence unrushed and leisurely.

"Distasteful? Distasteful? Jack is dying!" She spits, stalking over to the desk and slamming her palms down on the green baize top.

"Katherine, really, don't be so hyperbolic."

"You think I'm being hyperbolic?" In the face of his calmness, Katherine lowers her voice from its prior shrillness and into something dark and dangerous. "Do you have any idea what those men did to him?"

"The Delanceys merely reclaimed my property for me. Mr. Kelly should be thankful that I didn't have him charged with theft."

The man is painfully casual, looking at Katherine like she is a cat pawing at a ball of wool. There's a hint of amusement there, but it's something dry, something wry, hiding in the edges of his pupils, hidden by a scientific disinterest. Katherine realises, for the first time, that the way her father looks at her is not, has never been, loving or even fond. It's appraisal. Like she's just another one of his employees. Dispensable. She hasn't met her goals this quarter.

"I lent him the book." She says, squeezing her eyes closed and her hands into fists on the desktop.

"I am aware. The book was not yours to lend." Pulitzer takes another long drag from his cigar.

"You had that library put together for our education." Her eyes snap open, a challenge.

Between thick fingers, studded with signet rings, her father twirls his thoughtful cigar. The action is suddenly and inexplicably infuriating and before she can even think it through, Katherine snatches it from his fingers and stubs it out on the ashtray with considerable venom. In the process, the smouldering end presses into the centre of her palm. It's painful, but somehow grounding. She resists her instinct to flinch, reminding herself of the similar marks which litter Jack's back beneath the purple bruises. He looks at her with a twinge of irritation.

"Yes, your education, yours and your siblings, not for some street urchin to sit in my parlour and quote texts he doesn't understand at my dinner party guests." Katherine doesn't even know how to respond to that. "I hope that his unemployment will put an end to the unladylike way you have been carrying on with him, Katherine. I fear I have indulged-"

Wait. Katherine's mind, racing with ways to win a point in this high stakes match, screeches to a grinding halt.

"Unemployment?"

"Oh, has he not yet informed you?" For the first time in the exchange, a smug little smile flits across her father's lips. "How... interesting. The Delanceys delivered the news to him – I will not tolerate having thieves under my employment."

Thieves. The categorisation bounces around the inside of her skull like the echoes of worker's voices in a railroad tunnel.

"You fired him?" The question is barely audible.

"You can hardly be surprised, Katherine. I am, however, surprised that he didn't tell you – perhaps he doesn't care for you quite as much as you suspected."

She knows that he's trying to get under her skin, but that doesn't mean that the jibe rattles her any less. What if he didn't trust her? What if he didn't love her the same way she loved him? He certainly hadn't said it back when she'd told him – that night at the window when she'd made the stupidest mistake of her life, giving him that book. But – oh. She can't believe she missed it, too wrapped up in her worry for him. He had told her that he loved her. He'd told her that very day, in his short spell of lucidity when she'd arrived. 'M sorry I's screwed up. I love you. He loves her. I love you. Sure, he had a raging fever, but. I love you.

"He didn't tell me," she retorts, "because he is laying in bed dying of an infection. An infection which he got as a result of your cronies stabbing him in the side with a broken bottle."

"That is unfortunate, but hardly a result of my actions." Her father's expression doesn't change. Katherine splutters.

"Hardly a – I don't – I can't even look at you right now."

She turns away, throwing her hands up. How could he be so callous? Jack and he, they were enemies, but this? This was too much. Too much.

"Believe me, the feeling is mutual." Katherine turns on her heel to find her father rising from his chair and turning his back on her. Even after so many years of such treatment, the rejection is sharp and piercing. A stab in the gut. A bottle in the side. "I do hope that you have not been in that boy's bedroom in your misguided attempts to care for him, Katherine. I have tolerated your indiscretions long enough, but if I find out –"

"Of course I have!" She interrupts, half laughing though there's no amusement in it.

Pulitzer turns back to face her, something flashing in his eyes. Finally. Katherine can't help but feel a sick sense of satisfaction at cracking his cold exterior. There's vindication in it, knowing that she's lit the flame of anger lurking in his gaze, that her 'indiscretions' infuriate him so. The feeling is dulled by the knowledge that the concern is not for her wellbeing, but for his own reputation, but she's had years to get used to that. She's got under his skin. That's all that matters.

"Katherine-" He slams his fist into the desk as she had done just moments before.

"I sat in that room and I stroked his hair and held him while he shook with fevered nightmares thanks to what you did to him! Do you know what that room was like? It was barren. No sheets on the bed, couldn't even afford clean bandages 'cause you pay him half of what you pay the other illustrators and even that's more than he's had in his life. He forked out for a two bedroom apartment because that boy you had sent to the refuge? He's a cripple and Jack wanted him to have somewhere warm to stay so his leg doesn't get worse. And if he dies, then it's going to be your fault!" It all comes out in one breath, no pause. She sucks in a second one, quite prepared to continue, but he's shouting out her, matching her angry tone for the first time.

"I will not tolerate you speaking to me like this-"

"What are you going to do about it?" It's almost a taunt. "Lock me up? I have a career, Father. A life! A man who, if he survives, wants to be my husband-"

Pulizter's visage darkens, his aging, greying skin moving through shades of red until it settles on a vivid purple undertone. It's angry, swollen, like the bruises that stretch across Jack's upper body. He stalks around the desk and grabs her arm, not caring for the similar bruises that will form there as a result of his tight grip.

"That boy will marry you over my dead body-" He snarls down at her, but she raises her eyes to meet his gaze and wrenches her arm from his grip.

"And I will never forgive you over his."

Katherine manages to get out of the study and halfway up the stairs before she begins sobbing.

…

The next morning is church, but Katherine isn't feeling very Christian. Her father is, of course, Jewish, but her mother isn't and has remained insistent since they were children on dragging the entire brood of them to church on a Sunday morning. Her father comes along, though she's never known why. It's not like he knows anything about love and forgiveness. She joins her family at the base of the stairs, where they all wait for her mother. Katherine knows that her father is trying to catch her eye, but whatever it is he wants to say, she doesn't want to hear it. She busies herself with straightening the Edith's collar and licks her thumb to wipe a smudge of raspberry jam off Constance's cheek. The girl squirms away from Katherine, weakly protesting the gesture.

She finds herself seated opposite her father in the carriage, but she makes a point of staring determinedly out of the window. Ralph is the only one who speaks to her, asking if she is feeling quite well, and she replies that she just feels a little nauseous. Two minutes of uncomfortable silence later, he enquires after her bandaged hand. Katherine looks down at it, almost surprised to see the white fabric wrapped around her gloveless hand. She slips her delicate white silk gloves back on over it and makes a dismissive remark about burning it.

Annie had been kind, the night before. Knocking on her door with an I'm sure it's none o' my business, Miss, but is there anything I can do for you? Katherine had allowed her to clean the wound and wrap her hand in a snowy bandage, all the while wondering if things would have been different had she been around to do the same for Jack. If she hadn't have invited him to that dinner, if she hadn't have given him that book, might he have come to her after the Delanceys had hurt him? Might she have been able to care for his wounds, clean them and bandage them? Might she have been able to prevent all of this?

The carriage stops. She shakes her head, willing herself out of her reverie. Such wonderings wouldn't help Jack now. They enter the church, making polite conversation with other wealthy families just like them. Katherine wonders that they don't sense the hypocrisy of it all.

When the minister reaches the sermon, he steps up into the pulpit and starts talking about forgiveness. Katherine, seated (intentionally) at the opposite end of the pew from her father, shoots a glance over at him. He stares stoically ahead. Katherine wonders if he even hears it. If he even cares. When they kneel down to pray, she prays for Jack.

When they finally emerge from the church, after a painfully long service throughout which Katherine feels incredibly guilty for having her thoughts, despite attempting to turn them heavenward, focused completely on her boyfriend, she sets off at a determined pace.

"Katherine, where are you going? The carriage is parked over here!" Her mother calls out to her, admonishing. Katherine turns on her heel but continues walking backwards as she responds.

"I've got a call to make. Don't expect me home for dinner!" She tries to sound cheerful, turning back around. Yet, before she's made it even a few paces further, she feels a hand on her shoulder.

"Katherine, I will not abide this." Her father warns her, turning her to face him and looking down at her, the very picture of sternness.

Pursing her lips in annoyance, she rolls her shoulder out of his grip.

"Whose dead body is it going to be, Father?"

…

When she arrives, it's just Esther and Sarah in the kitchen. With Davey and Les having gone home; to get some rest, Esther tells her; she suddenly feels more uncomfortable than she would have expected. Esther's dark eyes are kindly and maternal as she offers her a cup of coffee, but Sarah's bore into her like a drill, looking her up and down as if trying to figure out what exactly it is that she's doing there. Katherine's skin prickles, half discomfort and half ruffled. All she wants is to march straight through to Jack's room, but objectively there's no rush and her father was right about one thing: this would affect her reputation. So, she removes her silk gloves and offers to help make the coffee.

Jack, according to the Jacobs, is not doing well. His fever had eased a little overnight but was raging when they checked on him that morning and was continuing to build. Apparently Dr. Graceton had called on them while she was at church – and doesn't she just curse herself for missing his visit – and told them that Jack's fever would likely end, for better or worse, at some point that night. It is a waiting game. She drinks coffee with Esther and a sullen Sarah, both of whom intermittently work on darning various items of clothing in between sips, for what she judges to be a respectable amount of time before rising and thanking them. Katherine wonders what they must think of her, as she wanders through into Jack's room, what they think, as they darn socks and shirts, of the high society lady before them who wouldn't know where to start with the mending but who was embroidering samplers at the age of six. Then she wonders whether, when her and Jack get married, if he will expect her to be able to do such things. Goodness knows she'd make a terrible housewife. She dismisses the thought as quickly as it arrives. She'll cross that bridge when she comes to it.

When she walks in, she first sees Crutchie, laid on his side with both arms wrapped tightly around a shaking Jack. Her heart breaks a little more.

"Hey." She whispers, picking her way across the creaky floorboards as she goes round the other side of the bed.

"Hey." Crutchie looks up, turning a little red. "He… he was havin' his usual nightmares, I think. Didn't wan' him hurtin' hisself no more when he's flailin' about."

"That's sweet of you." Katherine nods, perching on the side of the bed and leaning over to glance at Jack's face, drawn tight and covered with a sheen of sweat. "Does he have nightmares often?" She doesn't think she wants to know the answer. She asks anyway.

"All the time." Crutchie says, looking down at Jack too. "I means, all's us do, but Jack gets 'em bad. 'S why he sleeps in his penthouse, 'cos he don't want to wake the little'uns wi' his screamin'."

Katherine nods, solemnly. How is this the man she loves, she wonders, staring down at him. How can she love him when he refuses to share all of this pain with her? She shakes her head, only to herself though, and vows that if – when, she forces herself to think, when – he comes out of this, she will shoulder his burden. He has taken so much of hers away. It's about time she returned the favour.

"About the Refuge?" She forces herself to ask. Her brain is screaming at her that she doesn't want to know, but she has to. She has to understand.

"Mainly." Crutchie nods, not meeting her eyes. "Sometimes jus' about some beatin' he's gotten. He didn't jus' get those in the Refuge. He don't talk 'bout his old man much, but I think he screwed Jack up 'fore he was even on the streets."

Katherine nods. Waits. Thinks.

"I know that you're mad at me for what my father did, Crutchie." She says, finally.

"Oh." Crutchie doesn't meet her eyes.

He looks guiltily down between his body and Jack's, but there's no pleasure in his reaction for Katherine. She should be the one feeling ashamed, she knows. She doesn't know quite what to say.

"I'm sorry;" is what she finally settles for, then adds, "he's a – a scabber."

"That's fo' sure." Crutchie snorts quietly.

"I told him so."

Crutchie nods, quietly impressed. A pause.

"D'you wanna gimme a hand holdin' 'im still?" He reddens again, shrugging a little. Katherine doesn't laugh at him though. She knows an olive branch when she hears one. "'S jus' when he kicked out in 'is sleep before, he caught my bum leg."

"Sure." She nods, lowering herself down to sandwich Jack's scalding frame between them, feeling his trembling.

"Katherine?" Crutchie asks wetly, meeting her eyes over the curve of Jack's jaw with his big brown ones.

"Yes?"

"D'you think he's gonna die?" The question nearly breaks her.

She realises, suddenly, just how young Crutchie is, too. He's fifteen. He should be in school. He should be running around with Herbert on the cricket field, not lying on a bare mattress with a bum leg worrying about his big brother dying.

"I don't know, Crutchie." Her answer nearly breaks them both.

They stay like that for a long time, holding Jack as his sleep becomes less peaceful, more fevered. They hold him as nightmares plague him and he lashes out and cries out in pain. It only gets worse as the morning wears on into afternoon, the afternoon into evening.

People come in and go out like they're on a conveyor belt. The boys from the lodgehouse show up at some point. Race shushes the little ones. They don't understand. Some of them, like Karl, try to climb up into bed beside Jack, try to wake him up. Each of the Jacobs poke their heads around the door. Jack gets worse.

As it nears midnight, Katherine repeatedly tenses and relaxes her arm, trying to shake out the pins and needles without letting go of Jack. She knows it's silly, but she wonders if she lets go of him if she might never catch hold of him again. Her impossible boy.

"I don't know what I'd do wi'out him." Crutchie whispers.

"Me neither."

...

Author's Note: Merry Christmas! I hope this chapter is present enough, though it's not particularly uplifting. I would, however, be interested to hear your thoughts on Katherine's interactions with the other characters, particularly her father, in this chapter, if you fancy leaving a review.

In the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and manage to spend time with your families despite the current circumstances. I am amazed each year by God's grace and glory in sending his son to save us and how I see glimpses of his grace in all the people around me during this season. Whether you are a Christian or not, I hope that you too can feel the love of Jesus both directly and in the people around you this year. Much love xxx