“No, Dr. Edmunds.” The locket slithered from Rachel’s grasp and fell unheeded to the desk. “There is nothing else.”
The locket and its chain lay coiled on James’s desk like a serpent ready to strike. He had stared at it for the past hour, not particularly eager to touch it and be stung by the rush of memories the piece of jewelry held.
With a groan, he finally stretched out his hand and lifted the locket. Springing the latch, James stared at the miniature of himself contained within. The painting came from happier days, right before he and Mariah had gotten engaged, when he had been more certain of himself, certain he was on the verge of a promising future. The sort of man who would never have denied his child and then hidden her existence like a blemish. The man he used to be, as Thaddeus had claimed ages ago. Before loss and failure had stripped him of his confidence.
James dropped the locket onto the desk and stood. The office blinds opened with a squeak of protest, their unused hinges stiff from lack of use. Beyond, the tangle of leggy green weeds he’d been expecting to see had been tamed. Joe’s handiwork. Had it been years or only days ago that he had instructed the lad to clear the garden? James peered through the slats, the sun slanting low over the top of the house to light the shaggy-headed trees. The garden lacked its former glory, though vestiges hung on its bones like the fading loveliness of an aging beauty’s face. He was certain if he stared long enough he could summon the image of Mariah moving among the roses. She would not be there, if he succeeded, any more than heat shimmering off scorching pavement was truly water.
“Do you love me, James?”
He had respected Mariah, cared for her, certainly. But love? In those early days, he had loved his practice far more than he had cared for anything or anyone else. Mariah had been pragmatic enough to turn her affection to tending her flowers. The relationship might have looked successful to their acquaintances, but at its core lay unfilled need and emptiness. She hadn’t been the answer to his heart’s needs, and he surely hadn’t been hers. In the end, he had failed Mariah just as surely as he had failed his father. As he continued to fail Amelia.
James pressed his hands against the slats, shutting the blinds against the scene beyond the window, rested his forehead against the wood. The three years since Mariah’s passing had only brought him one revelation—that the emptiness still marked his soul, like the imprint of a footstep in the sand.
And he was still waiting for something, or someone, to wash it away.
Rachel stared up at the School for Needy Boys and Girls. The building looked abandoned, the windows closed and shuttered, an air of neglect clinging to its bricks. Not even a wisp of smoke billowed from the chimneys. Had the school been shut down because of the fear of the cholera?
Rachel hugged her arms to her waist to keep from shivering with panic. Good luck comes in tricklets; ill luck comes in rolling torrents.
“Oh, Papa, I could do without thinking of one of your sayings every time life hands me another misery,” she whispered. Although this misery could turn out far worse than discovering Dr. Edmunds was not the man she had wanted him to be.
Rachel squared her shoulders, marched up the steps, and pulled the bell. Many moments passed, long enough to draw the attention of a passing shop boy.
“Got the cholera there, miss. Don’ think anyone’s gonna answer,” he called out to her.
“Thank you, but I might wait a few minutes longer to discover whether or not that is true.”
“Suit yerself.”
Once he’d gone on, Rachel dragged the bell pull more insistently and, with relief, heard noise beyond the door. It opened a crack and the sharp odor of quick lime wafted through, so strong it smelled as though they had doused the building in it. An attempt to conquer the dirt that caused diseases like the cholera.
A young woman with a pox-scarred face peered around the door. She was not the unnamed girl with the hole in her shoe who had answered the bell the last time Rachel had visited. “What do you want?” she asked.
“Where is the girl who usually answers the door?”
“She’s not here.”
The young woman started to shut the door. Rachel shoved her boot between it and