years before the rest of the country did, forcing Hopkins to drop out of school and work the fields in their place.
At about one hundred steps into our climb, Sammy and I were hearing all about how Hopkins went on to make a fortune in business, but he also had a piece of bad luck: “He fell in love with his first cousin, Elizabeth,” Dad informed us.
Not smart , I thought to myself, still counting — 137, 138. You don’t want to fall in love with your cousins .
Neither one of this tragic pair ever got married, Dad continued, which left Hopkins with a ton of money and no one to leave it to. So he came up with this genius idea of starting a hospital wedded to a medical school. 169, 170. I was breathless, with the start of a stitch in my side.
“That union of school and hospital,” my father informed us, wheezing quite a bit himself by that point, “sparked a scholarly pursuit of medicine that produced some of the greatest medical discoveries of the twentieth century.”
We all concentrated on climbing as we spiraled up around the inside of the cupola, ducked through a trapdoor to another platform, and hit a last sixty-six steps that were so narrow you had to turn your feet sideways to fit on them. One more trapdoor — 231, 232 — and suddenly, all of Baltimore was below us. My legs felt like lead, but the view was worth the climb. I took some pictures to send to Jecie.
And Dad finally caught his breath. “Just think,” he said, “if Hopkins had been able to finish school, or if he’d married his cousin, or if he’d fallen in love with somebody else, he probably wouldn’t have founded this hospital and university. And then thethousands of people treated in the hospital, and the millions of people who have benefited from Hopkins research, maybe would have died. All of history is like that — built on an infinite number of almost random events that come together to push things this way or that. If one little thing was changed, well …” Dad shrugged.
I finished the sentence in my head. The whole world might be too.
We had dinner with Dad and then hooked back up with Mom. The drive home was quiet. Sammy dozed. Mom focused on the road and her thoughts. I could tell she was feeling satisfied with the progress she had made pulling together whatever huge public display she was planning. She’d picked up both her dress and the invitations, and they were safely stowed in the back of the car.
When we got home, the house was dark, except for the exterior light. Sammy and I stumbled inside while Mom emptied her hands so she could turn off the front light and turn on the hall light.
“Sarah,” Sam whispered to me. I bent down to hear. He raised his finger, pointing. “Why’s she in the mirror?”
“What?” I turned to look. The lights blazed.
And I didn’t see anything in the mirror — no reflected portrait, no pattern in the glass, no face at all. I turned back to Sammy. “What do you mean?”
But Sammy had already moved on.
Mom carried her invitations to the office on the lower floor of the west wing and settled in for what I assumed was some party planning, so I took the opportunity to poke around the eastwing. “Come with me, Sam,” I said. I wasn’t up for solitary explorations yet.
Gramma’s room was on the right, toward the river. It was a large room with its own private bath and this cool octagonal nook in one corner. The bedding, a little sofa, and two chairs were all done in a modern floral chintz, and most of the rest of the furniture was of recent vintage, which surprised me. Maybe Gramma just didn’t want to be surrounded by the past in the room where she slept.
The only exception to all the twentieth-century coziness was an antique cradle in the corner. I wondered if Gramma could touch that cradle and still see her baby sleeping in it.
Across from Gramma’s room was the Chinoise Room, which was filled with all kinds of things from the Far East: vases and boxes and
At about one hundred steps into our climb, Sammy and I were hearing all about how Hopkins went on to make a fortune in business, but he also had a piece of bad luck: “He fell in love with his first cousin, Elizabeth,” Dad informed us.
Not smart , I thought to myself, still counting — 137, 138. You don’t want to fall in love with your cousins .
Neither one of this tragic pair ever got married, Dad continued, which left Hopkins with a ton of money and no one to leave it to. So he came up with this genius idea of starting a hospital wedded to a medical school. 169, 170. I was breathless, with the start of a stitch in my side.
“That union of school and hospital,” my father informed us, wheezing quite a bit himself by that point, “sparked a scholarly pursuit of medicine that produced some of the greatest medical discoveries of the twentieth century.”
We all concentrated on climbing as we spiraled up around the inside of the cupola, ducked through a trapdoor to another platform, and hit a last sixty-six steps that were so narrow you had to turn your feet sideways to fit on them. One more trapdoor — 231, 232 — and suddenly, all of Baltimore was below us. My legs felt like lead, but the view was worth the climb. I took some pictures to send to Jecie.
And Dad finally caught his breath. “Just think,” he said, “if Hopkins had been able to finish school, or if he’d married his cousin, or if he’d fallen in love with somebody else, he probably wouldn’t have founded this hospital and university. And then thethousands of people treated in the hospital, and the millions of people who have benefited from Hopkins research, maybe would have died. All of history is like that — built on an infinite number of almost random events that come together to push things this way or that. If one little thing was changed, well …” Dad shrugged.
I finished the sentence in my head. The whole world might be too.
We had dinner with Dad and then hooked back up with Mom. The drive home was quiet. Sammy dozed. Mom focused on the road and her thoughts. I could tell she was feeling satisfied with the progress she had made pulling together whatever huge public display she was planning. She’d picked up both her dress and the invitations, and they were safely stowed in the back of the car.
When we got home, the house was dark, except for the exterior light. Sammy and I stumbled inside while Mom emptied her hands so she could turn off the front light and turn on the hall light.
“Sarah,” Sam whispered to me. I bent down to hear. He raised his finger, pointing. “Why’s she in the mirror?”
“What?” I turned to look. The lights blazed.
And I didn’t see anything in the mirror — no reflected portrait, no pattern in the glass, no face at all. I turned back to Sammy. “What do you mean?”
But Sammy had already moved on.
Mom carried her invitations to the office on the lower floor of the west wing and settled in for what I assumed was some party planning, so I took the opportunity to poke around the eastwing. “Come with me, Sam,” I said. I wasn’t up for solitary explorations yet.
Gramma’s room was on the right, toward the river. It was a large room with its own private bath and this cool octagonal nook in one corner. The bedding, a little sofa, and two chairs were all done in a modern floral chintz, and most of the rest of the furniture was of recent vintage, which surprised me. Maybe Gramma just didn’t want to be surrounded by the past in the room where she slept.
The only exception to all the twentieth-century coziness was an antique cradle in the corner. I wondered if Gramma could touch that cradle and still see her baby sleeping in it.
Across from Gramma’s room was the Chinoise Room, which was filled with all kinds of things from the Far East: vases and boxes and
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