Previously in the book, Edwin Stanton has put the Lincolns and Gabby the janitor in the White House basement, as look-alikes take the president and first lady’s place upstairs. Their guard Adam Christy must tell Gabby’s sister Cordie, who works at a military hospital, that her brother won’t be coming home.
“Thank you, Miss Jessie,” a wounded soldier murmured as he looked up from his cot in the main ward of Armory Square Hospital, several blocks south of the Executive Mansion.
A tall, red-haired young woman with a beautiful smile mopped his brow with a cloth.
“You’re quite welcome, Sergeant, darlin’,” she replied in a thick Scottish brogue.
“You come early in the morning and stay late at night, all without pay. You must be blessed with a good family who supports you.”
“Aye, a good family they were.” A cloud passed over her face. “Both me mother and father have passed away, but—” she paused, searching for a word, and then continued, “me dear pa left a wee inheritance.” Her eyes wandered. “I’m sorry, darlin’; I have to walk Miss Cordie home. She’s so nervous about the dark.”
“She’s a sweet soul,” the sergeant said. He grabbed Jessie’s arm. “And you’re a sweet soul.”
Jessie smiled and walked toward Cordie, who was putting away her mop and pail. She hoped the sergeant was unaware she was rushing away from him—actually not him, but painful memories of her parents. Her mother died before the family was to set sail for America. While visiting neighbors along the rugged, barren Scottish coast, she had caught a chill which developed into pneumonia. Her father’s plan to go to New York City, where all three of them could find jobs, had gone awry, but he did not mourn the ruined plans as he knelt by his dying wife’s bed, sobbing. Jessie’s mother had gathered the last of her strength to reach for her daughter.
“Ye have to take care of the lad now, Jessie.” Her eyes were moist with tears. “I robbed the cradle when I married your pa, but I couldn’t help it—his bright red hair, his smooth handsome face—so I forgot he was ten years younger than me.” She gasped for air. “Take care of him. His strong body deceives the eye. He’s had more than his share of ills.” A wracking cough shuddered through her. “Please, take care of him.”
Shaking her head, Jessie did not want to dwell on that day. The pain of losing her mother paled against the sight of her father’s heaving and moaning while clinging to his wife’s corpse. When she reached Cordie, Jessie put on her biggest smile.
“Time to go, Miss Cordie,” she said.
“Dear me, it’s getting dark,” Cordie replied, her watery blue eyes lit up. “Thank you, Miss Jessie, for walking with me. I’m from New York; I know how dangerous a big city can be.”
Again Jessie’s brow wrinkled as she unsuccessfully fought the memories of her traumatic past. On the streets of New York, only six months before, a lunch basket on her arm, walking to the construction site where her father worked, making good money. With her salary cleaning fancy homes on Park Avenue, the family actually was building a nest egg. Every night after work, she and her father sat at their kitchen table, discussing where they wanted to live when they could afford to move, because New York City was too big and loud for their country background.
Jessie focused on a crowd gathering in front of her father’s construction site. Instinct or intuition caused her to run toward the mass of people, pushing her way through. Stopping short when she reached the center, Jessie saw her father, lying on the ground, a vacant gaze in his eyes and bit of foam on his blue lips.
“My God!” She knelt beside him and then looked up frantically at the crowd. “Someone, please, call for help!”
Finally, an ambulance rattled up behind a team of clopping horses. The medics knelt by Jessie in front of her father’s dead body. After a routine check of vital signs, they shook their heads.
“Are you family?” one of them asked.
“He’s me father.”
“I’m sorry. We’re too late.”
“I know.” Jessie looked down at her father. “I’ve seen people die before.”
“We can take him straight to the morgue where the coroner will fill out the death certificate; you sign an indigence form, and it will cost you nothing.”
“What’s an indigence form?”
“It says you’re out of money and releases the city to dispose of your father’s body as it sees fit.”
Jessie paused to comprehend his meaning. Usually she had no problem understanding exactly what a person said. Being from a village in the isolated highlands of Scotland, Jessie was even adept at reading between the lines of slyly phrased gossip from wrinkled old women who had nothing better to do with their time. The cold, official language the medic used belied the awful reality behind it. She blinked her eyes.
“You mean a potter’s field?”
“So to speak.” He looked down. “Don’t dwell on it, miss. You have enough sorrow to deal with as it is.”
A touch on the shoulder from Cordie brought her back to the ward, where several wounded soldiers were calling out good evening to her.
“All the men love you, you know,” Cordie whispered.
“God bless you, miss; and you too, ma’am.” And older man, stripped to the waist exposing bandages over flabby skin, reached out to touch Jessie.
“That’s why they love you.” As they reached the door, Cordie leaned into Jessie to say, “You treat the old, ugly men the same as you treat the young ones.” She paused. “Gabby was handsome when he was young.”