Isabelle and Alexander, Rebecca Anderson [nonfiction book recommendations .TXT] 📗

“Indeed not. But if you were to train me,” Isabelle said, attempting a smile, “I would be.”

Isabelle hoped that comment would bring the small lift to Alexander’s lips, but his head remained facing the far wall.

Nurse Margaret looked into Isabelle’s eyes, a challenge unconcealed there. She pulled back a thin cotton blanket to expose Alexander’s torso. The straps from his chair formed raw, red welts on his shoulders. Bruising left his skin in various shades of purple, green, and yellow.

Isabelle shuddered and felt ill.

“When you see this,” Nurse Margaret said, indicating Alexander’s wounds, “you think of your husband and of your own discomfort. When I see it, I know that it is the natural progression from one stage of healing to the next. You recoil. I press forward. These are instincts that lead us to either flourish in a nursing profession or fail. You are not suited to nursing a patient. Go back to your drawing room.” The woman turned her back on Isabelle and continued to attend to Alexander as if Isabelle were already gone.

Feeling the sting of her dismissal, Isabelle knew she could either turn and walk away or continue a fruitless discussion.

Without any hope of changing the nurse’s mind, Isabelle spoke, nonetheless. Nurse Margaret was not, after all, the only person in the parlor. “Technique and training are helping Mr. Osgood heal, and for that I am grateful. However, force and coldness cannot do all that remains to be done.” She hoped Alexander, his face to the far wall, heard and understood her words. She trusted he recognized her willingness to assist him, to comfort and support him.

Frustrated and irritated, Isabelle paced the small drawing room. Doctor Kelley stood at the door asking Doctor Fredericks frank and specific questions, and the specialist returned answers that even Isabelle recognized as condescending and vague.

Why would this man not trust Doctor Kelley? She wondered at his air of dismissal. The attitude had never surprised her when directed at herself; after all, as the nurse had pointed out on several occasions, Isabelle was not a healer. She was only a wife, and not a particularly experienced one. But Doctor Kelley had made a life of caring for, curing, healing, and soothing people in every state of health and weakness. Why did this man insist on treating Doctor Kelley with such disregard? She was furious on her guest’s behalf, and on her own.

She took a step toward the doctors. Her forward motion, though small, pleased her.

Isabelle Osgood recognized the beginnings of an unfamiliar sensation: she was ready to be taken seriously.

At the sound of the door closing, she stepped to the good doctor’s side. Perhaps, she thought, she should have given him a moment to compose his face. He looked frustrated and wounded by his interaction with Doctor Fredericks. Come to think of it, Isabelle recognized the look. Alexander had the same expression about him after every visit from Doctor Fredericks. She examined his face in the dreary light of the entrance hall and took the older man by the hand.

“I wish to know what you think,” Isabelle said, her voice a whisper. “Are the doctor and nurse helping to heal the injury to Alexander’s body?”

Doctor Kelley brought his other hand up to hold hers between both of his. “I am encouraged to see so much motion in his arms and hands. And the fact that he can turn his head is a vast improvement. It suggests he will regain significant strength in his neck and shoulders. I am thrilled that he is beginning to be able to sit in his chair unassisted.”

She could tell from his small grimace of pain that Doctor Kelley had seen the chair straps’ damage to Alexander’s chest and shoulders; such a sight had clearly affected the doctor as much as it had troubled her.

“But?” Isabelle asked. It was clear to her that something was deeply amiss.

Doctor Kelley shook his head. “I hate to see our Alec tossed about like a damp and dirty cloth, with no respect to his pain or his spirits.”

With no warning, Isabelle felt a sob escape her.

The doctor immediately spoke his concern for her, leading her toward the drawing room and into a chair.

She sat, grateful, and wiped at her eyes. “I apologize, sir, for losing my composure. I promise you,” she added with what she hoped was a reassuring smile, “this is not a daily public occurrence.”

Doctor Kelley sat in the chair opposite and smiled sadly. “No, not public.”

“Perhaps you mistake my meaning,” Isabelle said, even though he did not, indeed, misunderstand anything. “I simply feel relief at your words. I, too, feel great distress at the manner in which the doctor and nurse are treating Alexander. I’ve no right to disapprove, I know, but in my heart, I believe there is a better way.”

“No right?” Doctor Kelley shook his head. “My dear, you have every right. Who knows Alec better than we do? Who can see his improvements more judiciously than we can?”

Isabelle longed to feel the doctor was correct, but her comprehension of her husband’s wishes and desires, his strengths and his needs, was only beginning to bloom.

As though he could see her thoughts, Doctor Kelley said, “And through your compassionate assistance, you’re growing daily to understand him better.”

“I thank you, sir. Your kindness is a great boon. If only you could stay here forever,” she said, smiling through what remained of her unexpected moment of weakness. She wiped the tears from her eyes and stood. “Shall we attend to Mr. Osgood?”

The doctor followed her into the parlor, where they found Alexander once again sitting in his chair. Nurse Margaret had gone from the room. Yeardley gathered the last of the instruments and apparatuses and put them into the small bag that was now kept in a sideboard at the corner of the room.

Doctor Kelley placed his hands upon Alexander’s head, and Isabelle watched her husband’s eyes close. She wondered if he felt relief or