by Jan Watson
Lilly was halfway home when she remembered Timmy. Good grief, she’d locked the boy in the clinic! Key in hand, she hurried back. What was happening to her mind?
There was Mrs. Blair standing under the porch light and there was Timmy looking out the window beside the door.
“Mrs. Blair,” Lilly said, twisting the key in the hole. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to lock Timmy up.”
Mrs. Blair laughed. “His daddy says lockup might be in that boy’s future—might as well get him used to it.”
Timmy sidled out. “You ain’t mad, are you, Mommy? I was figuring to spend the night.”
“But why, Timmy? I told you to wait on the commissary porch. I’ve spent half an hour looking for you.”
Timmy hitched up his pants. “I was figuring to protect Doc Still from bad guys. Me and Tweety had settled in for the night.”
With a sigh, Mrs. Blair ruffled her son’s hair. “You and your imagination. What am I going to do with you?”
“It’s my fault, Mrs. Blair. I don’t know what’s happened to my mind lately. I can’t remember anything. I found some papers I needed in the icebox the other day.”
Mrs. Blair gave Lilly an appraising look. “Go ahead, Timmy. Your father’s waiting in the buggy.”
Timmy hugged his mother around the waist. “I ain’t getting a whipping, am I?”
“No, your daddy’s not mad. He was once a boy. Now go on.” Once Timmy had run off, Mrs. Blair said, “I don’t know why that boy’s talking about a whipping. He’s never had more than a swat on his backside.”
“He’s a good boy,” Lilly said. “It’s obvious he’s well raised.”
“You’re looking a little peaked, Doc. Are you all right?”
Lilly smiled; she knew where Timmy got his curiosity. “Just tired, Mrs. Blair. It’s been a long day.”
“You’re not in the family way, are you? That would explain why you’re forgetful and why you look peaked. My husband says I lose my mind every time I have a baby. Last time he said I never got it back. Ha.”
“I’ll be right as rain after a good night’s sleep.”
“All right then. Why don’t you let us run you home in the buggy?”
“Thank you, but I enjoy the walk—clears my head.”
Timmy waved when the buggy rattled past, headed for the Blairs’ farm outside of town. Lilly waved back. Timmy’s family was one of Lilly’s favorites. Mrs. Blair had two older children, Timmy and his sister, and now two little ones. Lilly had delivered both the last babies.
Hidden under her loose-fitting jacket, Lilly rested her hand on her stomach. The ladies of Skip Rock had been speculating about a pregnancy since the day after her wedding. It might be a harmless pastime, but Lilly found it irritating. It was as if one would score a point if she guessed correctly before anyone else.
Just this morning, Lilly had checked her reflection from the side in the full-length cheval mirror in her bedroom. She looked like she’d gained a few pounds, but she hoped it wasn’t obvious. She was almost twelve weeks. So sure her baby was a boy, she whispered his name against her fear, as if the naming would somehow anchor him and keep him safe.
She hoped against hope to share her news with Tern before anyone else voiced it. The fear of loss had kept her from telling him the last time he was home—that was selfish on her part.
Longing for Tern washed over Lilly. She needed him here. Who would have guessed she would marry a man who was busier than she was as a doctor? Before Tern had walked back into her life, she’d intended to marry another man—a fellow from medical school. Paul lived in Boston, where they’d planned to practice together. It had bothered Lilly greatly to break her engagement to him, but love won out—as love will do. Paul had been good about it. And after a time, he became a friend and colleague who was never too busy when she needed a consult on medical matters.
She had made the right decision for everyone involved, including the people of Skip Rock, who so badly needed a physician. Regardless, the die had been cast, and here she was in a place she never intended to be, married to a man she rarely saw. Yet she smiled just thinking about Tern. Perhaps that old saw “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” was correct. Maybe if they were regular old married folks, she wouldn’t still get butterflies every time he crossed her mind. Judging from the frequent complaints she heard from her female patients, a husband’s constant presence could be a wearying cross. “No woman needs a husband seven days a week,” one who was pregnant with her fifth had said.
She couldn’t imagine that being with Tern would ever grow old. The way she felt right now, if her husband were home, she’d not only put his dirty socks in the hamper without a murmur, she’d wash his smelly feet.
Hannah was resting when Lilly stopped to call on Armina. Earlier in the day she’d had a cot delivered, and the nurse had set it up right outside the open bedroom door.
“Hannah,” Lilly whispered, “are you asleep?”
“Oh!” She startled awake and sat up. “Sorry, Doctor.”
“No, no—rest whenever you get the chance. That’s why I sent the cot.” Lilly peered into the darkened bedroom. Light snoring filled the space around them. “Did you have to use the restraints at all?”
“No, she’s been quiet most all day. If she gets fractious, I talk her down.”
“Good. I won’t wake her. I’m very pleased we won’t need more laudanum yet.”
Lilly motioned for the nurse to follow her into the kitchen. She needed to fill Hannah in about the baby in case Armina said anything. “Don’t question her, though, Hannah,” Lilly said after she’d relayed the facts. “We need to let her remember on her own, else she could have a setback.”
“Anne must be in seventh heaven,” the nurse said. “That woman does love babies.”
“I very much appreciate both of you,” Lilly said.
“But what about you, Doc? Having us tied up puts quite a strain on you.”
“Thankfully, there are no admits in the ward right now. The day-shift staff can handle the front office unless there’s an emergency. I suppose I should think about hiring a secretary type to man the desk.”
The nurse pulled her robe tightly around her. “When it rains . . .”
Lilly nodded. “It seems so.”
“A secretary might help out lots in the long run.”
Thinking back over the day, Lilly silently agreed. Tomorrow she would take Mazy along to the clinic. She could man the waiting room and keep things orderly.
They both jumped at the sound of scratching at the kitchen door, then laughed to find Kip, come to see Lilly home. “I’ll be back at 3 a.m. to check on you,” Lilly said.
“We’ll be fine. You sleep. I’ll come fetch you if things go awry.”
At home, Lilly found Mazy sitting at the kitchen table, spreading peanut butter on a thick slice of light bread. “I tried to wait supper, Lilly, but my belly was growling. Want a sandwich? Mrs. Tippen sent this delicious bread.” She waved her arm toward the stove. “And those disgusting beans. I could dish you up a bowl.”
Mazy had spread a crocheted cloth on the scarred oak table. Fresh-picked daisies with centers like daubs of sunshine brightened the table. Mama had sent the table to Lilly so that she would have memories of home in her new house. Even though Tern preferred modern furnishings, Lilly welcomed it. She had but to close her eyes to see Mama ensconced there, reading her Bible or feeding a baby—sometimes both at the same time.
She didn’t know how famished she was until she took the first bite. Surely simmered on the back of the stove all day, and fragrant with smokehouse bacon, the beans were just what the doctor ordered. “I didn’t know you don’t like pintos, Mazy.”
Mazy sliced the crusts from her bread with a butter knife. “Bean soup is so common. I’m trying to lighten my palate.”
Lilly nearly choked on her beans. “With peanut butter?”
“Well, there’s not much fine cuisine to be had here.”
“Mazy Pelfrey,
don’t get above your raising.”
A tear slipped down Mazy’s porcelain cheek. “There you go, just like Mama again.”
“Honey,” Lilly said, reaching across the table to take her sister’s hand, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“Oooh, Lilly, I’m so homesick. I thought Troublesome Creek was boring, but this place has it beat. There’s nothing to do here, and you’re gone all day.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But I have a plan. Would you like to go to the office with me tomorrow? I could use an assistant.”
“I don’t like nursey stuff. I might just as well pick daisies.”
“Not patient care, more like secretarial duties. You’d be good at that.”
“Do I have to know shorthand? Molly and I took it in tenth grade. She was good, but it made me squeasy.” She shuddered at the thought. “Ugh.”
Lilly quickly spooned up more beans to hide a smile. Squeasy? “No shorthand, but you could organize the office and say which patient is to be seen next, that sort of thing.”
“What would I wear?”
“I should think you could dress up. You’ll be a business person, after all.”
A smile as bright as the daisies lightened Mazy’s countenance. “Oh, this could be fun.” She pushed away from the table. “I’m going to pick out an outfit.”
Lilly went to the icebox and poured a tall glass of buttermilk, then foraged in the breadbox for a wedge of corn bread. Back in her chair, she crumbled the bread into the milk and ate it with a long-handled spoon. Her little one needed nourishment.
Mazy’s outburst made her wistful. She wanted so much to share her news with her mother face-to-face, not with a few pages of stationery sealed in an envelope. Mama would be so happy, and her stepdaddy, John—why, he’d bust his buttons. Lilly pushed back the edge of the crocheted cloth and caressed the surface of the table in a familiar way. The tips of her fingers read each dent and ding as if it were braille. Here was a smooth triangle shape from when she’d heated her playhouse iron on the stovetop, then dropped it because it was too hot. And here the crisscross marks from chopping twigs to make a robin’s nest for an abandoned baby bird.
As a girl, she was always bringing in some creature in distress—a grinning possum with a broken leg, a turtle with a cracked shell, a blacksnake missing an inch of tail. Even when she brought home the only survivor from a litter of albino skunks, so tiny its eyes were fused, her mother didn’t fuss but patiently taught her how to feed it with an eyedropper. It was about the time of the skunk that Daddy John had cleared a space in the washhouse for Lilly’s growing obsession.
She circled a pockmark with her index finger—such warm memories. Her childhood had been nearly perfect. Could she make it so for her own children? With a father so often gone and an untraditional mother, would her baby have such a strong sense of family?
Upending her glass, Lilly drank the last dregs of mushy bread. For the moment, all she could promise was sturdy bones.
Chapter 7
Anne’s square one-room house was easy to find when Lilly went calling the next morning. The Beckers lived on a few rocky acres just past the Coopers’ house. Chickens flocked around her feet, pecking at her shoes as she walked across the yard. From under a shade tree, a short-haired red dog barely raised his head in interest. A fat sow rolled in a mud bath and grunted contentedly from the area underneath the raised porch. Lilly wondered if the chickens had cause for alarm. Daddy John always said if a hog caught a chicken, it would eat it, and once a hog had the taste for blood, it would kill anything, including humans, given a chance.
Anne welcomed Lilly with a big smile before laying the baby on the bed for an exam. “I’m calling her Glory,” she said. “A baby’s got to have a name.”
Lilly listened intently as she auscultated the tiny chest. Anne’s own daughter, Amy, pulled herself up on the edge of the bed and played with the baby’s toes.
“She’s so good with her,” Anne said when Lilly finished, “and not one bit jealous.”
“How are the feeds?”
“La, she eats all the time.” Anne laughed. “My breadbasket is overflowing—just like when Amy was first born. You know how it is before you get their take-out regulated with your put-out. I wake up soaked in milk.”
Lilly took the baby in her arms. “You’re so good to do this, Anne.”
“She’s a sweet little mite and hardly any trouble.” Anne gently scratched the infant’s scalp with her fingernails. Glory stretched and gave a goofy grin just like a normal baby would do under such stimulation.
Using a tongue depressor, Lilly examined the inside of the baby’s mouth as she had done the other night. “I’ve seen worse clefts,” she said.
“Is it a thing that can be fixed?” Anne asked with the air of a worried mother.
A weary sadness filled Lilly’s heart. It was the hardest part of being a doctor—answering such a question with truth couched in hope. It didn’t take a woman long to bond with a baby—hers or someone else’s. Anne’s demeanor was proof of that. Unlike a cleft lip, which could have been repaired in infancy, a palate repair could not be done until the baby was several months old. It was a difficult surgery requiring great care afterward—the baby could not be allowed to speak and must be fed with a spoon for a long duration. Even then the results were rarely favorable.
It wasn’t the cleft that might snuff out this little life, however. It was the ominous murmur she’d just heard through the bell of her stethoscope that gave Lilly pause. The third strike she’d hoped not to find—a weakened, ineffective heart.
Lilly laid the baby back on the bed and sat down beside her. When she stroked the baby’s palm, the tiny hand curled around her finger. No, it didn’t take long for a woman to bond with a baby.
Lilly lifted Amy onto her lap and laid her cheek against the top of the little girl’s head. Amy’s skin smelled fresh and pure as Ivory soap. She wiggled around in Lilly’s arms until they were face-to-face—so much energy in such a small package.
“She’ll be okay. Won’t she?” Anne asked again.
Lilly hedged. She hesitated to spread doom and gloom until she had to. “There is a murmur, but often murmurs go away. Continue what you’re doing, Anne. We’ll reassess the time for a surgical repair of the cleft when she’s several months old. In the meantime, perhaps her mother will show up.”
“Have you heard anything?”
“Not a word,” Lilly said.
“Armina’s not talking yet?”
“I saw her last evening. She was calm but still very confused.”
“My, my, the things that can happen to a body.”
“Indeed,” Lilly said, handing Amy to her mother. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
On the way to the office from Anne’s, Lilly widely skirted the Cooper place. A Quarantine sign was tacked to the wall between the window and the front door. Although measles was a disease most commonly contracted in childhood, persons well along in years sometimes came down with it. She wasn’t taking a chance unless she had to.
Two little children pressed up against the windowpane, waving enthusiastically to her as she walked by.
When Mrs. Cooper brought her brood into the office, only one had broken out. The mother had been in a panic. She was sure little Johnny’s rash meant scarlet fever. He’d had a high temperature followed by chills and languor for three days before a dusky-red rash erupted on his forehead and gradually spread all over his body. He also had weepy eyes and a runny nose. Lilly had been secretly appalled to think Mrs. Cooper would bring the boy into the office if she suspected a contagious disease, especially one as dangerous as scarlet fever. It would have been much safer for the community at large if she had requested a house call.
Johnny’s mother had been relieved when Lilly taught her how to tell the difference between the two diseases. In measles the spots were not as deeply colored and were differently shaped, grouped in crescents, and rougher to the touch. In scarlet fever the spots app
eared on the second day of illness, in measles on the third or fourth, and the irritation of the nose, sneezing, and discharge that were prominent symptoms of measles did not occur in scarlet fever.
Thankfully, Mrs. Cooper’s children were otherwise healthy. Lilly didn’t expect there would be complications. She’d provided a care plan for the mother to follow: spare diet, including baked apples to keep the bowels gently open, plenty of diluted drinks, sponge baths with tepid vinegar and water to cool the skin and relieve the itching, and a darkened room to soothe the eyes.
Mrs. Cooper appeared in the window behind her children. Soon the little ones were throwing kisses Lilly’s way and Mrs. Cooper mouthed, “Thank you.”
Poor dear, Lilly thought, waving back. She’s in for a long haul. It was not uncommon when there were several children in a family for the cases to succeed each other in fortnightly intervals. She suspected Mr. Cooper had moved out of the house for the duration. A man couldn’t afford to be caught up in quarantine. Someone had to make a living. I should have sent her home with a bottle of Lydia Pinkham’s. She might need a bit of uplifting tonic to keep from pulling her hair out.
Lilly slipped in the back door to her office. The clinic was an L-shaped building. The short arm held the waiting room and her office/exam room, which backed up to a wide hallway that led to the small hospital and the surgery. She’d learned never to go in through the front room, where patients would be waiting. Long minutes seated on hard wooden benches—not to mention whatever ailment had brought them there—tended to make folks impatient. If she went through the front room, someone was sure to demand her attention even if they were out of turn.
She seated herself behind the desk and pulled the string that would ring a bell at the nurse’s station to signal that she was ready for the first case of the day.
“The doctor will see you now,” Mazy said as she escorted old Mrs. Hill to the chair facing Lilly’s desk.