The Heart Specialist Read Online Free PDF

I sprinkled ash from the stove into the hole to mask the smell. After that I had to scrub the pot so clean it felt like a sin to use it again.
    A bit of blood dribbled down my leg and dropped, bright and wet, onto the floor. I smudged it with my toe then squeezed my legs tight and hopped to the wash basin.
    Laure was sitting up in bed watching. “What are you doing?”
    I did not answer.
    “Why are you hopping like that?”
    Just then Grandmother called up. “Gi-irls!” One word split in two and sung at the top of her lungs like a song. Her voice dropped midword, as if pronouncing it reminded her of all the effort involved in raising two granddaughters alone.
    I wanted to get back into bed and tell Grandmother I was ill but that would have been impossible. Laure had flopped back down in the sheets for the moment, her face thankfully hidden.
    I had to get dressed. My winter dress was dark blue, so it would not show the stains. I refrained from moaning for Laure’s sake. I moved my clothes to the side of the bed farthest from my sister.
    “How come you’re over there?”
    “I’m dressing.”
    “Why there?”
    One leg was through a bloomer hole. The other leg I did not want to lift. I had used a towel to staunch the blood and was trying to squeeze it in place with my thighs. All of a sudden it was too much and I tumbled face first into the mattress.
    Laure crawled over her dolls and stretched out a finger. “What is that?”
    My bloody towel lay in full view on the floor. I picked it up and tried to hide it, but I knew that it was futile. Laure’s pupils were already the size of pennies. Her chin was trembling.
    “Nothing,” I said hopelessly.
    She let out a scream that brought Grandmother and Miss Skerry scrambling up the stairs and into our room.
    All the attention went to her, of course. Even after they calmed her down and put her to bed with two teaspoons of brandy, Grandmother refused to talk about my blood. Laure had blathered about it until finally I had to reach under my dress and pull out the towel. Strangely, Grandmother did not blink. She simply folded it and my soiled undergarments in our bottom sheet and handed the offending bundle to Miss Skerry for the wash.
    Eventually, after Laure was settled, she brought me to her bedroom and showed me how to use rags to protect my clothes. There were no explanations. The guidance was about rags, nothing else. Grandmother did not mention the need for a doctor, which could have been a good sign or a bad one. Either my condition was not serious enough to kill me or else I was so far gone that medical attention would be futile. This was what had happened to Mother. By the time the doctor was called to examine her, there was nothing anyone could do. I listened to my grandmother’s instructions, allowing my hips to be moved this way and that by her old, dry hands. Her face was closed to questions.
    That morning I sat by myself, rising only occasionally to check on the rags. I had retreated to the window seat in the schoolroom and picked up Jane Eyre , which I had already read but liked and found comforting. Around noon the door opened and Miss Skerry slipped inside. “I have been busy with the laundry,” she said, making me blush. “How are you feeling?”
    To my consternation I began to cry. I had not realized until that moment how alarmed I was at what was happening. I was lonely and scared, half-convinced that, like my consumptive mother, I was going to die. I had not wanted to cry and I rubbed my eyes furiously, but this only produced a new surge of tears.
    “There, there,” she said, offering me a clean hankie. Miss Skerry sat down beside me and took off her spectacles, which she rubbed several times with the pleats of her skirt. “Has your grandmother not explained about your menses?” she asked, holding the frames above her in the dim gaslight and then replacing them on her nose.
    I looked up in confusion.
    The governess was quiet. She reached for my