Tatiana and Alexander. Paullina Simons

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      “Tania, you’re doing well. Brenda tells me, albeit grudgingly”—Edward smiled—“that you are very good with the patients.” Edward and Tatiana were walking between the patient beds. Tatiana was carrying an awake and alert Anthony.

      “Thank you, Edward.”

      “Are you afraid your boy is going to get sick from being around sick people?”

      “They not sick,” Tatiana replied. “Right, Anthony? They wounded. I bring my boy, and he makes them happy. Some of them have wives and sons back home. They touch him and they happy.”

      Edward smiled. “He is a very fine boy.” Edward stroked Anthony’s dark head. Anthony paid Edward back by grinning toothlessly. “You take him outside?”

      “All time.”

      “Good. Babies need fresh air. And you, too.” He cleared his throat. “You know, on Sundays the doctors from NYU and PHD play softball in Sheep Meadow, in Central Park, and the nurses come to cheer us on. Would you like to come this Sunday with Anthony?”

      Tatiana was too flustered to answer. They were on the stairs when they heard the clomping of high heels. “Edward?” a voice screeched from the ground floor. “Is that you?”

      “Yes, sweetheart, it’s me.” Edward’s voice was calm.

      “Well, thank goodness I found you. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

      “I’m right here, sweetheart.”

      Mrs. Ludlow walked up the stairs, panting, and the three of them stopped on the landing. Tatiana held her baby closer. Disapprovingly, Edward’s wife eyed Tatiana and said, “A new nurse, Edward?”

      “Nurse Barrington? Have you met Marion?”

      “Yes,” said Tatiana.

      “No, we never met,” declared Marion. “I never forget a face.”

      “Mrs. Ludlow,” said Tatiana. “We meet every Tuesday in dining room. You ask me where Edward, and I say I don’t know.”

      “We have never met,” repeated Mrs. Ludlow, with extra firmness to her voice.

      Tatiana said nothing. Edward said nothing.

      “Edward, can I talk to you in private? And you,” she added, glaring at Tatiana, “are too young to be carrying a child. You’re not carrying him correctly. You’re not holding his head. Where is the baby’s mother?”

      “Marion, she is the baby’s mother,” said Edward.

      Mrs. Ludlow was critically silent for a moment, then tutted and before anyone could say anything, she tutted again with emphasis, muttered the word “immigrants” and dragged Edward away.