“Is that the way love is supposed to be? I mean that quick.”

“It was for us. One look at him, and I knew. So did he. We were married within a month.”

“Does it still bother you? I mean being trapped like that.”

Miss Olivia raised her chin. “No, of course not. Many others had it far worse.”

Sadie felt trapped by the confines of the county and her life. But as bad as it got sometimes, it could not have been nearly as bad as having bricks and stones pinning you in the darkness.

The two rode in silence for the remainder of the trip, and when Sadie drove into Lynchburg, she stopped to ask directions several times. Quizzical looks aside, the folks she spoke to seemed friendly and helpful.

The hospital was not what she had expected at all. It was a gray, stark place, with not a tree or blade of grass on its grounds. Only two stories high, it had no shutters on its dozen windows, and the curtains were drawn closed. Not very inviting. Sadie parked and came around to meet Miss Olivia as she stepped out.

“You want me to stay with the car?” Sadie said.

Miss Olivia looked up at the heavy front door. “You can carry the basket for me.”

Sadie followed, but she had trepidation about the building. It had a presence about it that made her stomach knot and her palms sweat. Olivia rang the bell, and both waited. Finally, footsteps approached, and the door opened to an older woman wearing a dark dress. Her hair was pulled back, and her face had a sour expression.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“I’m Dr. Carter’s wife,” Miss Olivia said. “I’ve come to pay him a visit.”

“He’s in surgery and won’t be out for a half hour, but you’re welcome to wait.”

Olivia raised her chin. “Yes, that would be nice. Thank you.”

The two moved to a pair of wooden chairs aligned against the wall. From somewhere deep in the building, they heard what sounded like wailing.

Miss Olivia shifted in her seat and settled her purse on her lap. “Edward volunteers here one day a week. He’s very civic minded.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The wailing eased, but Sadie’s sense of fear did not. They sat in silence watching doctors scurry about. On the upper floor, another woman’s scream echoed in the building.

She was not sure how long they sat before Dr. Carter appeared. He looked rushed and slightly annoyed as he approached the pair.

“Darling, what are you doing here?”

Olivia stood and allowed him to kiss her on the cheek. “I thought I would bring you lunch, and we could share it. I don’t see much of you these days.”

“I know, and I’m very sorry. Building a practice is harder than I ever imagined.”

Sadie rose and was somewhat confused about the place. “What do you do here?”

“We take care of the poor women who don’t have the means to pay for a doctor.”

“You deliver babies,” she said.

“Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes we do other surgeries to help them.”

Sadie wanted to ask about the other times but did not dare.

“Why don’t we go outside?” he said to Olivia.

“Yes, that would be nice,” Miss Olivia said. “Sadie, would you wait for me in the car?”

“Is there a blanket in the trunk?” Dr. Carter asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Fetch it for us,” he said, smiling at his wife. “We will make a picnic of this fine lunch.”

“Yes, sir.” She retrieved the plaid wool blanket with thick fringe and handed it to Miss Olivia. As they walked along the sidewalk, Sadie was glad to retreat to the car.

Inside the car, she pulled the folds of her jacket closed and watched the Carters stroll hand in hand toward a single bench stationed at almost the edge of the property.

Dr. Carter fluffed out the picnic blanket over the bench and then held out his hand for his wife. She accepted it and sat.

Sunshine warmed the car, and Sadie found some of the tension had faded from her body. Her eyelids grew heavy and soon drifted shut. She glided just below consciousness, thinking she was aware of her surroundings but not realizing they were meandering further away like a log on a slow-moving river.

A hard smack against the glass snapped her back to consciousness, and when she looked at the driver’s-side window, she saw the face of a young woman. She appeared young, but her features looked drawn and weathered, as if she had already lived a lifetime. Her eyes were bright blue and filled with terror and tears.

Two men came up beside the girl and wrapped their arms around her. She recognized one of them as Sheriff Boyd right off, but the other was a stranger to her.

It took both men to pry the girl’s fingers from the car’s side mirror. She screamed and tried to bite their hands, but the men were too strong. Finally, her frantic fingers slipped from the mirror.

The woman dug her heels into the hard dirt as she tried to twist her body and flee. But she was no match for the strong arms that pushed and shoved her up the steps to the door. The sheriff smacked his palm against the bell, and seconds later it snapped open, with the sourpuss nurse on the other side. The trio dragged the girl inside the building.

Sadie’s mouth was so dry, and her heart was beating so fast she thought it would break through her ribs.

“Dr. Carter,” she shouted as she ran toward the couple. “Is that girl all right?”

Dr. Carter helped his wife stand. “She’s fine.”

“But she looked so afraid,” Sadie said. “Like she thinks they are going to do something terrible to her.”

“The girl is feebleminded like her mother was,” he said, more to his wife. “She’s confused and easily terrified. I promise you that we’re only going to help her.”

“That scream,” Olivia said. “It was pure terror.”

“We get girls in from the country who’ve never seen a doctor. They don’t understand that we’re here to help.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Sadie asked.

“Nothing that I can’t fix.” His gaze remained on Olivia. “You trust me, don’t you?”

Olivia stared into his eyes. “Yes, of course I do.”

They kissed on the lips, and Sadie, feeling like she wasn’t supposed to see, dropped her gaze to Dr. Carter’s polished brown shoes. As she studied the tied leather laces, she noticed several dull-red spots that looked like dried blood.

 

Two days later neither Sadie nor Miss Olivia mentioned their visit to the hospital when they drove into Charlottesville to pick up an order of plants. Dr. Carter had ordered them special and had warned Sadie not to let the plants sit out long at the railroad loading dock before she loaded them in Woodmont’s farm truck.

Sadie had not been to the rail station in Charlottesville since she took Danny there, and she was excited to see the trains. There was something thrilling about seeing people coming and going to different places in the world. One day, she would be on one of those trains.

She loaded the plants quickly into the truck bed while Miss Olivia signed for the delivery, and when Olivia smiled at the railroad man, he seemed to melt at the sight of her. She was dressed in a soft brown dress that skimmed her calves and was cinched with a slim polka-dot brown belt. Her brown shoes were polished and had just enough of a heel to make them pretty but useless for work.