Where the Light Enters Read online




  ALSO BY SARA DONATI

  The Gilded Hour

  THE WILDERNESS NOVELS

  Into the Wilderness

  Dawn on a Distant Shore

  Lake in the Clouds

  Fire Along the Sky

  Queen of Swords

  The Endless Forest

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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  Copyright © 2019 by Rosina Lippi-Green

  Readers Guide copyright © 2019 by Rosina Lippi-Green

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Donati, Sara, 1956– author.

  Title: Where the light enters / Sara Donati.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Berkley, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019008855 | ISBN 9780425271827 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780698140684 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Women physicians—New York (State)—History—19th century—Fiction. | Women—Social conditions—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Historical. | FICTION / Sagas. | GSAFD: Historical fiction

  Classification: LCC PS3554.O46923 W48 2019 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019008855

  First Edition: September 2019

  Cover design by Sarah Oberrender

  Cover photographs: Couple on the Brooklyn Bridge © akg-images / Waldemar Abegg; Brooklyn Bridge, c. 1912 © GRANGER/GRANGER

  Maps and interior art by Rosina Lippi

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For my cousin Mary Reardon Travis, who remembers.

  CONTENTS

  Also by Sara Donati

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Primary Characters

  Family Tree

  Stuyvesant Square Map

  Part I: Weeds and Roses

  Part II: Journey HomeChapter 1

  Part III: Stuyvesant SquareChapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  Readers Guide

  About the Author

  The wound is the place where the light enters.

  —RUMI (attributed)

  PRIMARY CHARACTERS

  Verhoeven Family

  Sophie Savard Verhoeven, physician

  Peter (Cap) Verhoeven, a lawyer; Pip, their dog

  Conrad Belmont, Cap’s uncle, a lawyer

  Bram and Baltus Decker, Cap’s cousins, lawyers

  On Stuyvesant Square

  Minerva Griffin, widow, philanthropist

  Nicholas Lambert, Minerva’s grand-nephew, a physician and head of forensics at Bellevue Hospital

  Quinlan Household on Waverly Place (Roses)

  Lily Quinlan, artist and widow of (1) Simon Ballentyne and (2) Harrison Quinlan. Originally Lily Bonner of Paradise.

  Henry and Jane Lee, her household staff

  Elise Mercier, medical student

  Bambina Mezzanotte, art student

  Mezzanotte/Savard Household on Waverly Place (Weeds) & Associates

  Jack Mezzanotte, detective sergeant, New York police

  Anna Savard Mezzanotte, physician and surgeon

  Eve Cabot, their housekeeper; Skidder, her dog

  Oscar Maroney, detective sergeant, New York police, Jack’s partner

  Ned Nediani, family friend

  Weeksville, Brooklyn

  Delilah Reason, widow

  Sam Reason, her adult grandson, a printer

  Staff at Various Hospitals and Dispensaries

  Laura McClure, physician, New Amsterdam Charity Hospital

  Maura Kingsolver, physician and surgeon, New Amsterdam Charity Hospital

  Gus Martindale, physician, New Amsterdam Charity Hospital

  Sally Fontaine, medical student, Woman’s Medical School

  Margit Troy, nurse, New Amsterdam Charity Hospital

  Marion Ellery, nurse, New Amsterdam Charity Hospital

  *Abraham Jacobi, physician, pediatric specialist, Children’s Hospital

  *Mary Putnam Jacobi, physician, faculty, Woman’s Medical School

  Martin Zängerle, physician, Switzerland

  Manuel Thalberg, physician, German Dispensary

  Pius Granqvist, physician and director, Infant Hospital

  Nicholas Lambert, pathologist, forensic specialist, Bellevue
r />   Neill Graham, physician and surgeon, Woman’s Hospital

  In the Vicinity of Jefferson Market

  Nora and Geoffrey Smithson, Smithson’s Apothecary

  Rev. Crowley, Shepherd’s Fold Orphan Asylum

  Mrs. Crowley, his mother, a widow

  Grace Miller, housemaid at the Shepherd’s Fold

  Thaddeus Hobart, Hobart’s Bookshop

  Kate Sparrow, Patchin Place

  Louden Family

  Jeremy Louden, a banker

  Charlotte Abercrombie Louden, his wife

  Leontine Reed, Charlotte Louden’s lady’s maid

  Minnie Louden Gillespie, their married daughter

  Ernestine Abercrombie, Charlotte’s mother

  Mezzanotte Family & Associates

  Alfonso and Philomena Mezzanotte, florists, Manhattan

  Ercole and Rachel Mezzanotte, floriculturists, apiarists, Greenwood, New Jersey; their adult children and children’s families, including

  Leo and Carmela and family, Greenwood, including Rosa, Tonino, and Lia Russo, orphans

  Jack and Anna Savard, Manhattan

  Celestina, Brooklyn

  Bambina, student, Manhattan

  *Asterisk indicates historical character

  LEGEND

  1. Hummel

  2. Frankel

  3. DeClerck

  4. Baumgarten

  5. St. George Flats

  6. St. John Baptist House

  7. Webster

  8. Verhoeven

  9. Fish

  10. St. Giles Roman Catholic Church

  11. Griffin

  12. DeVelder

  13. St. George’s Episcopal Church

  14. Rectory

  15. Saloon

  16. The Parlor

  17. Dr. Cox

  18. Friends’ Seminary

  19. Friends’ Meeting House

  20. St. James Lutheran Church

  21. NY Infirmary for Women & Children

  22. Woman’s Medical School

  PART I

  Weeds and Roses

  January 1–March 24, 1884

  January 1, 1884

  Dear Auntie, Dear every one of you,

  The Swiss greet each other on New Year’s Eve with this saying: “Rutscht gut rein ins neue Jahr!” If I understand correctly this means “I wish you a good slide into the New Year,” which I suppose makes sense, given the snow and the mountains and the amount of schnapps consumed during New Year’s Eve celebrations. For some reason no one can explain, pigs are considered good luck at the New Year, and thus this small offering in India ink rather than pink marzipan.

  Aunt Quinlan is not, I trust, sliding anywhere, but sitting snug in the parlor wrapped in the blue shawl that brings out the color of her eyes, with the rest of you gathered all around. How we would like to be there with you to wish you good health and happiness in this new year 1884. With all my heart I wish those things for you.

  Cap was especially sad to miss Mrs. Lee’s traditional New Year’s Eve turkey dinner. Apparently that particular bird is unknown in the Alps. But do not fear: we are served good food in abundance. Mrs. Fink is not quite so talented as Mrs. Lee, but still we are eating regularly and very well.

  All is calm just now, as Cap is napping. Pip is tucked up against Cap’s shoulder with his nose pressed against the pulse point just below the left ear, an attentive little dog with the instincts of a nurse. This means that I have a short while to write without pauses for cross-examination.

  Do you remember how Cap told us he wouldn’t miss practicing law? As it turns out, he could only make that claim because he knew he would still have me to practice on. Whatever I write, to whomever I am writing, if I don’t send it off to the post before he realizes what I am up to, he insists that I read every sentence to him. His contribution to my letters consists of suggestions for alternate phrasing and, on occasion, challenges to my reasoning, memory, or grammar. More than once I have been tempted to throw the inkpot at his head (this seems to be a family tradition, established by Aunt Quinlan shortly before her first marriage when she hit Uncle Ballentyne in the forehead with some kind of pot, if I remember the story correctly). Fortunately Cap always stops just short of inciting me to violence. And then he finds some way to make me laugh.

  We might have known that a stay in a sanatorium, no matter how secluded and hemmed in by alpine glaciers, would not put an end to his curiosity. Even the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacillus has not accomplished so much. He is still working his way through the clinic’s medical library and every publication that deals, however peripherally, with diseases of the lung. At this point I believe he knows as much about tuberculosis as I do. Luckily Dr. Zängerle is better informed than I.

  If Cap is not strong enough on a given day to hold a book, I am pressed into reading aloud. Even when he can read and write for himself, my assistance is required for interrogation on medical terminology (though that happens less often as his studies progress). This frequently involves forays into Latin and Greek etymology and anatomical texts and illustrations. His lungs are failing but his mind is as acute as ever.

  Your letter dated December 9th arrived this morning, taken down so diligently by Mrs. Lee in her careful script. Today we also had a letter from Conrad about the custody hearing. The news is distressing, to say the least. If only I had something useful to say or contribute beyond the letters I write. Until there is some decision from the court I will assume that things will take a reasonable and just end, and the children will stay on Waverly Place with Anna and Jack, where they belong.

  I’m sorry to say that my weekly report on Cap’s condition is also not what I would hope. A few days ago his right lung collapsed. In an otherwise healthy person, a collapsed lung will often right itself in time, with bed rest and breathing exercises. In advanced pulmonary tuberculosis it is quite common, far more critical, and rarely resolved. In Cap’s case the collapse was not fatal because Dr. Zängerle was so quick. With Dr. Messmer’s assistance he inserted a drainage tube between Cap’s ribs and into the pleura, with the end result that his lung did reinflate. The tube remains in place despite the fact that there are serious complications that could arise from this artificial opening, but as you are aware, medical science is an exercise in constant juggling of risks and benefits.

  What all this means, as I think you will know, is that he is not improving. I can admit to you that I never believed that alpine air and fortified nutrition would reverse the damage to his lungs, but I did hope that it would slow the progress of the disease. As it may have done. In any case, I am where I belong, here with him. He will leave me too soon, but until that day I will make the most of every moment.

  Cap is stirring. It is a relief when he is able to fall into a deep sleep; for that short time he looks more like the boy I first met when I came to Waverly Place almost twenty years ago. He was so alive, I could never have imagined him like this. Now I must close this letter before he demands that I read it to him.

  With all my love and affection, your devoted niece, cousin, auntie, and friend

  Sophie

  Post Script: We have had some long and chatty letters. Margaret wrote from Greece where she is still with her boys. Travel does seem to suit her very well. More surprising we had a letter from Cousin Carrie, who wrote about the new clinic they are building in Santa Fe.

  Post Script for Mrs. Lee: The sight of your handwriting on an envelope gives us both such pleasure. Most of all we look forward to the small notes and observations you provide in the margins. It is almost like hearing your voice, which might be the thing I miss most. Please give our love to Mr. Lee and your family.

  And for Lia: To answer the question added to the end of Auntie Q’s last letter, yes, the housekeeper’s name really is H
annelore Fink. In German “fink” doesn’t mean the same thing that it does in English.

  QUINLAN

  18 WAVERLY PLACE

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  January 11, 1884

  Dearest Sophie and Cap,

  Today we received your express letter dated the first of the year, which we all enjoyed very much.* Please pardon this short reply, but I write in haste to make you aware of impending unhappy news. The enclosed article from yesterday’s New York Herald will make the situation clear. We expect word on the court’s ruling at any moment. Maybe even today.

  After talking to Conrad, it is my sense of things that Anna and Jack’s guardianship will be revoked and the children will be remanded to the custody of the Catholic Church. I may be wrong†—I hope I am wrong—but in case I am not, you are bound to hear from Anna and perhaps Rosa in short order. Anna will be devastated, Rosa will be inconsolable, and both of them will pour their hearts out. You do not need advice from me on how to respond to them, but I thought it would be useful to have an extra day or two to consider and prepare.

  Please keep in mind that if the ruling does favor the Church’s petition, Conrad is prepared to file an immediate appeal and request that the children not be sent back to the orphan asylum until that is resolved.‡ He believes that this request would be granted.

  You should know that Anna and Jack have been surrounded by well-wishers and friends and family. Of course they miss you. We all miss you, but there is no lack of support. Jack’s parents and all the Mezzanottes have been diligent about attending the hearings. They were interviewed by Judge Sutherland in private, which can only help, because they are such responsible, attentive, and loving people which the judge will see and weigh against the lack of traditional religious affiliations. I insist that it be so. In addition, there have been letters of support from many colleagues including the Drs. Jacobi and hospital directors and police department captains.

  Things may be in turmoil here in the days to come, but I will write as soon as possible.