He surely heard me enter but didn’t look at me. I waited, holding back my tears, which made my throat ache.
Finally, he looked at me.
“You’re wearing one of her dresses,” he said, “one of those she had in your closet for you before you had arrived.”
I hadn’t realized it when I put it on. I never would think he was aware of what I wore.
“Yes. I put it on this morning before she and I went to breakfast.”
He nodded, as if that made some sort of sense.
“Come in,” he said, nodding at the settee.
I went to it and sat.
“I’m glad you’re a cardiac surgeon. I think you’ll have to sew my heart together,” I said.
He smiled wanly. “Sometimes, like this morning in the OR, I feel like I could raise the dead. When I was studying, interning, I remember surgeons who walked through the hospital hallways as if they were walking on water. I think that’s why historically the church and science have been at each other’s throat. There’s a palpable fear that science will eventually eliminate every reason to pray. Maybe I’m being punished for being part of that.”
I shook my head. “Don’t think like that.”
“Supposedly, Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor, had a servant assigned to follow him around, and every time Marcus received a compliment, the servant was commanded to say, ‘You’re only a man.’ ”
“You can’t blame yourself for this,” I said. “This isn’t some act of justice or revenge.”
He nodded, looked at Samantha’s picture and then back at me. “Did you know your grandmother on either side?”
“My maternal one.”
“Yes, I knew mine, too. She was full of superstitions. She would pounce on me whenever I got some toy I wanted and warn me not to reveal how happy I was so openly, or else the Evil Eye would see and punish me. She had me looking everywhere for some dark figure smiling with sinister delight. Maybe she was right. I had an angel, and I let everyone know I did.”
“You did nothing wrong,” I insisted. “She was an angel.”
He took a deep breath and turned completely to me.
“This is getting to sound like a broken record. I know you were planning on leaving soon. I wanted to see if…”
“I’ll stay as long as you need me,” I said quickly, “and I don’t want you to offer me any additional money.”
He nodded. “Samantha would like that.”
Now my tears came. He looked like he would crumple and turned away quickly.
“Franklin said you should stay home. He’ll make sure your patient is seen.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “Thank you.”
He looked down, and I rose.
“Is there anything I can get you?”
“No. Just see to Ryder. Thank you,” he said.
I left him sitting there looking completely devastated. For a moment, I imagined my father having some quiet time and perhaps regretting how badly things had gone between us. Like Dr. Davenport, he was good at keeping his sadness bound up tightly beneath his heart.
In the morning, Mrs. Marlene found him curled up, embracing himself, and asleep on the settee below Samantha’s picture. She told me he looked like a little boy. After she woke him, he went up to shower and change and sit with his mother. Friends began calling almost every twenty minutes. Franklin stopped by around noon. He and Dr. Davenport then left together to make Samantha’s funeral arrangements. Except for Ryder’s cries and baby talk, the mansion was quiet. The shadows were deepened and hovering over us all.
Most of the time during the next few days, Dr. Davenport was home. He kept himself in his office with the doors closed. I brought Ryder in to see him whenever I could, and I suspected it was practically the only time he smiled. Mrs. Marlene brought him his meals. I had mine with Mr. Stark and Mrs. Marlene. I was beginning to feel more like another servant, but I didn’t mind it. These people were, after all, my American family.
Samantha’s funeral was difficult, not only because we were burying her, someone who had everything to live for, but because it was one of the most bitterly cold days on record. A surprising number of people came to the cemetery after the service. Many, I was told, were either Dr. Davenport’s patients or family of one of his patients. When I looked around at the mourners, I saw their breaths puffing like smoke. No one dared utter a complaint. All were alive, after all, imagining that Samantha would have gladly endured a dozen days