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yet, but she might be able to sell a piece on the hilltop church to a magazine, the way Margaret had done, and make a bit of money to supplement Sam’s monthly check.
    She loved the anonymity of Paris. In Antwerp she had been a curiosity. Here, there were single women from around the world, going about their business with nary a second glance. Fanny was not new to the bohemian style of life; she had befriended writers and painters back home who fit the category. But the women at the San Francisco School of Design were subdued compared to these free spirits.
We are living among the lotus-eaters,
she wrote to Rearden.
    She and the children were surviving cheaply, as most of the artists were, yet they hardly noticed it at first. For very little, she could buy cooked vegetables and slices of meat that required only heating. Her mother had always been fond of the saying “You can’t get blood from a turnip.”
Well
,
there’s one point on which you and I don’t agree, Ma.
Fanny had always possessed a knack for making something out of nothing. When the spirit moved her, she threw together onions, chicken backs and carrots into a pot and invited a group of students from the atelier to a jolly dinner.
    Later, when she tried to recall the early weeks in Paris, she wouldn’t be able to remember one moment of pleasure from that time. For by December, Hervey had fallen desperately, deliriously ill.

CHAPTER 6
    It had begun with chills and swollen lumps in his neck. Then red patches appeared on his skin.
    â€œScrofulous tuberculosis,” Dr. Johnston said.
    â€œScrofulous?”
    â€œHe’ll develop ulcerations. He will bleed. It’s possible it is in his lungs as well. He may recover, or he may not.” Johnston, whose kindly face sagged with sadness, looked directly at her. “Do you understand?”
    â€œYes,” she said. But she didn’t. Not then.
    â€œGive him seven grains of quinine mixed with water to make a teaspoon. And spread this on him.” The doctor put a jar of salve into her hands.
    â€œIt burns my eyes,” Sammy cried, running out of the room when Fanny applied the claylike stuff all over Hervey. Belle had already made haste out the door on a pretext of getting a newspaper.
    â€œI won’t lie,” Fanny said. “It is not the best smell on earth, but it’s no bother if it makes you well. Isn’t that right, Hervey?”
    The boy nodded, covering his eyes with a washcloth.
    â€œWe have to do what the doctor tells us.” Fanny bustled around the room. “You’re going to be in bed for a while, sweetheart. It’s no fun being sick at Christmas, but we have each other. That’s the main thing.”
    There wouldn’t be any Christmas at all, but it wasn’t yet time to tell the children. Sam had written recently that he had no money to send them that month. With Hervey’s illness, medicine came first and other needs after. The food she and Belle and Sammy ate was the simplest possible: black bread, smoked herring, soups.
    At seven, Sammy suffered most from the lack of money. He was a sturdy boy, but he’d developed a wan look as he’d grown older: pale hair and eyelashes, light skin beneath freckles. In Paris, his pallor had grown even more pronounced.
    Once, when Fanny went out to get medicine, Sammy accompanied her. Emerging from the chemist’s, she found the boy, nose pressed against the window of the patisserie next door, eyeing the glazed fruit tarts. He was hungry for something besides stew and bread, and it grieved her that there was nothing she could do about it. Each morning he ate only a roll and milk before he walked out the door in his little uniform to attend his private school. At least he got lunch there and had a happy place to be during the day. Thankfully, the tuition was paid up through May. They were all growing thin, including Hervey, who had lost his appetite. Fanny gathered together