I considered this, and recalled with some displeasure the weeks leading up to my father’s and stepmother’s deaths. What the doctor described was not dissimilar from the changes that had overtaken them. “My father and Mrs. Borden had fallen ill, that’s true,” I said carefully. “We wondered about it ourselves, my sister and I—we worried that we might come down with the same affliction. It was a source of tension between us, toward the end.”

Eagerly, if unhappily, he leaned forward. “So you know the changes I’m referring to? The blank eyes, the paleness, the doughy flesh?”

“Indeed, though at the time we would not have put it that way. It came upon us gradually, you know; and by the time we noticed something was amiss, it was all that we could see. And all we could do was wonder how we’d successfully ignored it up to that point.” The words were tumbling out. I wanted to rein them in, but I nattered onward, haltingly, stopping myself when I feared I might go too far.

“Truly, and often—I have thought the same thing.”

“At first we thought it might be a problem with the family diet. But the family was also . . . in distress over other matters. There were arguments, as I’m sure you know. The whole neighborhood must’ve heard them. So after a while, Lizzie and I took up residence in a separate part of the house. We had our own apartment, with its own washing room and kitchen, so we saw our parents less and less. Virtually never, for four people who lived in the same home. From then on, my condition—and Lizzie’s—improved . . . even as our parents’ worsened.”

“You separated yourselves. Separate meals, separate living quarters, and that’s when you recovered?”

“Insofar as I ever recovered, I’m afraid.” I sighed. “Maybe I consumed too much of the tainted food, if tainted food was ever at fault. Maybe my constitution was weaker all along, and less able to resist.”

Even as I spoke the words, I was growing tired. This was more than I typically spoke in a week, and the toll felt heavy in my chest.

Doctor Seabury noticed. “I apologize,” he said, and wound his stethoscope around his hand, twisting it into a coil. “I’ve asked too much of you, for the afternoon.”

“No,” I objected.

“Yes, and we both know it. My apologies again; it was a tender subject, one that is no business of mine.”

“Your business is the health of Fall River. I’d say the subject is well within your business. It’s true,” I said. I put my hand on his medical bag, so that he might not close it shut and usher himself out the door with quite so much nervous alacrity. “A lengthy discussion of the matter is hard for me. Which is why I think . . . that you should speak to Lizzie.”