A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [81]
Hazel was silent.
“I’m so sorry,” Innes said, imagining the horror of burning to death. “One hopes your parents perished at once from the blast. It’s very likely they did.”
Hazel’s chin began to quiver, and she turned away from him. He could see that she was overcome. He waited.
She took a handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose. When she had tucked the handkerchief away, she turned back to him. “Yesterday morning, my aunt received a message from a friend who had seen Louise here. My sister is very fragile.”
“She was fragile before this,” Innes said, and Hazel looked at him curiously.
“I shall have to find a place for her,” Hazel said.
“I’ll help you with that,” Innes said, though he did not, at the moment, know of any schools for the blind that had survived in Halifax. Schools would be built, however. That much was inevitable. “It may be that she will be able to leave the hospital in a few days,” he added. “Is there a temporary place for her?”
“I am staying with an aunt. Their house was not bothered.” Hazel tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear. “Of course, there’s room for Louise.”
“It will be at first a great burden to care for such a patient.”
“Yes, I imagine,” Hazel said. “It’s a kind of hell out there, isn’t it? At least Louise has been spared that.”
“She will be spared the sight of it forever.”
“I never thought such a blast possible,” Hazel said.
“None of us could have imagined this.”
“And the irony of all those people at the windows.”
“A cruel irony,” Innes said, reluctantly checking his watch again. “I must go. I have patients waiting for me. When will you be leaving hospital?”
“I have been asked to stay until six o’clock,” she said.
“Will you walk with me then?” he asked. “I cannot go far, since I am to be on duty this evening. But I should have at least a half hour.”
She hesitated. “Yes,” she said finally. “I will walk with you.”
Innes was at the front door of the hospital just before six o’clock. He had arranged a thirty-minute dinner break. He waited impatiently, aware that each moment that passed was one he would not have with Hazel.
She came through the double doors wearing an oddly festive blue velvet and fur-trimmed coat with large silver buttons on a diagonal. She had on a black hat with a brim and a short veil. Innes imagined that the coat and hat were borrowed. He hoped they were from the living. Hazel drew on her gloves as she approached him.
Without a word, Innes opened the door for her, and they stepped out into the evening. An effort to remove the debris from the streets immediately surrounding the hospital had largely been successful. Horses and buggies passed by. There was still very little fuel for automobiles. Innes was impressed, as he had been every night he had taken his walks, by how quiet the city was. There were few motors, very little traffic in the harbor. Voices carried for long distances.
“Do you mind where we walk?” he asked.
“Not at all,” she said. “I am glad for the fresh air.”
“How far is it to your aunt’s house?” he asked.
“About . . . maybe five miles from here?”
“How will you get home?” Innes asked, his words making blunt puffs in the icy air.
“My uncle will fetch me. He has a carriage. How about you?”
Innes laughed and pointed back toward the hospital. “My humble abode.”
“You live at hospital?” she asked, surprised.
“Many of us do. There are quarters. We are well fed.” He left unsaid the fact that he had nowhere else to go.
“I convinced myself that you had not died,” Hazel said. “I thought perhaps you had gone back to your family.”
Innes felt again a sense of elation. Hazel had thought about him. She had hoped he had not died. “There is so much work to do here,” he said. “My place is here. I have cabled my family. They do not expect me.”
“Will you make Halifax your home then?” she asked, skirting a pile of slush.
“If Halifax should ever again become a home for anyone.”
“I’ve heard they will erect housing. My uncle is with the council.”
“There are thousands homeless.”
“One would do well to