Prologue
CHICAGO
DECEMBER 1880
“Look at them,” Sylvie Townsend whispered to her sister. “I wish we could do more.” The cold seeped through her cloak and into her boots.
They shivered in the alley outside the orphanage. Meg, surrounded by her own three children, looked through the grimy window. “We’ve done what we can. For now, at least.”
It felt like precious little.
On behalf of the Chicago Women’s Club, Meg and Sylvie had delivered donations from local grocers for the Christmas holiday and were then quickly ushered out. Before they left, Sylvie couldn’t help peering into the dining hall at the children she longed to help.
Her eyes burned as she watched the orphans and half-orphans—those who had one parent living. There were so many of them packed onto the benches, hunched over bowls of thin soup. This building wasn’t a home. It was a warehouse for unwanted goods.
“So much children!” Five-year-old Hazel stood on her tiptoes to see, her nose red with cold. “Do all their mommies and daddies live here, too?”
“Hush, Hazel.” Walter, older by two years, stuffed his hands into the pockets of his wool coat. “You don’t know anything.”
Meg picked up her four-year-old, Louise, and held her close, though the child was getting too big for that. “Those children’s parents can’t take care of them anymore.”
Frowning, Louise clasped mittened hands around her mother’s neck. Two braids the color of Meg’s blond curls trailed down her back. “Will you ever stop taking care of us?”
“Never ever. Your father and I will always take care of you.” Meg gave Louise a squeeze before setting her down again. A raw wind cut through the alley, bringing with it the stench from the privies behind the orphanage. “Walter, take your sisters to the carriage while I talk to Aunt Sylvie for a moment.”
Bending, Sylvie kissed three cold cheeks, then watched the carriage driver bundle them into the landau. The difference between those bright-eyed children and the wan souls inside the orphanage was so stark it stung. “Oh, Meg. It isn’t enough to bring extra food a few times a year. How far will that nourishment go when they need the nourishment of loving parents far more? I wish there was more I could do.”
Meg tucked her hands into her muff. “I know how you feel.”
Sylvie doubted it. Meg had a houseful of her own children and a husband who adored her. Sylvie had none of that. She was thirty years old, the sole caregiver for their aging father, Stephen. She owned a bookstore across from Court House Square and managed two rental apartments above her own, since they’d added a fourth floor to their building after the Great Fire. Though there was no husband on the horizon, Sylvie had plenty of space for a child in her home and heart. But the orphanage wouldn’t let her adopt one as a single woman.
The waiting horses swished their tails, their breath small puffs of white. Meg turned her back to them. “Sylvie, I worry you’re taking on too much.”
Sylvie laughed, and tiny crystals formed inside her muffler. “You’re the one who encouraged me to join the Women’s Club to begin with. You said I needed something else to do, something else to think and care about aside from Father and the store. And you were absolutely right. My world had become far too small.”
“I fear you’ll wear yourself out, between your volunteering activities and taking care of Father and the store and your tenants’ needs. I don’t see anyone taking care of you.”
“What exactly are you saying?” Not that Sylvie couldn’t guess.
“There’s still time.” A lock of hair whipped about Meg’s collar, and she tucked it back under her hat. “You could still find someone to love you.”
“You love me, and so do your children. Nate is like a brother to me. Father loves me, as do Karl and Anna Hoffman.”
“You know what I mean.”
Sylvie folded her arms. “And you know where I stand on the subject of matrimony.” She didn’t need a husband in order to be fulfilled. Furthermore, she had no time for one. The fact that she’d had her heart smashed to bits by her first love years ago didn’t need to be mentioned. Since then, there’d been a couple of suitors, but she had only entertained the idea of courtship to please her father, who claimed he wanted to see her settled. Ironically, however, he’d declared neither suitor could pass muster. She’d agreed.
“All right.” Meg rolled her lips between her teeth, hesitating. “I just don’t like to think of how lonely you’ll be after—well, Father isn’t getting any better.”
Sylvie dipped her chin into the folds of her muffler. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t deny it. Her father’s health had been broken by his time in the Andersonville prison camp during the Civil War, and it only grew worse with each passing year. There was a reason he’d recently transferred ownership of the bookstore to her.
She took her sister’s hands, Meg’s scar tissue a reminder of all they’d been through together, including and after the Great Fire that ravaged Chicago nine years ago. “I’ll adjust. And I’ll always have my sister.”
Meg replied with a fierce embrace, then joined her children in the carriage and wheeled away. Sylvie would return home by streetcar.
Picking her way between islands of slush, Sylvie emerged from the alley’s shadows onto the street the orphanage faced. The sun was bright in the powder-blue sky but held little warmth. While she paused at the front doors, a brawny man approached with a little girl who clutched an adult-sized peacock-blue shawl at her neck.
“Excuse me.” The man tipped his cap to her with fingers chapped red at the knuckles. He carried the raw smell of keeping company with animals, living and dead. “The orphanage is open, yes?”
Dread for the child tightened her chest. “It—it is,” she stuttered. “I hope you have no need of it.” It wasn’t her business. But if this child was to join the orphans in this facility, then she would become her concern in an instant.
The man frowned. “I heard they take in children whose parents can’t provide for them well enough.” His voice was as gruff as his beard, his words thickly accented. Broken blood vessels spread tiny red webs across his nose and cheeks. “I heard they offer clothing, food, and shelter. They keep them safe. Is it not so?”
The little girl tugged the hem of his unraveling sleeve and said something in a different language.
He placed his hand on her uncovered head. “Not now, Rozalia.” He said the name with such tenderness, it sounded like a poem: Rosa Leah. He looked up. “My name is Nikolai Dabrowski. This is my daughter. My wife didn’t survive the journey from Poland. I cannot care for the girl on my own.”
Rozalia brought his hand to her cheek and watched Sylvie from behind a tangle of dirty blond hair.
“She’s lucky to have one parent living,” Sylvie said after introducing herself. “She needs a father’s love. Besides, the conditions inside this orphanage are deplorable. There’s not enough food or soap or tender care.”
“I work fourteen hours a day at the stockyards,” Mr. Dabrowski said. “She stays in our shack alone, or plays in the street with other children. This isn’t safe or right. Believe me, Miss Townsend, I bring her here because I love her, not because I don’t.”