The House of Closed Doors by Jane Steen Page A

his walking stick. He stopped to kiss me and stroked my curls.
    “Be good now, Nellie,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”
    “And then he was gone,” I told Mrs. Lombardi. “The doctor’s house was three miles through the woods, and the snow had stopped hours before, so he should have made it easily. But he never came back.”
    “What happened?”
    “He reached the doctor’s house; the servant spoke to him. But the doctor was not there. He had been at another patient’s house and had decided to return to see Mama before he went home. No one at the doctor’s house knew that, of course, and I guess Papa just turned around and headed homeward. By this time it must have been quite dark, and the weather had changed shortly after he had set out.”
    “Eleven years ago?” Mrs. Lombardi’s eyes narrowed. “I remember that winter. It froze so hard and so suddenly that my neighbor’s cow died in the night.” She looked at me with a startled expression, and I answered her thought.
    “Yes. He made it to about half a mile from our house, but by that time, Bet said, he must have become confused because he headed off the wrong way, farther into the woods. And yet there was moonlight, and the trail was clearly blazed; that path was frequently used as a shortcut, even in the snow.”
    The room was so quiet that a falling ember made us both jump. Mrs. Lombardi seized the fire tongs and deftly tossed the glowing red coal back onto the fire. She hesitated before turning back to me. “It is unlikely that he suffered much, you know, Nell. They say that dying of cold is like falling asleep.”
    “They found him under a bush,” I said. “Bet told me that he was curled up quietly, his hands crossed on his chest, frozen. His hat, his mittens, and his jacket were found some distance away, as if he’d felt too warm.”
    “And your mother, of course, recovered.”
    “Yes; she was very ill for a while, and they did not tell her of my father’s death for several days. In the end, she guessed. We could not have the burial until the ground thawed in the spring, of course, and so by that time she was quite well again.”
    Sarah stirred and began to make the squeaking noises that indicated she was hungry. Mrs. Lombardi scooped her out and held her for a moment. “Your father’s hair was just like this?” she asked.
    “Exactly the same.”
    Mrs. Lombardi’s face lit up. “Then your father lives in her, Nell. I am sure he sees her from heaven.”
    I was not so sure but remained silent and took my baby in my arms.

FOURTEEN

    B y mid-March the snow still covered the earth with a frozen blanket. My life had resumed its normal working pattern, with the addition of a wicker crib in which Sarah accompanied me in my daily tasks. I sat in Mrs. Lombardi’s office hemming some tea towels that Tess, to her delight, had managed to decorate with some simple embroidery. The scratching of Mrs. Lombardi’s pen mingled with Sarah’s grunts as she rubbed her eyes, settling into sleep.
    Mrs. Lombardi sighed, studying a sheaf of papers on the desk in front of her. We had been discussing the lateness of the spring and the quarrels that now broke out frequently among the farm workers, bored with their indoor tasks.
    “We are going to open up the insane wing.” As if she had only just made the decision, she stuck her pen into the inkwell with a resigned air.
    “Why?” I asked, troubled by the thought. “Is an asylum closing? I thought we did not house the insane?”
    “No, but we have twenty senile women arriving from a privately-run sanatorium in Waukegan that is being modernized.”
    “Why are the women coming here?” I asked. “Surely there are other less, well, less institutional places.”
    Mrs. Lombardi smiled at me, showing her small, very white teeth. “One of our governors is also on the board of the sanatorium. It is an excellent arrangement for us, as the sanatorium will pay for the refurbishment of a wing we would soon have