Grace's Pictures (22 page)

She stared at him a moment, not seeing the thin, sandy-haired American, but her father, angry, red-faced, eyes afire.
“Another blunder, lass! Is there nothing ya can do right?”

Sucking in her breath, she nodded and left the room.
Don’t listen.
She held her fists over her ears as she walked.
God, am I important? To you?

Perhaps her worth was measured by someone with more authority and power than George Parker or her father.

Alice Parker lay in the dark room, softly groaning. Mrs. Wallace stood when Grace entered. She wrung her hands. “I really must be getting home now.”

“Oh, aye, please.” Grace backed away from the door. “Thank you kindly, Mrs. Wallace.”

“I’m happy to help, although no one from this family ever asks. Come get me, Grace, whenever you need something.”

“You are generous. We will get along fine now, Mrs. Wallace.”

“Yes. Well, God bless.” She turned slightly toward the bed, her brow wrinkled. Then she left, shutting the door behind her.

Grace checked. Mrs. Parker was sleeping. Grace darted up to the playroom to see the children and found Mr. Parker there, playing checkers with Hazel. He looked surprised.

“Oh, I forgot to ask if I should start the evening meal.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible, Grace, when you are to keep a constant watch over Mrs. Parker. If she gets worse, call for me and I’ll hail the doctor. Do you understand?”

“But the children’s supper . . . ?”

“Is there cold meat in the icebox?”

“There is.”

“I will take care of my children, Grace. Please do as I asked now.”

Four sets of eyes glared at her. Were they safe with him? “I’ll just be . . . uh . . . Come get me if you need me. Any of you.”

“Go, Grace.”

She didn’t want to risk having him raise his voice any more in front of the children, but she also didn’t want to sit sentry while Alice Parker awaited the birth of her fourth child. Grace was no midwife and didn’t care to be one. “Shall I call Widow Brown? Surely she’s back now from her other delivery.”

He rose and stepped out into the hall. “We shall not alarm the children any more than need be. Mrs. Parker wants only the doctor and we’ll grant her wishes.”

“But the doctor is so busy. He might not get back in time.”

“You let me worry about that. All she needs now is you.”
He took a step toward her, effectively ushering her back toward the mistress’s side.

Grace talked as she walked backward. “There are crackers in a tin in the scullery and some apples too.”

“Thank you, Grace.”

Alice Parker’s face had turned deadly white. She still breathed but didn’t speak. Grace wished Mrs. Wallace had stayed. Grace had counted at least five children roaming in and out of the hall in the Wallace house when they had spoken at the front door. She would know what to do. Grace was not the right person for this. She didn’t know anything.

Grace moved closer. Mrs. Wallace had changed some of the bedclothes and pulled Alice Parker’s hair away from her face with a green bandanna.

Suddenly Mrs. Parker wailed and rolled onto her side. She pressed the heel of one hand to her back.

“Your back? Your back hurts?”

No answer.

Grace rolled a towel and wedged it behind the woman, and she seemed to ease.

You are able.

Grace waited.

And paced.

And counted the hours chiming away on the clock.

At long last when the clock struck ten, loud footsteps erupted from the stairs outside the room. The door opened and someone pulled the chain to light up the room. The doctor and Mr. Parker hurried toward the bed.

“How is she, Grace?” Mr. Parker reached for his wife’s hand.

“Wait outside, George.” The doctor practically pushed him out. “We will keep you updated.”

Grace told the doctor about Mrs. Parker’s apparent back pain.

“It’s the position of the baby.” He lifted the sheets at the bottom of the bed and examined with one hand, modestly keeping his eyes focused on some spot on the far wall.

The woman tensed and cried out.

“Now, now, Alice,” the doctor said. “We’ve been through this before. This baby’s just being a little cantankerous. We’ll convince him to turn.”

Grace stared at the bespectacled man. “Isn’t Mrs. Parker asleep? I mean, because of the chloroform?”

“Delirious. She’ll hear me. I’ll need my forceps. The baby’s moved down now but needs assistance. In my bag there.”

Grace followed his gaze to a carpetbag he’d left on the chair near the door. Inside she found bottles, capped needles, miscellaneous objects she couldn’t identify, and one large mechanical article. She pulled it out.

“Bring it here now. I’ve determined the malpresentation.”

Her hands shook as she held up the metal instrument. Was he going to . . . ?

“Now, girl!”

She rushed over and handed it to him.

“Get some clean cloths. We’re going to pull this child out. Bring me my knife. I’m going to cut her to allow a smoother exit for the baby through the birth canal.”

“What?”

He swore. “I’m not going to open her up, just make a cut. Why did my nurse have to visit her son’s family and leave me with an incompetent Irish maid? Holiday? I never get a holiday. She’s been away two whole weeks now.” He rose and grabbed his bag. “Babies don’t care about holidays—Christmas or any other.”

Grace felt like she was about to faint or lose the contents of her stomach or both. She grabbed a stack of towels Mrs. Wallace must have readied and positioned herself at Mrs. Parker’s head so she would not have to witness what the doctor was doing.

“Yes. That’s good. Hold on to her shoulders, Grace.”

Finally something she could do. The mistress’s head dropped limp against Grace’s collarbone. Grace held her against the doctor’s pull and then, finally, the babe cried out. He passed the shivering, bloody baby to Grace after he clipped the umbilical cord. She quickly wrapped the baby in towels as he continued working on Mrs. Parker. Grace tried to coo to the baby. She dipped a cloth in a bowl of washing water and dabbed at his eyes and mouth. A pink, fat boy. Eventually the baby relaxed and she held him tight, thinking the naked child must be cold.

After some time the doctor took the child from Grace, and she worked at changing the drowsy woman and her sheets the best she could. When Alice Parker was snug and sleeping, the doctor handed the baby back to Grace. “Nicely done.”

She hadn’t messed up. Even the doctor thought she’d done well. A feeling of light rushed over her. She wasn’t stupid, simple, or even incapable. She had helped with a birth and now held a new baby fresh from the hand of God, kissed by heaven.

Grace looked at the bundle in her arms. Sweet as the wee one was, there was something odd about his head. “Doctor, isn’t his head shaped odd, though?”

He rubbed his weary eyes. “A tough birth, but he came through fine. Big lad, nine pounds likely. I’ll bring my scales by tomorrow.”

“But his head . . .”

He blew out a breath. “An infant’s head is pliable, has to be
to pass through the birth canal. It will regain its shape. Now see that the baby nurses just as soon as Alice awakes, which won’t be long now. Take care that she stays warm and get her to drink some broth just as soon as possible. She’s had a tough time of it. She’s the one you should be concerned about.”

Grace started to go with him to the door and then stopped, realizing she had the baby.

“I’ll see myself out and find Mr. Parker. Good night.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

He turned, a surprised expression blanketing his face.

“I mean, thank you for helping Mrs. Parker. She surely needed you.”

He smiled. “I appreciate that, Grace.” He twisted his neck. “I do sometimes feel as though folks don’t appreciate my efforts. Kind of you to mention it.” He nodded toward Mrs. Parker. “She needs you now. Good night again.”

Grace sat in a chair next to the fireplace with the baby in her arms. Oh, the power of a kind word. She would try that on the Parkers later.
“A soft answer turneth away wrath.”
While Mrs. Hawkins had said her husband had spoken those words, they actually came from the Bible, she said. And it did seem like something Reverend Clarke would endorse.

She glanced down at the sleeping babe. “Oh, Douglas. What odd parents you have, laddie.” She smiled when she thought about his name. “Thankfully you are himself. If you’d been a lassie, you would have had a more evident tree name. Douglas is a proper name for a lad.”

The baby slept. The mother slept. Grace fought to keep her eyes open.

Sometime later, Grace woke to Alice Parker calling her name. “Let me see my baby.”

Grace went to the cradle, where she’d laid Douglas and brought him to her.

“A boy?”

“Yes, ma’am. A healthy boy.”

The woman sighed and then worked at getting the baby to nurse. She looked up at Grace with droopy eyes. “You know, Grace, when I was younger, I thought I could grow children like I grew a garden.” She laughed. “But plants are silent. They don’t complain. You can just look at them and see how beautiful they are.”

Grace went over and touched Douglas’s downy head. “He is beautiful.”

Mrs. Parker made a face as though the baby was hurting her.

“Are you all right, ma’am?”

“Yes.” She lifted her neck and Grace hurried to put a pillow behind it. “Grace, light the lamp and bring me that Burpee catalog. I want to show you how to order the coralbells.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

20

IN THE WEE HOURS OF CHRISTMAS MORNING,
Owen and Jake headed toward a dive where the Dusters hung out. They had not mentioned their plan to Nicholson or to the kids in the park. The fewer who knew where they were staking out the gang, the better. The walls had ears.

Jake dropped a banana peel on a pile of garbage at the curb. It did not take long for a rat to scramble out of the shadows and claim it. The sanitation department was supposedly cleaning up the streets of New York. Not in this neighborhood.

“Got a new informant,” Jake said. “A new lad. Colin.”

“Think you can trust the kid?”

They walked on together, dodging factory workers preparing to report for duty at the fish processing plant nearby. These men, like them, did not have the holiday off.

“Comes from St. Patrick’s school over by the headquarters.”

“So?”

“So the day shift says we can use him.”

Owen halted. Jake took a few more strides before he realized Owen wasn’t moving. “I know what you’re thinking, Owen. Don’t trouble yourself.”

“Don’t trouble myself? Jake, you know as well as I do half the cops in the station are crooked. What if Big Bill hears about
this? This kid—If it’s not a noose, he probably wants a big payoff.”

“Right. Half. Half are
not
crooked. I checked. The fellas I talked to got no love for Big Bill.”

“Not that we know of.”

“Hey, I ain’t no rookie. The patrolmen I talked to come from my old precinct. I know them.”

“Fair enough. Half are not crooked. The other half love a good joke . . . or a bad one.”

Jake pointed his lunch tin at him. “I scared the socks off the kid. He won’t double-cross us.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Owen gave his pocket a tap and felt the heavy lump of the silver pocket watch, his constant reminder of why he did what he did. Owen pulled the watch from his pocket and told Jake what the hour was.

“Ten more minutes and they’ll rush out of there.” Jake pointed to a pair of brightly lit windows glowing from the gray buildings like a beacon. Piano music and laughter pierced what was probably a peaceful evening for most civilized folks, who by now would be sleeping or returning home from midnight Mass.

“If only the Dusters kept a solid headquarters. Our boys run them out of one place and they set up another. We got a tough job, Jakey.”

“Don’t I know it.”

As he crouched, hand on the .32 at his belt, Owen could not help but think about the contrasts within the city. Uptown folks dined on delicacies served atop a crisp linen tablecloth. Women donned feather-plumed hats. Men sported diamond pins on their coat lapels. He knew that life well. Just a short distance
away, here he was kneeling in a grimy gutter and preparing to follow the lead dog of a vice-infested gang to the nest of its leader and arrest him.

“This would be a whole lot easier if we knew what Goo Goo looked like,” he told his partner.

“Crying shame there’s no picture of him on the mug shot wall. Makes our job all the harder.”

They had spent a lot of time running down rabbit holes because they didn’t have a clear idea of who they were looking for. “Well, Jakey, eventually all the worker bees return to the hive. Maybe tonight’s the night.”

“Come on,” Jake called.

Owen looked up to see a fellow galloping down the steps of the house toward them, his unbuttoned overcoat flapping in the breeze. Owen crossed to the opposite side of the street as Jake trailed behind the man. They headed east, away from the docks. Either the hideout was camouflaged or they were being led on a goose chase.

The fellow turned the corner onto Centre and approached the open area politicians dubbed Mulberry Park. There were no lights there. Owen used only his somatic sense to estimate where Jake was and where the subject of their hunt had gone.

A few shadowy figures moved about. A lump leaning against a wall was probably just an old hobo trying to stay warm. Something whizzed past his head—a bat swooping for insects. He ducked his head, then spun around.

Couldn’t be. It was winter. No bugs.

Who was he kidding? He didn’t have good instincts. He’d never make a decent detective.

A grunt.

Jake?

Yes, a signal to move to the center of the lot. When a hand reached out and pulled at his jacket, he realized he had figured wrong. If he fired blindly, he might strike an innocent civilian. By the time he pulled out his nightstick, the thug had left.