I told her, It doesn’t matter. Here, put this on—

I found her a starched nightdress on the shelf. Can you manage?

A loud sneeze drowned out Bridie’s answer. Sorry!

Punished for sneezing at mass, I remembered.

She turned her back modestly and started unbuttoning.

I found her a clean handkerchief, slid a thermometer under her tongue, and began a chart as if she were any new patient. Bridie Sweeney. Age twenty-two (approx.). So many details I didn’t know. It galled me to give her address as the motherhouse of Sister Luke’s order. Admitting physician—blank. I tried to remember when I’d put the thermometer in her mouth—could one minute have passed yet? Time was moving so peculiarly. I bent and touched Bridie’s jaw. Open up?

Her dry lips parted, releasing the thermometer; her lip clung to the glass as I lifted it out, and a bit of skin tore, releasing a bubble of blood.

I dabbed the glass and read it: 102.6. High, but actually not particularly high for this flu, all things considered, I told myself.

I hurried out the door. I pushed past nurses and doctors and shuffling patients in the passage. I leaned into Women’s Fever, and because I couldn’t for the life of me remember the ward sister’s name, I called, Nurse? Nurse?

The small nun didn’t like that form of address. What is it, Nurse Power?

My runner’s not well, I said in a high, falsely casual voice. Could you spare someone to fetch a doctor right away?

I didn’t say for what patient; I couldn’t admit that I’d put a volunteer helper into a bed when she hadn’t even been admitted.

The nun sighed and said, Very well.

I bit back the word Now.

When I got back to my ward, Bridie was under the covers already, her clothes folded on the chair.

(I realised she’d grown up knowing she’d be beaten if she dawdled.)

I was in no state to be in charge of this ward, given that I was so frightened I could hardly breathe, but it wasn’t as if there was anyone else. Needs must. I propped Bridie up on two pillows. I fetched four sulphur-reeking blankets from the press. I made up a hot whiskey, very strong. Bridie’s respirations were just a little fast, and her pulse was only slightly high. I wrote down all the figures, trying to think scientifically. No cough, at least.

Bridie shifted between the sheets. She asked, But what if a real patient needs the bed?

Shush, now, you’re as real as any. High time you had a rest after all the racing around for me you’ve been doing. Enjoy a little kip.

My tone was incongruously playful.

I added, You must be sleepy after sitting up all night on the roof.

Bridie’s chapped smile was radiant.

I twisted around suddenly. Mrs. O’Rahilly, I wonder, would you mind if I moved you to the far bed to make a little more room here?

Mary O’Rahilly blinked. Certainly.

(Whenever I leaned over Bridie, I thought I was doing a good job of keeping the panic from showing on my face—the panic but not the love. I couldn’t bear anyone to see the way I was looking at her.)

So I helped Mary O’Rahilly out of her sheets and into the cot by the wall. I did spare a thought for the two babies. I pushed Eunice’s crib between her mother’s cot and the emptied middle one, to move her away from Bridie’s sneezes. Then I shoved Barnabas’s crib alongside it, but too hard, so both babies were slightly shaken, and Eunice sent up a whimper.

I was busy trying to remember, if I’d ever been told, whether a faster onset of the flu necessarily meant a worse case. Might Bridie blaze through the thing and be back on her feet and laughing in a few days?

To keep off the chill, I draped a cashmere shawl around her head and neck.

Her teeth were chattering. Lovely!

I laid the blankets over her and tucked them around her narrow, shaking frame.

She joked, I might get too hot now.

It’s good to sweat it out, I told her. More water?

I hurried to pour a glass.

Bridie sneezed five times in a row into her handkerchief. Sorry—

I cut her off. You don’t have to be sorry for anything.

I flung her handkerchief in the laundry basket and gave her another. Was I imagining it or was the colour spreading towards her porcelain ears? And rather more like mahogany now? Red to brown to—

Drink your whiskey, Bridie.

She gulped her drink. Spluttered.

I scolded fondly, Little sips!

She gasped. I thought it would taste nicer than it does.

I could hear the effort in her voice, the precariousness of breath. I said, You know, I don’t think you’re getting quite enough air, so your heart’s beating faster to try and make up for that. Let me just pop this behind you…

I grabbed a wedge-shaped bedrest and pushed it between her and the wall, then put a pillow in front of that. Lie back now.

Against the pillowcase, her hair stood out like the setting sun. She let out a ragged breath.

I took hold of her fingers. I whispered, Really, whatever possessed you to lie about having had this already?

Creakily: I could tell you needed another pair of hands.

She strained for the next breath.

I wanted to help, she said. Help you.

But you’d met me only half a minute before.

Bridie grinned. If I’d admitted I hadn’t had it yet—

(Panting now.)

—you might have sent me away. There was work to do, work for two.

I found I couldn’t speak.

Bridie wheezed, Don’t fuss, now.

(As if she were the nurse.)

No need to fret. I’ll get through this.

If I was hearing her right. She breathed the words so lightly, I had to stoop right down with my ear to her mouth.

Her tone was odd. Elated, that was it. I’d once attended a talk by an alpinist who reported having experienced a euphoria in the upper peaks, where the air was thin. While on the mountain, he hadn’t recognised it as a symptom of anything, or perhaps he’d been too caught up in the adventure to care.

I took her temperature again. It had jumped to 104 now.

That’s not Bridie Sweeney?

The voice behind me was Dr. Lynn’s.

I kept my eyes on the chart as I summarised the case at top speed.

The doctor interrupted before I finished. But she should be in Women’s Fever—

Please, Doctor. Don’t move her.

She tutted, already putting the stethoscope down the back of Bridie’s nightdress. Deep breath for me, dear?

I could hear the awful rasping from where I stood. I said, She has no cough—isn’t that good?

Dr. Lynn didn’t answer. She was turning Bridie’s hands over; they were puffy, I saw now, and not just from the chilblains. She murmured, Edema—fluid leaking into the tissues.

How had I not spotted that?

I made myself ask, What about her—

I couldn’t get out the syllables of cyanosis.

—her cheeks?

Dr. Lynn nodded gravely. Well, if you stay nice and quiet, she told Bridie, with a bit of luck…I’ve seen it go back to pink.

How often had the doctor seen that, though, compared with the number of cases in which the stain had deepened? Red to brown to blue to—

Stop it, I told myself. All Bridie needed was a bit of luck, and who deserved it more?

Dr. Lynn took hold of Bridie’s chin. Open up for me a minute?

Bridie gaped, showing the dark tongue of a hanged woman.