Love Story on Canal

by Angela Lee

  Fin stepped even further into her skirts, closing the distance between their bodies, wanting to see just how much of her passion she would unleash. He should stop, he knew it. She was a respectable woman; he was risking both of their reputations right now. But every part of him wanted this woman.

  Decency won. Fin stepped back, his hands lingered to straighten her clothing as he said softly, “You should get back inside. Your parents will begin to wonder.”

  “Mr. Weathers,” she began as her hands smoothed down her shirt front.

  “Fin,” he corrected.

  She lifted her eyes to his. Those beautiful golden orbs were as bright as polished gold. She seemed to be searching for something to say, “I’m not sure. That is, I don’t…”

  Fin kissed her once more before the lady could stammer out any regrets. He had the feeling that whatever she might say would not be something he wanted to hear. He stepped back from the kiss and gently motioned her back toward the house.

  “Goodnight then…Fin,” she stepped around him and headed up the stairwell.

  Fin absently stroked his chest with a hand. That elfin smile, his name whispered on her lips, again his goddess had hurled a boulder to his chest making it nearly impossible to breathe.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Two days later Pan stood in the Union infirmary, her foot tapping as she tried to mask her disgust. The viscous puss oozing from an infected wound both reeked and looked of decay. The medic standing beside her made no effort to wear a face of professionalism.

  As Pan evaluated what was left of the patient’s arm the medic explained, “We have been using a flaxseed poultice. We’ve also supplemented the patient’s diet with whiskey and coffee.”

  “Why would you do that?” Pan asked trying to check her irritation. She knew the answer and she knew that it would not be the medic’s fault.

  “Well, Dr. Freret said that it would stop the spread,” the man stammered.

  “Have others contracted it? Nurses even? Has there been an outbreak of erysipelas?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “I’ll need bromine, ether, and chlorinated soda water,” she said already rinsing her hands with a small vial she pulled from her medicine bag.

  She turned to her patient and spoke, “Sergeant, you have what is commonly known as Hospital Gangrene.” She spoke evenly pausing to ensure that the injured Union soldier listened. The man was sweating profusely and opened his eyes once to look at her.

  Pan continued, “It is an anaerobic bacterium that we don’t know much about except that it usually begins in an open wound. It feeds off your dead tissue, if you will. I need to cut away some of the dead tissue and flush this area with bromine. It will stop the spread. But will be painful. I’ll give you some ether for the pain. You won’t sleep, but you won’t feel the pain either.”

  “Fontenot, what is this?” Pan paused and looked up. Another doctor had approached her father, who was seeing to the patient in the next bed. It was a large ward with at least fifty men laid out on stretchers. The other physician spoke to her father but clearly indicated that his question related to Pan’s procedure.

  “Dr. Freret, I believe my daughter said it is a case of Hospital Gangrene,” her father answered without looking up from his own evaluation as he spoke, “Is that not right, Dr. Fontenot?”

  “That is right,” Pan said resuming her task. This was not the first time she had come to the Union base infirmary with her father, her presence was not well received. The medic had most likely told Dr.Freret how she had questioned his diagnosis and treatment. She had caught sight of yet another physician making his way over. Fabulous.

  She spoke over her shoulder, like her father, not bothering to pause in her procedure. “This man needs to be quarantined. He will infect others, including the medical staff. Dietary supplements will not prevent the spread. Poultices will not work. Bromine injections will. Staff need to be washing their hands in chlorinated water after handling these types of ailments. Every time.”

  Dr. Freret replied dismissively, “It’s an infection. Nothing more.”

  “This infection has been wiping out whole infirmaries throughout the country’s battlefields,” Pan argued her eyes still trained on her procedure.

  “She’s right. I saw it happen in Hattiesburg,” the sound of a new, though familiar, voice made her pause. She looked up into a pair of friendly blue eyes. James was here. Pan felt a whoosh of emotions race through her. Happiness. Comfort. Nervousness. Loss.

  Her old school friend spoke to the other doctor another moment before stepping forward to watch her work. Her father had gone back to his task and Dr. Freret left in a huff, muttering that Harper could deal with it. Pan was certain that by it Dr. Freret had really meant her.

  It had been over a year since she had seen James, but he looked the same. Deep blue eyes, sandy blond hair, boyish good looks. He looked the part of a university classmate, which was exactly what he had been. Before.

  Pan completed the flush and instructed the medic on how to best rebandage it. She then explained and demonstrated how to wash with the chlorinated soda water afterwards. Her own hands now washed; Pan stepped over to James. “Miss Fontenot, it’s good to see you,” he said quietly.

  “James,” she gushed, “it is also good to see you,” she smiled brightly and hugged him. He was rigid for a moment, no doubt caught off guard by her forward manner, but eventually returned the embrace. Surprisingly, he kissed her cheek before releasing her. She cleared her throat and looked past him to meet her father’s teasing eyes. Her attention returned to the man who stood in front of her, now shifting uncomfortably.

  James stammered, “Miss Fontenot, Pan, I had hoped I would have seen you sooner. I wrote to you that I would be stationed here but never heard back. Imagine my surprise to see your father at the Medical Association meetings.”

  Pan had read his letter, in fact, it was one of the reasons she had accompanied her parents to New Orleans. A small reason, a backup plan really, even if she refused to admit it to anyone but her diary.

  “He told me. Forgive my thoughtlessness. I received the roses. They are beautiful. Thank you,” she said feeling more than a little guilty at not having already sent him some sort note of thanks. She felt even guiltier remembering how swiftly she had penned a note to Fin when another arrangement of buttercups had arrived this morning.

  James was here. Alongside her friend Libby, James had been at the top of their class in medical college. Truthfully, Pan had always envied the way that studying had been so easy for both James and Libby. Pan was a good student, but the bookwork always required extra effort. Nearly every night she would study for hours, long after Libby had fallen asleep. Pan had grown up living and breathing the medical practice, the doing part of being a doctor came naturally. It was her singular passion, but each of her school successes had been hard earned.

  James escorted her into an empty waiting area. They each took a seat and remained quiet for a moment. “It wasn’t the same at school when you did not return after,” James stammered, “well, after. You didn’t reach out, barely responded to my letters.”

  After Gigi’s death, James had written several times to offer condolences, fill her in on semester lectures, and informing her of his upcoming graduation and enlistment as an Army physician. Her return correspondence had always been brief; polite answers to his questions and kindly wishing him well.

  Though his letters to her grew less frequent over time, he and Libby continued a regular correspondence. Libby, in turn always relayed his inquiries after her. “You still had Libby. Besides, you never really needed us as study partners,” Pan responded.

  “I missed more than just having you around to study with. I missed my friend,” James said quietly. In their first semester, James inserted himself into their friend group. The girls mutually thought it was odd, as he had plenty of male companions. Libby teased Pan about his attentions but Pan never saw it. She always thought he treated both girls in the
same reserved manner.

  Pan reached her hand to his sleeve, “James, I missed you and Libby as well. I’m sure things were calmer for you without me and my plots. You didn’t always enjoy our antics.” In fact, knowing of his disdain for shenanigans the girls saved their best jokes and most adventurous exploits for moments when James wasn’t about.

  James eyes followed as she removed her hand from his arm, “No, but with you every day was a surprise. And I’d like to think that if you had returned the last year that things between us might have...” his voice trailed off and looked from her face to his own hands and back. “I wanted to call on you, but your correspondence made it seem as though that might not have been welcome.”

  Pan fidgeted, uncomfortable with such a heavy conversation. Her hands worked restlessly in the folds of her skirt. “James, if my correspondence was brusque, it had nothing to do with our friendship and everything to do with my grief.”

  “I thought perhaps you might be trying to let me know that your feelings… that I wasn’t…that you didn’t wish to continue our friendship.” The man was determined to bear his soul without making eye contact once. The situation left Pan feeling both relieved and irritated.

  Determined to end this awkward conversation, she offered, “James, I was not considerate of your feelings. For that, I am sorry.”

  He reached for her hand, finally looking at her tentatively, “Perhaps we can renew our friendship here.” She allowed him to hold her hand and offered him a friendly smile.

  She knew James was remembering that evening during spring semester when he had asked to kiss her. He had mistaken her surprised squeak for agreement and planted a light peck on her mouth before she could agree. That night she had told Libby that his kiss had made her feel fluttery inside. Remembering it now, she could not recall James’ kiss without comparing it to the one she had shared with Fin.

  When Fin had kissed her there was no flutter. When Fin kissed her, her entire body had hummed.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Pan was an early riser. New Orleans was wonderful early in the day, before the heat suffocated and the air became unbreathable from the competing scents of heavy French perfumes, seafood, and horses. Soon after sunrise each morning, Pan took her coffee on the patio to enjoy the sounds of the waking city and inhale the heavenly sent wafting from bakeries and chocolatiers.

  The idea to move to New Orleans had rejuvenated both of her parents, though at very different speeds. Before the move her parents had encouraged her to resume her life, but Pan had resisted returning to school to finish her medical training.

  As she did every morning Pan opened her small leather notebook to make a list of her plans. It was never a to do list per se. Moreso, a list of things she hoped to accomplish at some point: either on the same day or in her lifetime. It was just another method of calming her very busy brain. Since her arrival in New Orleans, she changed her life plan almost daily.

  Her first option was to forfeit medicine and marry. Repeated societal outings were making it clear that a husband would not be found in southern society. While she could pretend for now, her eccentric tendencies would eventually show themselves. What traditional, southern man would tolerate an educated wife with definite opinions, few household skills, less than stellar etiquette, and a set of unusual interests including an overzealous need to aid the indigent and imprisoned. She had never planned to wed knowing that marriage might mean the end of her career in medicine. It was a distinct reality she had never been completely ready to accept.

  Immediately, Fin’s face came to her mind, she smiled wistfully at the memory of his kiss. A shake of the head and a stern internal lecture brought her back from her reverie. A marriage to him would not only end her career, it would likely end his. Even if she gave up her work with the prisoners, maintaining a practice would be a near impossibility. An average man might find it difficult to stand up to the scrutiny of being married to such a progressive woman, it would be magnified for a politician. She shook her head, that was not acceptable. She would never hamper his success.

  Plan B: She could change nothing. She was four and twenty. In two years, she would achieve spinsterhood. She could continue practicing with her father. Pan knew this was not an option that would ever fully satisfy her or her parents. They would want her to have a family or have her own practice.

  In order to practice medicine, she would most likely need to move north away from the traditional mentality of Southern minds. That move would take her away from her parents, an idea that made her heart ache. Life as a female physician rarely included marriage and that would deny her parents the grandchildren, she knew they desired, another negative. And, always, she worried that her absence might send her mother into another decline. She refused to be responsible for that.

  It had occurred to Pan that she was at a crossroads in life. She had responsibilities to her family that contradicted her personal desires.

  New plan. Marry James. Live happily ever after.

  James was the most sensible solution to her life’s conundrum; marriage to him would allow for a family and work. Probably not with all of her current patients. As James was stationed in New Orleans, she could remain close to her parents.

  Her fingers traced the unopened letter that lay beneath her notebook. Correspondence with her best friend Libby had become her only hold to her former life. She both looked forward to and dreaded reading about her friend’s success. Pan was careful to mask her reactions by filling her own letters with detailed accounts of the culture of New Orleans.

  Thinking of what the letter would contain, Pan’s throat worked, a precursor to the tears that threatened. Last month Libby had gone to Vienna to train as a surgeon. Since graduation, opportunity upon opportunity had befallen her friend. Now, she was training in Europe. Just as the girls had planned to do together.

  Growing up, Pan and Libby had retreated to corners during balls while Gigi danced every dance. Hidden in their corner, the friends had planned their futures- medical school, apprenticeships, eventually opening their own city practice serving indigent women and children.

  Pan had never returned to school after losing Gigi. Libby had stayed the course. Pan willed herself to release her own disappointment and only feel happiness for her friend. It took a moment of digging through the mental drawers she used to separate facts, tasks, and emotions. Everything. Libby called it Pan’s thinking armoire.

  The idea for the mental drawers had been born of Gigi’s brilliance. If Pan had been born to be a doctor, Gigi had been born to be a society wife. It would often surprise others how organized the beautiful socialite could be and how easily Gigi could take charge of a crisis. Ironically, Gigi would have made an excellent politician’s wife.

  Pan, on the other hand, always had difficulty ordering her thoughts as her mind jumped from one subject to the next. The only time she was fully focused was when we she was practicing medicine. In everyday life she often forgot names and faces; socially stressful situations brought on mental chaos.

  Understandably, Pan began to fear that this particular character flaw might negatively impact her success as a physician. She shared her worries in a letter home to her twin in her first semester of medical college.

  Gigi’s response had been a letter detailing how to order her thoughts with an imaginary drawer system. Since she had begun using the mental exercise, Pan found that it usually worked. It allowed her to attend and participate in necessary society events and carry on normal conversations with people whose names she could now recall, with less effort than she would have ordinarily had to expend. It allowed her to focus on her studies without missing home and craving her sister’s nearness. She utilized those drawers now more than ever.

  “Cher, your fellow, that Dr. Harper, I expect he will be at the Freret’s supper party. Very serious that one, huh?” Her father’s thunderous voice broke the morning silence. She looked up in surprise as he was filling his plate at the breakfast tray. A visitor might a
ssume that the sparse breakfast offerings were a result of the many restrictions on the citizens of New Orleans. Truthfully, the family had always preferred to refrain from excess and served a light breakfast. In contrast to the Fontenot’s small arrangement of fruit and sweet bread, most southern aristocratic families would have a large buffet of breakfast foods prepared each day regardless of the current embargo.

  “Good morning, Papa. Did you sleep well?” She closed the notebook beside her and tucked Libby’s letter away.

  He kissed her cheek before taking a seat. “Longer than you, I would say, cher.” He nodded toward her near empty cup of coffee, “Did you have a good visit with Harper?”

  She sighed, “Papa. James was my friend at school, nothing more. That is all. Please do not match make.” Her father was busy adding cheese to his croissant, not looking at her as she spoke. That didn’t fool Pan for a minute.

  “Why would I match make? Seems you do well enough on your own. Big vase full of pretty flowers in the parlor and one in the upstairs hall. Two waltzes in one night with a politician. Long chats with doctors in the waiting room. Should I stay home for calls? Should I expect some young chap to come to my office and ask a big question?”

  A giggle came from behind her. She turned to see her mother coming in to sit, bypassing the sparse breakfast tray.

  “Papa!” And then to her giggling mother, “Mama! Certainly not. There will be no match making with James and certainly no big questions from Mr. Weathers.”