Helen was so distraught she couldn’t eat her dinner, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had come down with a case of nerves. I led her into the bedroom, where she sat on the bed, took off her shoes, then lay down, too sleepy to remove her uniform. “I’m glad you told me,” I said.
She smiled but didn’t reply.
Near morning, I heard her go into the hall. She woke me because she had stumbled, and when I turned on the light I saw her leaning against the bathroom door.
“Are you all right?” I called softly.
“I’m … I’m…,” Helen whispered.
I pushed back the covers and put on my dressing gown and went to her.
She was still wearing her uniform, and she seemed disoriented. “Can I help?” I asked.
“No … no.” She waved me away and stumbled into the bathroom and closed the door.
I went down the hall to her bedroom and took her nightgown off the hook on the closet door. Then I straightened her sheets and fluffed her pillow, and as I did so I saw the bloodstains. I went to the bathroom door and listened, and I heard Helen vomiting. I tapped on the door. “Do you need me?” I asked.
“I’m all right,” Helen said in a muffled voice.
But she wasn’t. I remembered my own illness, and I knew then that my sister had the influenza. I was sure of it. I sank down onto the floor beside the bathroom door and put my arms around myself, because I had begun to shake as the awfulness of Helen’s situation hit me.
What could I do? As a nurse, Helen understood the influenza better than I. She was aware of the steps to take. What did I know about caring for a patient? As I sat there, I tried to remember what she had done for me when I was sick, but I had been delirious. I didn’t remember much about eating or taking medication, only the terrible dreams and Helen by my side, stroking my hair, wiping my face with a cool washcloth, changing my sheets and nightgowns.
As I rubbed away the tears, I thought I should stop feeling sorry for myself. It was Helen, not I, who was threatened. I stood up and tapped on the door, then opened it a little. Helen was sitting on the floor. “I can’t get up,” she whispered. “Something’s happened to my legs.”
I went to her and lifted her, feeling how little flesh was on her bones, and she held on to me as I led her into her bedroom. She sat on the bed while I took off her uniform and her underwear, then slid her nightgown over her head. “What do I do, Helen? How do I take care of you?”
“Get Dorothy out of here,” she said slowly. That was just like Helen, to think of someone else before herself.
I helped her lie down, then went into the kitchen and got out the enamel pan she had given me when I was ill and set it on the bed next to her in case she had to vomit and could not make it to the bathroom. I filled a pitcher with water and put it and a glass on the bedside table. “Are you cold?” I asked. “Hot?” She closed her eyes and lay back in the bed and did not answer.
I went to the telephone and gave the operator the Howells’ number. George answered, and when I told him what was wrong he woke Mrs. Howell, who said she would send Melvin right away. Dorothy could stay with her—stay with her again—until Helen was well.
Then I telephoned Gil’s rooming house. It was a shame to wake all the tenants, but Gil had told us he always answered the telephone when he was there because most of the calls were for him, from hospitals or patients. If he wasn’t at home, I’d try every hospital in Denver. But he answered, sounding tired.
“I’m so sorry to wake you. She has the influenza, Gil.”
“Dorothy?” He sounded almost hopeful. I knew he was thinking, Not Helen.
“It’s Helen.”
“Oh God!” And then after a pause, “I’m coming over.”
“Can’t you just give me some instructions?” He needed sleep as much as Helen did.
“No, I’ll be there.”
“But you’ve got patients.”
“Do you think I care more about them than Helen?”
The remark made me shiver. Gil loved Helen as much as I had loved Peter—still loved Peter. Of course he would be here. Thank goodness!
Helen was sleeping now. The basin I’d set beside her was empty, so she hadn’t thrown up again, and I hoped that was a good sign. Her breathing was labored, and she was perspiring. I dipped a cloth into cool water and washed her.
Gil arrived just after the Howells’ chauffeur picked up Dorothy. Gil was breathless. He hadn’t shaved, and he looked wild. There were fewer streetcars that early in the morning, so he’d run the distance to our house.
“How is she?” he asked, leaning over to catch his breath.
“She’s not that blue color, like Maud was,” I said.
“That could come later.” Gil went into the bedroom and stared a minute at Helen. Then he touched her forehead and wiped her face with the washcloth I’d left on the table. He took out a stethoscope and unbuttoned the front of Helen’s nightgown so that he could hear her heart. For a moment I felt embarrassed for Helen, that her breast was exposed like that. She would hate it. But he was a doctor. He was a professional, and when he was finished, he covered her up. Then he turned to me.
“Her heart’s racing a little, but it’s not bad. Has she eaten anything?”
“Not much, and she vomited it early this morning. She hasn’t thrown up since, but then, there’s nothing left in her stomach.”
Gil nodded. “I’ll sit with her.”
“Don’t you have other patients?”
“To hell with them,” he said fiercely. He turned and put his arms around me, and I could see how shaken he was.
“She’ll be all right, won’t she, Gil? You won’t let her die?”
“No, she won’t die. We won’t let her.” The words were false, but still, they made me feel better. “I’ll sit with her,” he said again, and I realized how tired I was. I went into my room and lay down. I wasn’t sure I would sleep, but I did, and it was late morning when I awoke. I went into Helen’s room and found Gil sitting on a dining room chair he had set next to the bed. “She hasn’t wakened since you left.”
“That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”
He gave me a stiff smile. “Yes, although she could be unconscious.”
“You don’t know? You just let her lie there?”
“What difference does it make?” he snapped. “Either way, she’s resting.”
I put my hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Lute. After all the deaths … well, I couldn’t bear it if something happened to Helen.”
“Me either.”
“She’s been delirious,” he said.
I waited, fearful of what he might tell me.
“I can’t make it out. She’s talking about Dorothy, I think. Once she said something like ‘I won’t tell.’ I wonder what that means.”
“I’m sure it had something to do with Dorothy. Did you talk to her yesterday? Did she tell you we’ve started adoption proceedings?”
Gil shook his head. I pulled another chair into the room, and then I told him about Gus Vincent.
“Do they know that Helen…?” Gil couldn’t finish.
“That she killed Mr. Streeter? No, of course not. But they know something isn’t right. They went through our ash pit, and I think they found the ice pick. I was going to throw it out, but Helen beat me to it.”
“It’s not a crime to throw out an ice pick.”
“Can they tell if it’s the one that killed him?”
“I don’t think so. An ice pick’s an ice pick. You washed it, didn’t you? And you’ve burned trash since Helen threw it in there. I doubt they’ll find blood on it.”
“But there’s still Mr. Vincent. He told the police he saw Mr. Streeter go into our house and not come out.”
“If he really is Dorothy’s uncle, they might be inclined to listen to him. But because they suspect he’s a criminal…” Gil shrugged.
I felt a little relieved, but not much. I stood and glanced out Helen’s window at the ash pit, but no one was there. I told Gil I would fix coffee. “There’s ham, and I can fry you an egg,” I said. “If you’re like Helen, you probably haven’t eaten much lately.”
“I’m not hungry,” he said.
I wasn’t either. I left the room and went into the kitchen, where I filled the percolator and turned on the gas. Helen moaned and I rushed back into the bedroom.
Gil was sitting on the bed next to my sister, wiping her face with a washcloth. When he took it away he folded it over, but not before I saw the blood.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s a blood-tinged froth that comes from the patient’s nose and mouth. Quite common.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“It’s all terrible.”
Helen had sunk into a deep sleep. I remembered the coffee and went back to the kitchen.
As I waited for the coffee to perk, I listened to the familiar sounds of a new day. Next door, the chickens clucked as our neighbor threw out breakfast scraps. The milkman stopped his horse in the alley and came up the back walk, taking the empty bottle from the milk chute in the kitchen wall and replacing it with a bottle of fresh milk. I set it in the icebox, hoping the iceman would come that day.
The boys down the block called to each other. Before long, the girl two houses down would come looking for Dorothy. She would see the quarantine sign I had put on the door that morning and go away.
The milk chute was open. I stooped and shut it, and then I sat down with my head in my hands. The cold floor felt good on my legs, and I rested my head against the kitchen wall and closed my eyes, listening to the faint sounds of Gil moving around in the bedroom. He was talking to Helen. I put my hands over my face and cried, the tears seeping through my fingers, until Gil came into the room.
“Here now,” he said with fake cheeriness. “That won’t do Helen any good. Most influenza patients come through just fine—ninety percent of them. You know that. You did. Helen will, too.”
“I feel so useless. Helen is the one who knows how to heal people. Even as a girl, she could read a thermometer. She’d feel my forehead to see if I had a fever, and she’d tell Mother when I needed ice or a custard. When I ate too much at the circus, she stayed up part of the night to care for me, and she wasn’t any more than eleven or twelve. That’s when she came up with that silly expression ‘Dream about clowns.’”
“I never heard that.”
“It was just for us.” I wiped the tears from my face with my fingers. “She’s a good person, Gil.”
“I know that. And you’re a lot like her. Don’t sell yourself short, Lute.”
I loved Gil for saying that and scrambled to my feet. “I think the coffee’s ready.” I poured it into two cups and leaned against the drainboard next to the sink while I sipped mine. “Is she any better?”
“The truth?”
“Yes.”
“No. The influenza will have to run its course, which it will if we’re lucky.”
“That’s all we can do, hope for luck?”
“You can pray.”
I snorted. “I’ve tried that. It doesn’t do much. It didn’t do anything for Peter.”
Gil shrugged. We’d never talked about religion, so I didn’t know if he believed in God.
“I gave her Aspirin. That will help a little with the fever and the pain.”
“Nothing else?” I asked.
“The patients who survive seem to be those who go to bed as soon as the symptoms show and stay in bed long after the influenza is gone. We’ll both insist she stay in bed after she’s herself again.”
“After she’s herself again,” I repeated.
We took turns sitting beside Helen. When it was my turn, Gil was restless, walking around the house.
After a time, Helen began to moan and cry out. She tossed her head back and forth and muttered, “No! No!” Once, she said, “Get … off … me.”
“She’s delirious,” Gil said.
I knew what she was dreaming about, and I held Helen’s hand and said over and over, “He’s not here, dear. He’s gone. You’re safe.” I don’t know if she heard me, but after a while she stopped moaning.
“What was that about?” Gil asked.
“Something that happened a long time ago.”
“What?”
I shrugged. It wasn’t my story to tell.
“Tell me,” Gil insisted. I shook my head, but he kept at me. “I’ve always thought something happened to her before I met her. I heard a lecture in medical school about, well, women who’ve been…” He sounded embarrassed and didn’t finish.
“Raped?” I’d rarely said the word out loud, and it sounded harsh and ugly.
“Oh my God. Did that happen to her?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Gil was persistent. “Is that why she doesn’t like to be … touched? I can barely kiss her good-night, you know. She freezes up. I’ve imagined all kinds of things. Is that why she puts off the wedding?”
“You should talk to Helen,” I said.
Gil reached down and took Helen’s hand.
Then I said, “It wasn’t her fault. She’s ashamed. I think she believes you’d hate her if you knew.”
“Hate her? Oh my God, Lute. How could she think that? I’d want to protect her.” He sat down on the bed beside Helen and took my unconscious sister in his arms. The scene was too intimate, and I left the room and stood in the hall, remembering what it was like to have Peter’s arms around me and hoping for Gil’s sake, as well as Helen’s, that he would not know what it meant to never again hold the person you loved.
I said I would sit with Helen and made Gil go into the living room and lie down. Helen was quiet for a time, and then she began to moan and thrash around. Once she called out, “It’s all right.” I touched her arm to soothe her, but she brushed it off as if it were a hot poker. She turned her head back and forth on the pillow, and I used the washcloth to wipe the blood from her nose. She pushed my hand away, and suddenly she sat up, her eyes open but unfocused, and said in a clear voice, “It’s all right, Dorothy. I’ll say I did it. Give me the ice pick.”
“Helen!” I said. “What is it?”
She stared straight ahead, not looking at me.
“Didn’t you stab Mr. Streeter?” I whispered.
Helen didn’t answer. Instead, she slumped over and began to moan again.
“Did Dorothy kill him?” I asked again. But Helen didn’t respond.
I sat back in the chair and clutched the washcloth, now dirty, in my hands, realizing then what had happened. Dorothy had stabbed her father, and Helen had taken the blame for it. She’d lied to the police, and even to me.
“Helen?” I whispered, but she didn’t respond. “You protected Dorothy, just like you always protected me,” I told her. “That’s what sisters do.”