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Sunshine filled the train. Sophie was struck by the sharp, edgy brightness of the city on this morning’s ride from the worn down and grimy Lower East side to the colorful shore of Coney Island. Everything felt foreign compared to the night she rode with Moe, Mercy snug against her heart. The trip was different, too, with Solomon by her side. Their world stood still as people hurried past them. Some glanced at her black funeral shawl and offered her a nod of condolence. Along with the clothes on their back, the two of them brought a few days’ worth of necessities. The Couneys had made it clear she and Solomon were to stay at their house as long as they needed, and Nora would have rooms prepared for them when they arrived. Even so, Solomon couldn’t afford to stay away from the shoe shop for long.
Sophie sighed, trying to think of how to prepare and explain to him the shock of Mercy’s “hospital” being surrounded by Lionel the Lion Faced Man, Rosa and Josefa the Siamese Twins, and Jolly Betty, who weighed a whopping 600 pounds, not to mention the bars and dance halls, roller coasters, and more.
“You all right?” asked Solomon.
“Fine,” she replied, trying to hide her angst. She hoped when Solomon saw the inside of the exhibit like she had, relief and thankfulness for the Couney’s expert care would overshadow the circus atmosphere.
She wanted to ask Solomon how he felt about his mother offering to let her live with them, but she felt an odd tension between them. He had not said more than a few words to her since he turned away from her at the tenement. She recalled how he had looked at her so strangely at the calling—something changed in his eyes. What was he thinking? Did Esther intend for them to be together as old-world traditions would expect? Or was she simply being charitable? Sophie shivered at the thought. She loved Solomon, but as the brother he had been to her and each of her sisters. The night before, Sophie had pretended to be asleep but watched Solomon as he knelt and prayed beside his bed. How blessed Molly had been to have such a kind and gentle man.
If she moved in, marriage might become an obligation. Sophie did not want to risk that, but what other choice did she have? The thought of sharing a roof with them, with him, felt wrong to Sophie, like a betrayal to Molly, but she had nowhere else to go.
Sophie gave herself a shake and squared her shoulders. There would be more time to figure that out after they got through Solomon’s introduction to Coney Island, and more importantly, to his daughter.
The two of them were sound asleep when the train screeched to a stop, and they jumped at the sudden lurch. She scolded herself for drifting off and not having time to prepare him. She watched as his eyes grew wide with bewilderment at the sight of the Ferris Wheel and the giddiness of their fellow travelers, excited for a day of fun at the seashore and amusement parks.
“How far is the hospital?” Solomon asked, his brow furrowed with questioning as he collected their two small bags and headed down the aisle to exit the train.
“Just a few blocks from here,” Sophie said, her smile feeling strained. “About the hospital...”
Sophie spent the time it took for them to reach the Couney home explaining Dr. Couney and his work and the nursery exhibit. When he wasn’t distracted by the lively commotion on the boardwalk, the giant, macabre smiling clown face of Steeplechase Park, or the squeals coming from rides in every direction, Solomon appeared more intrigued than anything else.
“It is not as crazy as it seems,” said Sophie, still trying to convince herself she had not gotten them into a sordid predicament.
~~~
“WE’RE GOING TO DREAMLAND?” Solomon asked as they walked past posters proclaiming eye-popping exhibits, astounding acrobats, human roulette wheels, and mouth-watering smells.
“Trust me,” Sophie said. She thought she would be immune to those things by now, but she cringed at the ostentatiousness of the exhibit all over again as they approached it.
~~~
INCUBATOR BABIES!
INFANT INCUBATORS
LIVE INFANTS!
EVERYONE LOVES A BABY!
~~~
“SOPHIE, WAIT.” SOLOMON had set their bags on the ground, unwilling to go further. His jaw clenched and his lips thinned with clear disdain. They were feet away from the entrance and the line of patrons at the doors.
“Solomon, I know how it looks—” Sophie felt a hand on her shoulder.
“You must be Mercy’s father. We’ve been anxious to meet you,” Dr. Couney said, extending his other hand toward Solomon. “Please, don’t mind all this fuss. I am sure Sophie explained it’s a means to an end. A very good end, as you will soon see.”
Sophie felt herself flush, again ashamed she had not done a better job preparing Solomon.
Solomon looked from Dr. Couney to Sophie and back again, taking an unexpected, lunging step toward Dr. Couney.
“What have you done with my daughter?”
The size difference between them would have intimidated most, but Dr. Couney appeared unperturbed. Instead, he stepped past Solomon and picked up their bags. “Come, Mr. Becher, and allow me to assuage your understandable concerns. Let me introduce you to your daughter, Mercy. She is doing exceptional for a child her size, one of the smallest I’ve ever had...”
Mouth hanging open as if to protest, Solomon hesitated but then followed Dr. Couney as he continued to ramble on about the details of Mercy’s medical progress and care. The three of them shouldered their way past the line of people snaking down the sidewalk and waiting for their chance to see the babies in incubators.
As with the first encounter Sophie had with the place, once they were through the double doors and in the exhibit proper, she felt at once as if she was in the brightest, cleanest, most state-of-the-art hospital in the world. The room smelled of antiseptic, and nurses busied themselves with the infants.
“As you can see,” Dr. Couney went on, “we give each child the most advanced care and individual attention.”
Sophie watched Solomon scan the room, but it wasn’t the cleanliness or newfangled equipment he was critiquing. He was looking for Mercy.
“Can we show him the back nursery and Mercy now?” Sophie said, respectful but insistent. He was hard to redirect once he started his sensational soliloquies.
“Yes, of course, the nursery,” Dr. Couney said, leading them through the swinging doors. He set their bags down and launched into another explanation. “Each incubator maintains a constant warming temperature from those pipes carrying water heated by oil lamps. The fans ensure the infants receive clean air. The cloths over the fans act as filters.”
Louise recognized them from across the room and must have sensed Sophie’s anxiety and Solomon’s growing impatience, for she hurried over and extended her hand to Solomon. “Mr. Becher, it is a pleasure. Come and meet your daughter.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and guided him to the incubator where Mercy lay.
“Thank you, Louise,” Dr. Couney said. He turned back toward Sophie. “Welcome back, my dear. We will catch up at dinner.”
Solomon approached Mercy’s incubator slowly. He appeared at once afraid and in reverence of the bundle inside.
“Have a seat,” Louise said, motioning to the chair Sophie had sat on for so many hours. She opened the glass doors of the incubator, picked up Mercy, and set her in the crook of Solomon’s waiting arm. “She is quite fragile, and cannot be out of the incubator for long, but she is getting stronger every day.”
He searched the faces of Louise and Sophie as if for assurance that touching his daughter would not break her. Then he stared, transfixed and in awe of the tiny miracle. His calloused shoemaker’s hands further dwarfed the tiny child. Thick fingers and nails stained a permanent black and brown from shoe polish, he inspected her miniature nose, her arms, her legs, her toes. He kissed her forehead, then her nose, and her head again before wrapping her awkwardly and pulling her snug to his heart.
Sophie wondered what it was like for Solomon to take in this child, the result of the love between him and Molly. Did he see in Mercy’s hands the hands he first held when he and Molly were still children in the wide-open fields around their Belorussian village? The hands that touched his face so sweetly the day they said their vows when he kissed her? The hands that kneaded his daily bread, washed and mended his clothes, and held his as he fell asleep each night? Did he look at the tiny face and see the same curve of the brow Sophie recognized as Molly’s?
Sophie had no way of knowing what it felt like to Solomon to have lost a piece of himself that the mystery of marriage had knit together tighter than the seams of a shirtwaist, the presser foot of love holding them fast when they grew weary and were tempted to stray or go to bed angry. She could not have known that Solomon’s mind wandered to the parts of Molly only he knew, and which were invisible to the world—the way she curved into his frame at night, the stories they imagined, their promises to love and raise their child together. Had he and Molly dreamed about Mercy inheriting Solomon’s strength and Molly’s gentleness, Solomon’s wisdom balanced by Molly’s grace? In Mercy, did he see the love they made in the stale, cramped tenement exploding into this light of a child?
Sophie noticed Solomon’s hands trembling when at last he picked up his small child who fit inside one of his hands. She recalled the night she and Molly had been in bed—giggling and whispering long after the lamp had been turned down—when Molly told her Solomon first kissed her. Molly said he had trembled then, too.
“You can hold her inside your shirt against your skin if you would like,” Louise said, watching Solomon hold Mercy like a bowl of borscht he was afraid to spill. “She needs warmth, and this helps her get to know you, too.”
He fumbled to loosen the top buttons on his shirt with one hand.
“Let me help.” Sophie unbuttoned two more buttons and helped tuck Mercy, curled like the roll-up bugs they found on the sidewalks in summer, against Solomon’s skin. Sophie gently tugged the open shirt back together.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered to Mercy as he began to rock. Soon his broad shoulders shook with silent sobs, his tears falling on Mercy’s head like a river of love. “I’ve always got you.”