Crossing the Tracks (9781416997054) (4 page)

“Ma'am?”

“And
doctors
, like my dear Avery,” she taps her cane to emphasize every word, “find half-dead invalids where there are none.” She pauses a moment and says, “After your journey I trust you could use tea.”

She grips her cane with crippled fingers, watches me intently. Does she wonder if I am also the type who will find her flaws, her limp, and nothing else?

She steadies herself. “Meet Henry, my
assistant
.” She wags her fancy cane. “He's bamboo. Quite elegant, although a bit too tall for me. Of Japanese descent, so conversation is a trifle difficult.” She winks.

I swear, in my whole life nobody has ever winked at me.

“So if I've misplaced Henry and he doesn't come find me on his own”—she raises her eyebrows—“you'll know who I'm talking about and will be kind enough to retrieve him for me.”

I follow her as she makes her way across the hall and into the dining room. Her elegantly outfitted feet seem a bit less crippled than her hands. “You're lagging behind, Henry,” she fusses, giving her cane a snappy
hurry up
tap.

We raise the shades. A long mirror with a carved ebony frame hangs over the buffet. The table has been pushed aside to make room for a bed—my bed, I suppose, with a crocheted bedspread and monogrammed pillow case. Next to it is a night stand and a small chest of drawers.

“Miss Baldwin, I am very embarrassed by your accommodations—sleeping in the dining room, for God's sake! We will treat this space as your private domain.”

I nod, remembering that an hour ago I had
her
living in the dining room.

She slides a crooked finger over the table. “Oh, yes, we must discuss dust.”

“Ma'am?”

“Why, I ask you, on the Seventh Day, didn't the Creator pave the roads of Wellsford, Missouri, instead of resting? Rain tames the stuff, but not for long. So does frost, but”—she glances out the window—“not in June. Every day—several times a day—I will impose on you to dust.

“My glasses are the worst.” She works the spectacles off her face and hands them to me. They weigh absolutely nothing. Mrs. Nesbitt fishes a hankie from her cuff. “Keep it. As you can see, my hands are lame. I simply can't clean my glasses like I used to.”

I wipe the lenses and hold them to the light for her inspection.

She tilts her face to me. She wears lipstick, a bit of rouge, and perfume. Her bun is several shades of silver held with a tortoiseshell hair fork.

I bend over, hold my breath, and ever so slowly pull the
wire earpieces into place, careful to avoid knocking her earrings. My hands are clumsier than hers. When I try to center the lenses, I bang her cheek with the back of my hand and gasp right in her face. “Oh… I… I'm so horrible at…” I look away.

Do not cry. Do not cry.

“Avery swears the trickiest surgery he does is removing his patients' eyeglasses. And even harder than removal is putting the darned things back on.”

Mrs. Nesbitt bows her head. The moment collects itself. “Thank you for your help, Iris,” she says the way someone might end a prayer.

I follow Mrs. Nesbitt and Henry into the kitchen.

She smiles and points to a small, papery lump on a saucer by the sink. “One can
always
squeeze another cup of tea from a used tea bag.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“We get our tea bags from New York. Avery's dear friend Marsden sends them.”

The kitchen is an aboveground food cellar with windows and a back door. The cabinets are lined with jars of string beans and jam. Next to a bread box is a tin of saltines and what looks to be a fresh pie wrapped in waxed paper. The table holds a magnifying glass, copies of
The Kansas City
Star,
and a folded paper fan. There's a telephone, an ice box, a gas range, and a shotgun propped by the back door.

Mrs. Nesbitt is watching me. “Do you want the truth?” she says.

“Ma'am?”

“Avery and I don't cook. His patients who can't pay—most of them, actually—keep us fed. But I miss the smells, the art of it. Of course, nobody in Wellsford would understand me on that.” She doesn't ask if I can cook. I think she has already figured that one out.

“Would you like me to fix the tea?” I ask bravely, glancing at two dainty, but dusty, teacups on the counter. I'd like to tell her I'm better at touching china than human beings. I'm better with boiling water than warm people.

Perched on the chair like an exotic little bird, Mrs. Nesbitt watches me fill the kettle and light the burner.

“I suppose you had electricity at home in Atchison,” she says.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Avery has electricity at his medical office in town, but it's not here yet.” She sighs. “I'm so very sorry for the inconvenience, Miss Baldwin.”

I'm at a loss for words. My inconvenience is not something I've ever considered. Until now, no one has ever mentioned my
inconvenience
about anything. My father never asked:
Iris, will spending the summer in Wellsford, Missouri, without electricity be an inconvenience for you?
or
Will wearing these prissy suede boots around the store inconvenience your toes?

I answer her questions about my train trip and explain how the cow turned out to be a dead bum. “Mr. Deets said Dr. Nesbitt had to go pronounce the man dead.” A shadow crosses her face. I can't tell if it's about Cecil, the hobo, or something else entirely.

Mrs. Nesbitt explains her son's schedule. “On evenings and weekends Avery sees folks at our office here.” She nods toward a bolted door off the kitchen. I learn they moved seven years ago from St. Louis, and that Cecil's wife, Pansy, used to do their housekeeping. Mrs. Nesbitt shakes her head. “She was a troubled woman.” She doesn't mention that Pansy has passed, nor does she speak of her other son, the one Cecil told me was killed in the war.

I watch her slanted, swollen fingers barely manage the teacup. I'm bewildered as to if, or how, I should help.

Mrs. Nesbitt cocks her ear. I listen too, but don't hear a thing except the squeak of a windmill through the screen door.

She plants Henry and stands. “Avery's coming!” She pats her hair, adjusts the remarkable shawl over her black housecoat, and positions her tiny hands on the cane handle.

I stand too, smooth my skirt, and fold my napkin as small as I can. Beside her I feel like something giant and dull.

Mrs. Nesbitt's eyes dart from her cane to the window. She works her mouth like an actress silently rehearsing her lines.

I hear the crunch of car tires. My stomach flutters.

Mrs. Nesbitt gives me an anxious smile. Is she embarrassed of me…
for
me? She straightens her spine.

A car door slams. Footsteps. A dog yowls. Chickens screech, as through the back door walks Dr. Avery Nesbitt.

He swipes a glance at me then fixes on his mother
with an expression of sheer astonishment.

“Mother?”

He starts toward her, I think to grab her arm, but stops himself, steps back. He looks around the room, then rests his gaze on Henry. Dr. Nesbitt is slight, clean-shaven, pale-haired, about Daddy's age, and only a bit taller than me.

Behind him limps a creature—a cross between a long-legged skunk, a flop-eared coyote, and a weasel.

The dead hobo's dog.

Mrs. Nesbitt's gaze bounces between her son and the dog.
“Avery?”
she says in an exact imitation of him.

Dr. Nesbitt stares at her slippers and shawl.

She pats my arm. “Oh, I'm so sorry. Avery, please meet Miss Iris Baldwin. We're having tea.”

He nods, smiles politely. “Welcome to Wellsford.” His gaze returns immediately to his mother and her cane. “I haven't seen that cane in years.”

“My
chair's
in the bedroom,” she says firmly.

Dr. Nesbitt looks at me and raises one eyebrow a fraction of a fraction of an inch. “I see.” He gets a bowl of water and sets it on the floor. The dog drinks, then flops on its side. I stare and hold my breath, waiting for the next shallow rise and fall of its ribs. “So you've brought us a patient?” Mrs. Nesbitt remarks.

“I found her when I filed that poor man's death certificate at the depot. She belonged to the hobo. Needs stitches.” He turns to me. “Miss Baldwin, what a harrowing afternoon
you
must have had. Was the entire train in an uproar?”

“No. They said we'd hit a cow.”

He nods, his face grim. “That old vagabond was probably deaf as stone, fishing for dinner.” He sighs. “I've witnessed hundreds of exits from life… some are just sadder, more empty, than others.”

He checks his watch, unbolts his office door, then turns to face us. “I hate to interrupt your tea time, but while we've got daylight left, I could use your help with this pup.”

He rubs the dog's ears, then picks her up. “First, Mother, we need your help with a name. Having a proper name might help her survive the night, and you're just the person for it.” We follow as he carries the dog to his examining
table and lights two kerosene lamps. He places a chair for his mother by the dog's head.

Mrs. Nesbitt studies the trembling animal, caked in mud and dried blood, and announces, “Marie!”

Dr. Nesbitt looks as if he hasn't heard her right.

“Marie?”

“Marie,” she repeats, riveting us with those fiery eyes. “I've thought about it and I like it.”

Dr. Nesbitt lifts one ear flap and says, “Okay, Marie, just keep still while I examine you.” He gently probes down her sides, her legs, her tail, all the while stroking her and crooning, “You're strong. You're going to be fine.”

His tender voice, the smell of rubbing alcohol so like Mama's sanatorium, and Marie lying helpless on the table mix together inside me and I can't help it, I start crying. I sniff and dab, and soak Mrs. Nesbitt's hankie.

“Tears bathe the heart,” she remarks. She and Dr. Nesbitt wait until I'm through, as if it's the most natural thing in the world to let someone finish crying. “It's a miracle,” he says, turning to his mother. “I can't find a flea or a tick anywhere, but…” He holds up Marie's tail—a muddy, broken feather. “We'll have to amputate this piece.”

I look away, praying I won't have to touch it.

“She's also got a slew of cuts that need stitching. Iris, could you please get the strainer from the kitchen cabinet just left of the sink.”

Strainer? I rummage in the kitchen, return to the office with it. He's holding a dark brown bottle with a stopper. The label says: Ether. “We'll soak cotton with this and line
the bottom of the strainer. Then you hold it over her nose.”

Marie looks up at me and blinks, her eyes as watery as mine. Mrs. Nesbitt pats my arm. “What in the world would we do without you, Iris?”

Dr. Nesbitt opens the window, then the ether bottle. Crickets, tree frogs, and a chorus of cows join us in the room. The ether smells sickeningly sweet. I hold my breath, take the strainer from Dr. Nesbitt, and put it over Marie's nose.

Her whiskers poke this way and that through the mesh. Her breathing slows. I glance at Dr. Nesbitt, absolutely certain I've killed her. But he's busy cleaning and assessing her wounds.

I feel clammy, light-headed.

Don't watch him.

Think of something else, anything else…

What's Leroy doing at this moment? Missing me maybe? What about Daddy? Hmm… he's huddled with Celeste in Kansas City. They're planning their fancy window displays for Petticoat Lane. I wonder what county my suede boots have traveled to by now. I think of the paper doll family on the train. I wonder how that little girl would act out
this
“getting a puppy” story.

Marie whimpers. I jump. Dr. Nesbitt, in the middle of removing the broken tail, instructs me to shake four more drops of ether on the strainer cotton. Mrs. Nesbitt sits at the end of the table, cupping one of Marie's front paws in her hands. I think she'd hold my hand too if she could. A few drops of ether dissolve in thin air before they hit the floor. But overall I manage without spilling the whole bottle or
fainting.

Mrs. Nesbitt watches her son's every stitch, but I can't. I concentrate on reading the eye chart on the wall across the room and alphabetizing the labels on his shelf full of ointments and adhesive tape.

When he's finished and it's finally time to remove the ether for good, we wrap Marie in a blanket. “She can sleep in here tonight,” he says as we lower her to the floor. “By the window. She probably needs the stars for a good night's sleep.”

In the kitchen lamplight I could die. My cotton
dress is completely stuck to me with sweat. I cross my arms, huddle on the chair.

My back and neck ache. My stomach rumbles. I've lost all track of time. I can't recall how or where this day started. In fact, I can't say exactly if I am the same person who started it.