Bellagrand: A Novel by Paullina Simons Page A

failure. No. It was Big Bill and his radicalism that was responsible for the gradual dissolution of her marriage.
    Rose watched her conflicted face. “If you have the time, on Saturdays or Sundays, why don’t you come and help me here? I can’t pay you, as you know. We never pay, but we could definitely use a pair of good hands. I can feed you. You can sleep at the Wayside if you need a place to stay.”
    “What about my mother?”
    “Don’t you have a brother?”
    “Yes, but . . .”
    “A boy also can be a good child to his mother. Ask your brother to be a good son while you help me.”
    Gina took off her coat. “No use in fretting,” she said. “How about I help you now?”
    Three
    “THINGS ARE STILL QUITE SPARTAN ,” Rose said to Gina as she took her around the ward, a long annex attached to the Wayside, and showed her where they kept the salves, the bandages, the sponges, the bedpans. “Please stay away if you become with child again. Just in case. Sometimes we have lepers staying with us. They are highly infectious. There is bacteria in the air from all sorts of sickness. If you’re blessed enough to fall pregnant, don’t breathe in the air of the dying. Promise me?”
    “The danger of that while the strike continues,” said Gina, “is slim. But how do you not get sick?”
    Smiling, Rose raised her eyes and palms to the ceiling. “The God of all comfort comforts us in our tribulation so that we may give comfort to those who are in any trouble.” Rose put her arm through Gina’s. “You are a good girl, and you’re going to be just fine.” She leaned in for a confidence. “You know, I had no nursing experience before I started caring for the incurably sick. Oh, yes. Don’t be so surprised. But like my dear father, I have always been fascinated by medicine. He wanted to be a doctor before he became a writer, did you know that? Not a lot of people do. What do you think? Did he make the right choice in his life’s path?”
    “Hard to say no to that, isn’t it, Rose? His books bless the future generations.”
    “I suppose they do. But look, please don’t tell anyone else that I have no nursing training. They’ll close me down for sure. Come with me—I hear Alice.”
    Gina blanched.
    “Not that Alice,” Rose said gently. “ My Alice. She must be back from her walkabout. She goes around Concord twice a week, in the afternoons. Visits the sick in their homes.” The nun paused. “Though I must say, I’m surprised the other Alice is still so top of mind for you.”
    “What can I say?” Gina nodded. “She left me with a few parting words I haven’t been able to shake from my heart. Her valedictory salvo, so to speak. When things aren’t going well, her words are all I can think about.”
    “Clearly what catches seed is the grain of truth, no matter how small.”
    “Not even that small.” Gina pointed to the door. “Let’s go say hello.”
    In the front hall they were greeted by a plump serious woman. “Gina,” Rose said, “you remember my friend and colleague Alice Huber, don’t you?”
    Nodding, Gina shook Alice’s hand.
    “Alice used to be a portrait painter,” Rose told Gina with a proud smile.
    “I’ll tell my own story, Rose, dearest.” Alice took Gina’s other arm. Flanked by the petite sisters, the towering Gina walked through the ward between the beds of the dying. “It’s true I used to be a portrait painter,” Alice concurred. “But my heart wasn’t in it. I was looking for something else. I said that when I found a work of perfect charity, I would join it. And so I did.”
    “It’s not for everyone, Alice,” Rose said. “Don’t judge people.” She looked up at Gina. “My friend can be too critical sometimes, God love her. I tell her all the time—people are the keepers of their own souls, not you.”
    “And do I listen, Rose?”
    “Hardly ever.”
    “Exactly. Do you know, Gina,” Alice continued, “that before we built this small annex, we