Chapter 19
“And so, Nurse O’Halloran, what would you diagnose?”
“From the wheezing, shortness of breath, and sensation of tightness in the chest that the patient reports, I would suggest asthma,” Maggie answered without hesitation.
She met Dr. Weston’s gaze directly, without a moment’s wavering.
Nearly twenty months into her nursing training, she’d learned a great deal… including how to answer confidently.
“And what treatment would you suggest?” Dr. Weston asked.
Maggie glanced down at the teenaged girl, one pale hand clutching her chest as she gazed up at them with watery eyes, her breath coming in painfully drawn gasps.
It could be difficult, she knew, for a patient to be talked about in such a seemingly clinical manner, and so she gave the girl a quick, reassuring smile before replying firmly, “The goal of any treatment would be to allay the symptoms, find the exciting cause, and improve overall existing health.”
She paused, and Dr. Weston gave a short nod, inviting her to continue.
“In this case, I would recommend belladonna alkaloids, administered either through a tincture or liniment, as well as taking a full patient history to review the potential removal of any allergens. If symptoms persist, regular inhalation of steam, mixed with camphor or menthol, can help to alleviate them.”
“Perhaps with one of Dr. Nelson’s newfangled inhalers?” Dr. Weston remarked with a small smile. “Very good, Nurse O’Halloran. See that it’s done.”
Maggie gave a brisk nod back before she hurried to get what she needed from the supply cupboard.
It seemed hard to believe that, in just two months, she would be graduating from the nursing program, hopefully to a job right here at the hospital.
It had been a busy year and a half, working hard on the wards, with little time for amusement or anything else, which was, Maggie knew, how she’d wanted it.
She’d left Jenny’s wedding with a sense of her own isolation but also a determined focus on what mattered—her training.
Over the last year, she’d continued to visit her brother and father—and Brendan—at the parlor house every few months, and while the visits had been pleasant, they’d also been brief.
Maggie had no intention of getting her feelings all tangled up again over Brendan O’Donaghue—or anyone else—and distracting her from her work.
When she saw him, he seemed happy enough, doing odd jobs around the parlor house and acting in a fatherly manner toward Miss Jessie’s girls—only Emma Mae remained of the original six Maggie had known.
Jenny was living happily in Sacramento with her Mr. Grayson and now expecting a baby.
The others had drifted off to various places and situations—one had gone out to Colorado to try her luck with the men flooding the state hoping to get rich in its silver mines.
Another had come under the care of a protector, and a third had left the trade altogether and was, according to Miss Jessie, losing her looks working in the peach cannery.
It was, Maggie had come to realize, a transient trade.
As for Brendan and Jessamine themselves…
she had seen, during her visits, the way Miss Jessie laid a proprietary hand on Brendan’s arm, and also how he did not shake it off.
She’d watched as they’d bent their heads together, heard Jessamine’s low murmur and Brendan’s answering chuckle.
They had an easy familiarity and even camaraderie that she wondered if she and Brendan had ever had—and suspected they probably hadn’t.
Everything between them had always been so fraught, for one reason or another.
She was sorry for that now, but she was also determined to be at peace with it. Brendan seemed happy, and so was she.
Mostly.
The truth was, while her work remained rewarding and purposeful, the last year and a half had been lonely.
Her friendship with the Browns had dropped off, not, Maggie hoped, with any malice or even intent.
Adelaide had simply become more involved with her work at St. Luke’s, and without her cheerful, earnest presence as an informal chaperone, Philip did not invite Maggie to lectures or walks in the park or dinners at the Cliff House, which in any case had burned down on Christmas Day, thanks to a defective flue.
She had hoped he might, since she’d thought they were friends in their own right, but clearly Philip didn’t want to give the wrong impression, and so he hadn’t.
It seemed all too apparent that despite that kiss, he had no romantic interest in her.
He had not once addressed the kiss he’d so carelessly dropped on her lips on Christmas Day—not even with an apologetic smile or raised eyebrow, never mind an actual conversation.
He treated her the same as ever, with a kind but what Maggie came to feel was a careless warmth, and sometimes she wondered if the kiss had happened at all.
And even though she knew it had, it obviously hadn’t meant anything to him—not, she told herself, that it had to her, but still.
A kiss was a kiss, and even with her regrettable liaison with Theo Stein, she hadn’t had very many.
Occasionally, Maggie had gone to dinner at the Browns’ home, and while she’d enjoyed those evenings, she couldn’t help but feel a certain reserve between her and the family who had once welcomed her so warmly.
She suspected it was more in herself than in them, but it was there, nevertheless, an incontrovertible barrier that separated them and saddened her.
A few weeks ago, Maggie, Adelaide and Philip had gone out to a concert at the Pacific Hall, and it had almost felt like old times.
Over supper afterward, Adelaide and Philip had argued in their heated and good-natured way, and Maggie had laughed to listen to them, and Philip had asked her what she’d thought, seeming so eager to hear her opinion, which she’d quietly given.
Maggie could almost have imagined it was a year ago, and they were pals as they’d always been.
But then, in the middle of it all, Adelaide had called for champagne and toasted Philip’s travels.
“Travels?” Maggie had asked, bemused, and he’d smiled at her, his friendly face so open and guileless.
“I’m going to Berlin, to study at the Charité,” he’d said. “I leave for New York, and then a ship to Hamburg next week. I’ll be gone for two years.”
Maggie had stiffened in shock, surprised at how hurt she’d felt by this unexpected news.
She and Philip hadn’t seen each other very often in the last year, so there was no real reason why he would have told her of his plans.
And yet—two years! And it had not occurred to any of the Browns even to mention it to her—or think that she might care or mind.
“How exciting,” she’d murmured and taken a sip of her champagne.
Later, back at the nurses’ residence, she’d tried to untangle the complicated knot of her own feelings. She didn’t have a tendresse for Philip, she knew, despite that brief kiss. They’d been friends, and lately not even very close friends, and yet…
The news of his travels, the fact that he’d told her so carelessly, so indifferently, had reminded her painfully of her own deepening sense of aloneness.
Did she have any friends at all, Maggie had wondered disconsolately, any true friends?
The other nurses were friendly enough, but Maggie still felt some of that old reserve.
She was closest to Wilhemina, whose lively sense of humor was so different from her own, but Wilhemina’s family lived nearby and she was often visiting them on her days off.
While Maggie still visited her family and Brendan, she didn’t feel close to them, either.
The longer she trained as a nurse, the more distant the colorful and chaotic life at the parlor house seemed.
Her father and brother had continued to involve themselves in some business down by the waterfront that they didn’t go into, but they certainly seemed flush, ebullient with their own success.
The last time she’d visited, her da had brandished a bottle of champagne and a box of Ghirardelli chocolates which he’d insisted Maggie take back to the hospital.
She’d shared the chocolates with the nurses, and everyone had been grateful, but even that had made her feel alone.
They’d all gossiped and chatted together as they’d gorged on the chocolates, and she’d been left standing with an empty box.
Maybe, Maggie reflected, she simply wasn’t good at friendship. Her pride always seemed to get in the way, even when she so desperately didn’t want it to. She thought of Tovah, who had been her closest friend back in New York. She hadn’t written her in months. Maybe she needed to.
She could certainly stop with the self-pity, Maggie decided as she left the supply cupboard with a tincture of belladonna.
She was very fortunate indeed to be where she was, on the cusp of earning her certification, and hopefully being offered a position right here at the hospital.
Wilhemina had already been offered a position in a private home, for a consumptive patient, in Monterey, closer to her family, and she would leave at the end of June.
Maggie hoped by then she would have had an offer as well.
Casting off her maudlin reflections, she hurried down the corridor. “Here we are,” she told the asthmatic girl as she proffered the bottle with a warm smile. “You’ll be feeling better shortly, I’m sure of it.”
It was after seven before Maggie was able to head back to the nurses’ residence through a deepening dusk. It was a beautiful evening, the cherry trees in full, blowsy blossom, a few stars just starting to glimmer on the horizon, the evening air still holding the day’s warmth.
“Maggie, you have a caller,” Wilhemina told her excitedly as she came into the residence, shedding her cloak and unpinning her cap.
“A caller?” Maggie repeated, surprised. She could not think who it could be.