Moving toward a two-inch gap in the boards, I settled my face in the crack and peered out over the sloping property. In the small circle of a distant light, a single figure stood still as a tree in the cemetery, the only life among those dead stones, holding a lantern over one. He was tall and suited, with a familiar bend to his broad shoulders. I watched the silhouette of Dr. Turner as the wind moaned low across the expanse, a long draw of bow against cello strings.

My body remained leaning on that fence, breeze playing with my loosened hair, but my heart traveled out to be with him, to stand beside him in his secret grief as I only wished the rest of me could. What other doctor felt as he did about the patients at Hurstwell? Who else grieved the loss of any life here? He was a man among men, a solo who could stand on his own in a very dark world. Yet he deserved, more than anyone, to have a light-filled harmony to counter his somber melody.

8

Give me a laundry list and I’ll set it to music.

~Gioachino Rossini

An odd little song arose on Clara’s voice from somewhere in the steamy laundry, where I found myself on staff on my fourth day there. Night shift had left me tired, but a heavy dose of curiosity kept me alert.

“Keep ’em in line, and don’t take no for an answer,” Nurse Branson said as she installed me in the new position. “And here, you’ll need this.” She handed me an empty bucket.

“Am I to do laundry too, then?”

“Sure. You see a uniform standing still, you douse it with cold water—along with the poor sot who’s wearing it.” She turned to go, but narrowed her eyes at me, as if reading the distaste on my face. “It don’t do no good to pity ’em, you know. Most come from the workhouse or the streets. Thieves and the lot. Hard work and plain living is the best thing for ’em.”

Clara’s bright face, red and mottled from the steam, appeared between the damp hanging sheets strung up around the room. She looked to me, in this place, like a trapped songbird. “We’ve got us another musician, Nurse Branson. Grand, isn’t it?”

I cringed, lowering my gaze. I hadn’t thought it through when I’d announced to Mary Jo and the entire room that I was a musician. Word was getting around, especially among the patients, and my true identity was bound to come out.

But Nurse Branson was busy grimacing at Clara, who tossed a wadded sheet high in the air and burst out in a surprisingly resonant voice. “The water is wide, oh waly waly. I cannot get over. Nor have I wings, oh waly waly, with which to fly.”