The Heart Specialist by Claire Holden Rothman Read Free Book Online Page B

touch them.”
    The old woman shook her head. “I am sorry, but these things upset me. I was happy when it was done.” She shrugged, shaking her head again. “I am a simple woman. I could not sleep with those things in my house.”
    “You threw them out?” I said, my heart sinking.
    “No, no,” said the tailor. “I packed them up, like I told you. The other doctor took them.”
    “The other doctor?”
    “The owner. Dr. Howlett.”
    The old woman glared at her husband and kicked him under the table. It was obvious that she did not wish him to divulge any more.
    “We did keep one thing of your father’s,” she finally admitted, either to divert me or perhaps out of kindness. “This we can give to you.” She went to a drawer near the sink, which clinked when she pulled it open. From what I could see it was their junk drawer, a place for all the lost and misplaced things that collect in a lifetime. She rummaged for some time and finally extracted a blackened metal square. “I knew we still had it,” she said, holding it up to the light. “It needs a polish, of course.”
    Mrs. Froelich sat down at the table and proceeded to rub at the soot until her rag was black. Four words shone through: Honoré Bourret, Medical Surgeon . She handed me the door plaque. “He is still alive?”
    I nodded, although I had no way of being sure. The old woman was about to ask me more, but now it was my turn to be tight-lipped. Perhaps they knew nothing about my family and I did not particularly wish them to find out.
    “Thank you,” I told her quite genuinely, taking the plaque and standing up. “You have been most kind.”
    The tailor asked one last time if he could fit me for a dress, but I shook my head. I could probably have used one that day, but this was beside the point. Mr. Froelich and his wife had given me something far more valuable, which perhaps they suspected as they showed me to the door.
    BY THE TIME I made it back to school it was past ten. What a strange morning it had been. I had hoped to lay something to rest but instead it felt more alive than ever. The Froelichs’ shop had stirred memories I had not even known I had and a longing so sharp it made me feel weak.
    I entered the school from the back. In the yard girls were arranging tables and cutting lilacs to place in pots on the auditorium stage. The girls in my class had all fixed their hair and dressed, and for the first time in my life I noticed what they were wearing. I wondered if any of these dresses were the work of the bent old tailor. When I entered the auditorium a girl by the door stopped me and said I was wanted at the main office.
    Grandmother, Laure and Miss Skerry were standing in a group, looking starched in church clothes. Running was out of the question so I walked fast, eyes latching onto the figure whose letters had bolstered me for the past eight months. It was strange to see Miss Skerry outside of the Priory. She was smiling warmly, but on her head was a derby hat with an elastic under the chin that made her look ridiculous.
    “Good heavens,” said Grandmother as I approached. Laure stood beside her, her mouth frozen in an awful, forced smile.
    “I cannot say that they are flattering.” Grandmother’s eyes were the colour of forget-me-nots, with pinprick holes at the centre. “Do you wear them all the time?”
    She had not even said hello. “I take them off when I sleep,” I said. My glasses had been a point of contention from the start. Grandmother had a country woman’s preconceptions on the subject of eyes.
    “Surely it is unhealthy to keep them on so long,” Grandmother said. “I have heard it warps the eyeballs.” The headmistress, who was standing with us, tried to explain that this was not the case and that no damage would come of it, but Grandmother would not be swayed. “She will not wear them on the stage today. She must look her best, Miss Smith. People will be watching.”
    Miss Smith said she thought the