A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [80]
Innes thought about his brother, Martin, who was still in France. He imagined all the soldiers who would arrive home on transport ships only to find most of Halifax destroyed. Another brutal irony: the soldiers returned safely, but the families waiting at home had been killed.
Innes, reading a chart on his way to the second floor, noted through a double door a woman standing next to a cot. He stopped short and took a closer look. Innes had, in the past two days, mistaken other women for Hazel, once running ahead and accosting a woman who looked very like Hazel from behind but turned out not to resemble her at all. Such scenes, he reflected at the time, must be happening all over the city.
With the folder under his arm, Innes entered the ward. The woman couldn’t see Innes, and he fought the urge to call out. He might disturb her. She was in conversation with a female patient. The patient, sitting up in the bed, had an eye patch on her left eye. The woman who looked like Hazel, in a gray wool dress over which she had on the customary white pinafore, lifted a spoon to the patient’s mouth. Innes looked for signs of bandages on the patient’s hands and found them. Perhaps the woman had been burned in the blast.
Innes waited, pretending to read the chart. He saw nothing but the name Ferguson. A nursing sister asked him if he needed assistance. He shook his head. Finally, he could wait no longer. He moved toward Hazel and cleared his throat. “Miss Fraser?” he asked.
Hazel turned, spoon in hand. “Mr. Finch,” she said, and he could see that she was much surprised.
“I am happy to see you,” Innes said with great feeling. “I heard only yesterday from Louise that you were alive.”
Hazel looked tired about the eyes, and her hair had not recently been washed. She had a bad bruise on her forehead and healed lacerations on her cheek.
“I was sorry to hear about your father and mother,” Innes said.
“Thank you.”
“I don’t wish to keep you from your task. Perhaps when you are finished, we could have a word?”
“Yes,” she said. “Of course.”
Innes stood just outside the double doors. He checked his watch, aware that he was late to his rounds. None of his patients would die in the next ten minutes. From time to time, he glanced through the window in the door. Nursing sisters were folding blankets. Hazel had settled herself upon the patient’s bed. Something she said made the patient laugh. After a time, Innes watched as Hazel got up from the bed and carried the bowl and spoon to a tray near the nursing station.
Innes waited for her, expectant.
“Innes,” Hazel said, as she emerged from the double doors, elating him by using his first name. “It’s very good to see you. I’ve wondered what happened to you.”
“And I you. I’ve worried about you rather a great deal in fact.”
“Have you?” she asked. She untied the pinafore and slipped it over her head.
“Where were you when the ship exploded?” Innes asked.
She bit her lips together, repressing a smile. “Actually, in the WC.”
Innes laughed, the first laugh he had had since the blast. “Saved your life,” he said.
“Apparently, it did.” Hazel unrolled the cuffs of her blouse. Innes minded. He had liked the sight of her wrists. “And you?” she asked. “Where were you?”
“In my room, standing in front of the window. It’s a miracle, really, that I wasn’t killed.”
She studied him. “You seem intact,” she said.
“A small wound in the back.”
Hazel gazed down the corridor. “I imagine you have had quite a time of it.”
“Haven’t we all?”
“No, I meant with the surgeries.”
“It’s been hectic.”
“Yes.”
Innes shifted the folder from his right hand to his left. “Your sister is healing well.”
“Was it you who operated?”
“No. No, I didn’t.”
A frown appeared on Hazel’s brow. “It was awful. She became so upset when I visited, I haven’t dared to go back. She was screaming at me.”
“A certain amount of hysteria is to be expected,” Innes said.
“Yes, of course,” Hazel said.
“You didn’t know that she was here?” he asked.
“I was told she had perished in the fire with my parents.”
And now it was Innes