“Sadly, no.” Ida stared straight ahead with her fists clenched. “I feel so helpless.”

“We all do,” Caroline said.

She didn’t know what else to say, and silence lengthened in the room, becoming unbearable. Pina wrung her hands while the nurse fidgeted in discomfort. Ida kept staring out the window.

Unbidden, one of Caroline’s earliest memories came to the surface. She must have been less than four years old, for her mother was still alive. Caroline had been sobbing over some long-forgotten incident, but Mama’s voice had soothed her, coaxing her to sit in a chair while her mother undid her braids to comb her hair. How lovely it had felt to relax under her mother’s soothing ministrations.

“Would you like me to comb your hair?” Caroline asked Ida. “It’s mussed in the back.”

Ida immediately straightened, her spine rigid as a bayonet. “I can’t have mussed hair. If I am called to visit the Major, I must look presentable.”

Caroline reached for a hairbrush. A Bible lay on the bedside table, and she passed it to Pina. “Perhaps you can read some psalms while we all wait,” she suggested. “It’s going to be a long night.”

Pina looked grateful as she opened the book, landing quickly on Psalm 23, the eternal words a soothing comfort while the president’s life hung in the balance. Ida sat calmly as Caroline unpinned her hair, spreading its length down her back. In truth, it wasn’t terribly mussed, but perhaps the gentle act of having her hair combed might bring a smidgeon of comfort on this most horrible of days.

Pina read psalm after psalm, and Caroline ought to be concentrating her prayers on the president, but all she could think of was Nathaniel. Where was he? Was he all right? This was going to hit him hard, and Caroline feared he might be headed for a very dark place.

Caroline did not sleep, but by morning the world looked brighter. The president had made it through surgery and survived the night. The fairground’s temporary hospital was unsuitable for his recovery, and he had been transferred to the Milburn home, a stately house less than a mile away that belonged to a personal friend of the president.

George Cortelyou arrived at the hotel before sunrise to confer with Caroline privately, reporting that the president was alert and coherent.

“He even wanted to know how his speech has been received in the papers,” George said. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him that all papers are only reporting news of his shooting, but he’s already strategizing how to make hay of things. He’s asked all available cabinet members to come to Buffalo immediately. He wants them to keep pushing on his legislation.”