The Woman in the Photo by Mary Hogan

daughter—accepted Mr. Carnegie’s invitation, club members scrambled to reschedule their allotted vacation times to coincide with those two weeks. Particularly families with marriageable daughters. The clubhouse was filled to capacity.
    Rising up three stories like a gray whale in the green woods, the clubhouse of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Clubis the size of a fifty-room hotel. Behind its clapboard façade, the dining room is large enough to seat one hundred and fifty. The bedrooms are spare: slender bed, washbasin, bureau. The more prominent members of the club are assigned front rooms with lake views, of course.
    Mornings in the dining room are when and where the club members meet to plan the events of the day. Sailing, canoeing, horseback riding, dressing up and posing for tableaux vivants. Evenings are for entertainments. Some of our own invention; others hired from down the hill. Piano recitals, theatricals, dance practice. Every night it’s something new and cheerful. I can only imagine the excited whisperings down the narrow clubhouse halls at bedtime, the boasts, the dares.
    Most members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club wouldn’t dream of owning a cottage like ours—one of only sixteen. They want a carefree rest in the country. “Roughing it” in the woodsy clubhouse with their peers, leaving their personal servants back home in Pittsburgh. As I would prefer, too. But Father built our cottage—with its medical office—when the club first opened.
    â€œMy patients expect instant access to me wherever they are,” he said.
    I would have thought Father overly solicitous had I not seen it for myself the summer before.
    It was the middle of the night. There was pounding on the cottage door. “Mind the children,” Father called to Mother as he ran down the stairs.
    Mother, of course, ran to Little Henry’s room first. I dashed to the stair railing. “His pain started about midnight,” I overheard a man’s baritone tell Father. Then I heard a groan, and my friend Edmond’s distressed voice.
    â€œIt’s my stomach. Muscle cramps.”
    Panic rose into my chest. Cholera hadn’t made its way to our retreat in South Fork, but we all feared it would. Everyone knew the symptoms: diarrhea, vomiting, dehydration, muscle cramps. Anyone rushing to the outhouse was suspect. I nearly crumbled to the floor. Edmond was my age. Would I lose my friend? Were we all in danger? Father quickly led Edmond and his father to the back parlor and shut them in his office.
    That night, I barely slept. The next morning, I tiptoed downstairs filled with dread. I expected to see pots of water boiling on the cookstove and Edmond’s parents weeping in our parlor. Instead, I smelled bacon.
    â€œIs Edmond going to be okay?” My breath was shallow, my lips dry.
    â€œHe’s fine.” Father sat at the head of the dining room table. He reached for a piece of toast.
    â€œIs it—?” I stopped, as if merely mentioning the dreaded disease would bring it into the house.
    â€œAn overzealous badminton game is all,” Father said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œPulled muscles in the abdomen.”
    When I laughed, Father firmly admonished me. “My patients are not to be ridiculed, Elizabeth.”
    â€œYes, Father, but—”
    â€œNever discuss this case, or any other, with your friends. Do you understand me?”
    I nodded.
    â€œSay it out loud.”
    â€œI understand.”
    â€œAs far as you are concerned, Edmond and his father were never here. Do you hear me?”
    â€œYes, Father. I hear you.”
    â€œThe privacy of my patients is what puts food on our table.”
    I understood. There were rules. We all had to abide by them.
    Edmond never mentioned that night, and neither did I. Ever.
    â€œGoodness, when will they get here?” On the clubhouse porch, Addie has begun to perspire. She sips iced tea to cool