It was nearly dark
before Lilly finished her charts, capped her fountain pen, and set the bottle of navy-blue ink in the inkwell of her desk at the clinic. Moving Armina and all that entailed had given a late start to her workday. Careful as they were, the stress of the move had caused Armina to have more of the jerky irregular movements and mild mania that marked Saint Vitus’ dance. Who would have suspected that Armina knew the words to so many silly songs? “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain” still rang in Lilly’s head.
When Lilly once again mentioned notifying Ned, Armina had leaped out of bed, threatening to run into the woods if Lilly did any such thing. She wouldn’t hear of it.
Now Lilly was between the proverbial rock and hard
place. She stood up from her desk and stretched. Her back popped and her neck released its knot. Ned was not going to be happy if this was kept from him. What was Lilly to do? Armina was her patient and Armina had rights. . . .
She’d let it play out for a couple of days
—if Armina didn’t worsen.
Taking a ring of keys from the desk drawer, Lilly selected the one needed to lock up. The clinic was empty tonight. Her patients had been discharged. She tapped the key against her chin. What was she forgetting?
Oh, forevermore, her hat! She laid the keys back on the desk, retrieved her hat from the hat rack, and stepped into the private lavatory off her office, another thoughtful gift from Tern. She was probably the only coal camp doctor anywhere to have her own bathroom.
She hung her stethoscope on the towel rack and then, despite herself, removed her hairpins and combs. Her dark hair cascaded in waves nearly to her waist. She looked closely into the mirror over the washstand, making sure there was still only the one streak of platinum in her locks
—the one she’d been born with, the one that started at her widow’s peak and ran like a vein of mercury to the very tips of her hair. Tern loved that oddity, and admittedly so did she.
“Well, Dr. Still,” she chided her reflection, “it seems you have an unsightly streak of vanity to go along with the streak in your hair.”
Lilly had been particular with herself and her things since she was a girl, the need for perfection as tenacious as a weed
growing in a garden of daisies. She longed to be more like her mother, whose natural beauty had not faded with time because it came from within, or like Armina, who didn’t even own a mirror.
Turning away from her reflection, she secured her hair in a familiar chignon but looked back as she stuck a long jet-beaded pin through her hat. She just couldn’t bring herself to go out into the world with a cockeyed hat on her head.
A verse from Philippians memorized in her Sunday school days came to mind.
“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.”
Or as Mama would say,
“Pretty is as pretty does.”
Lilly knew she wasn’t guilty of thinking she was better than anyone else, but vanity
—caring too much about appearances
—was definitely a weakness she needed to work on.
Still, she couldn’t leave the bathroom without first straightening the wire soap dish on the counter and adjusting the cotton towel on the rack so that all its corners were even. Lastly, she draped her stethoscope around her neck. There, everything was in order. Her mind was filing a list of things still needing to be done as she stepped back into the office.
She was startled to find a man standing at the window, staring out into the darkening night. He wore a blue shirt tucked in on one side and rumpled suit pants.
“Excuse me?” she said. “This office is closed.”
The man turned slowly toward her. “The door was unlocked.” He tipped his brown felt fedora but did not take it off. “Is the doctor in?”
Lilly suppressed a sigh. She should take to wearing a sign around her neck. Obviously her stethoscope was not marker enough. “She is.”
Sweat beaded just below the band of his hat. His set lips were a slash of pain, the skin around them white. “I figured to see a man,” he said.
“On the one hand, you’ve got me,” Lilly said. “On the other, I’m all there is.”
He swayed on his feet and steadied himself against the desktop. “If you don’t mind.”
“One moment,” Lilly said, going past him to open the door wide. Just yards away, the street was busy with folks coming and going. The commissary was within yelling distance. She didn’t feel unsafe, just cautious.
“What seems to be the problem?” she asked.
Standing where he was, the man began to inch his stained chambray shirt upward, not bothering with the buttons. He grimaced as he ripped the bloodstained fabric from his side, revealing two distinct wounds in his right upper quadrant.
“Take a seat.” Lilly patted the end of an exam table.
“I can stand.”
“A seat,” Lilly directed, as much to take command of the situation as to make the exam easier for herself. She was glad she had just washed her hands. She would rather not turn her back on this patient.
“Doc Still?” she heard from the doorway. “I saw your door standing open and came to check on you.” Timmy Blair looked in from the small back porch.
“How’s your arm, Timmy?”
The boy lifted the sling that cupped his fractured limb. “I was a-wondering, Doc: will I ever play ball again?”
“You’ll be back at bat and good as ever in a few weeks.”
“Maybe could I go in the front room and play with the forewarning bird? Mommy’s shopping in the commissary. It’ll take forever.”
Lilly kept the canary she’d once rescued from the mines in the clinic’s waiting room. It served to entertain her patients while they waited.
“You may, Timmy, but don’t forget to put the cloth back over the cage when you finish. Tweety was already covered for the night.”
Timmy sauntered through the office, his sharp brown eyes taking everything in. “You need to take your hat off,” he said to the man.
“Timothy,” Lilly warned.
“But my teacher says a gentleman don’t wear a hat indoors. He’s being disrespectful.”
Pain flashed across the man’s face when he raised his arm and removed the brown felt fedora. His hair uncoiled like a snake, spilling a long blond braid halfway down his back.
“Wow,” Timmy said. “I never seen a man with braids before. Are you an Indian? But no, then you wouldn’t have yellow hair, would you?”
Lilly could almost see the gears turning in Timmy’s brain. Maybe the boy would elicit some history from the stranger.
“I know! I know!” He waved his arm as if he were the only
student in school who had the correct answer. “You’re like that girl that was kidnapped by the Indians
—Daniel Boone’s daughter.” A satisfied look played across Timmy’s freckled face. “Do you live in a tepee?”
“Timmy,” Lilly said, “Daniel Boone was a long time ago. Now either go play with Tweety or go find your mother.”
“Sorry,” the boy said. “I was curious is all. Can I give Tweety a bedtime snack?”
With a flip of her wrist, Lilly waved Timmy away.
The boy hopped on one foot down the hallway that led to the waiting room. “I’m a champion at hopscotch.”
“Lie back,” Lilly said as she prepared to examine the stranger’s gaping wounds. “I want to see how deep these are.”
“I think I stuck my gut,” the man said.
“More likely your liver. How did this happen?”
The man’s hands tightened on the edges of the table as Lilly probed the first puncture. “Cleaning a fish
—” he grunted in pain
—“and knife slipped.”
“Twice?”
“I’m clumsy. Sue me.”
Lilly ignored his condescending manner. Pain brought out the worst in people. “Your wounds are clean
—no sign of infection. Your ribs probably deflected the blows. Have you had any trouble breathing?”
“No
—just weak as a sore-eyed cat.” He let out a small groan. “Can you sew me up?”
“These need to heal from the inside out,” Lilly said while packing sterile gauze soaked in hydrate of chloral into the
sites. “We’ll need to change this twice a day for a week or so. Come by during office hours and one of the nurses will take care of it.”
“I ain’t likely to get the gangrene, then?”
“No, I wouldn’t think so.”
The hard lines of the man’s face clinched as he sat up and slid off the end of the table. “What do I owe you?”
“You can pay when your plan of care is complete.”
He straightened his shirt and flung a gold piece onto the desktop. “I thank you kindly, ma’am.” With that he was out the door.
Lilly watched his fading back. She wondered about his story and about what brought him to this particular place. Was he a stranger just passing through or a transient looking for a few days’ work in the coal mines around Skip Rock? In any case, she would bet he wouldn’t return for wound care.
She put a vial of laudanum in her bag, switched off the light, stepped out the door, and turned the key in the lock. It was getting late. She’d have to wait until morning to check on the baby. Armina needed her attention now.
As she walked toward home, her mind whirled with thoughts of the day, especially the stranger. Lilly did not for one minute believe his story. Most likely he’d been in a bar brawl
—fighting over a card game gone wrong or over a woman done wrong. Why wait so long for treatment, though? The wounds were not fresh. And why the stealth? Unless he’d killed someone
—and she thought she would
have heard if that were so. Gossip and rumors swirled around the coal camp like dead leaves in a dust devil.
Besides that, Chanis Clay, the sheriff, kept her abreast of shootings, stabbings, and family feuds. He knew she might see the results of mayhem before he did. The folks who lived up the hollers of the high mountains were secretive and clannish
—not given to call in the government and not given to calling on doctors unless there was no other option. Like the stranger whose fear of gangrene flushed him out.
He’d probably be all right, though. His rib cage had deflected the one stab that might have killed him, and she’d treated him the best she could with chloral hydrate to prevent tetanus. It was not a sure cure
—nothing was against lockjaw. But he’d bled freely, and that was the best preventative. It amazed her how God had provided the body with healing properties. A person almost had to go out of his way to circumvent them.
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.