by BJ Hoff
An uneasy feeling snaked through him, the feeling that he already knew the answer to his own question. He certainly hadn’t intended to become that kind of physician, but was it possible that in the press and rush of his life lately he had unwittingly let that happen? Shaken, he forced a smile. “I thought I did. Apparently, I need to know them better. It seems I’ll be able to count on you to help me with that.”
A puzzled frown pinched her features, an expression that seemed to indicate she found him strange indeed. Feeling more than a little uncomfortable under her stare, Daniel started for his office.
He stopped to turn and ask, “Will your father be picking you up?”
“Aye. He should be here most anytime now.”
“Well…you did a fine job today. And I promise, tomorrow we’ll settle on your salary.” He paused. “You will be back tomorrow, won’t you?”
“If you want.”
“I do,” he said quickly. “Of course I do.”
And he did. In spite of the fact that something about her made him strangely uncomfortable, he very much wanted her to come back.
SEVENTEEN
A NEW PATIENT
The fear that is sometimes hidden in the heart is not so easily erased from the face.
ANONYMOUS
Daniel could not have handpicked a more efficient and helpful assistant than Addie Rose Murphy. Over the next two weeks, she proved not only to be a highly competent organizer and office manager, but also to possess an innate nursing instinct. Indeed, in a matter of just a few days he had come to not only admire her and appreciate her, but to rely on her. He could scarcely believe that in such a brief time she had his office running more smoothly than he would have believed possible.
Seated at his desk late Friday afternoon, on impulse he decided to tell her how pleased he was with her work—and to show his appreciation, albeit in a small way. The timing was good, as she stood across from him, about to receive her week’s salary.
“I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re doing a fine job,” he said, handing her the brown envelope that held her pay. “You’ll find a modest increase in there this week. You deserve more, but for now this is the best I can do.”
She actually blushed as she reached for the envelope. “I…thank you,” she said, stammering a little. “It’s…I like the work. I like it a lot.”
“Good! Then I’ll hope I don’t have to worry about losing you. You’ve actually made my job a good deal easier.”
“Oh, no. I mean, I plan to stay.”
She stuck her pay envelope into the pocket of the lab apron he’d provided for her. Daniel couldn’t help but notice—not for the first time—the unusual grace and unexpected elegance of her hands. Long, slender fingers with perfectly shaped nails, yet with a visible strength and grace to each movement.
In contrast to Serena’s small, almost childish hands, often knotted in tense fists…
He started, wondering where that had come from. It wasn’t the first time this had happened. More than once he had caught himself jarred by a sudden, out-of-place thought or observation about Addie Rose in contrast to Serena that caught him completely off guard and left him uncomfortable, to say the least.
He was almost relieved when the bell over the office door sounded. He pushed up from his chair so quickly it screeched across the floor, but Addie Rose was already on her way out of the office, leaving him to follow her.
He stopped just inside the waiting room, watching as Addie Rose met the latecomer halfway.
The woman who remained standing close to the door was a stranger to Daniel, but obviously not to Addie Rose.
“Glenna?” she said. “I haven’t seen you in an age.”
The other seemed to attempt a smile, but it quickly fell apart, unfinished. Without speaking, she put a hand to her throat. Daniel stood, not yet moving as he took in the woman’s appearance. Her wheat-colored hair was long and heavy, unkempt, her coat well worn and at least a size too small. Dark shadows deepened her eyes, and her face was blotched in two or three places with bruises.
She had the look, Daniel thought, of one dogged by an old and relentless fear. He had seen that look before. It was the look of a wild-eyed animal, poised to run.
Without meeting Addie Rose’s eyes, or his, she visibly trembled as she asked, “Am I too late to see the doctor?”
Addie Rose started to reply. “Well, it is after hours—”
On impulse, Daniel spoke up before she could finish. “It’s all right,” he interrupted, motioning the newcomer the rest of the way in and then turning to Addie Rose. “Can you stay a few minutes more?”
She glanced from him to the woman just inside the door. “I can. Da said I shouldn’t look for him before five thirty today.”
Daniel nodded, and when the woman finally looked at him, he gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile before turning back to the examining room, waiting for them to follow.
Daniel knew almost as soon as he began the examination that the woman—whom Addie Rose had introduced as Glenna MacMahon—had been mistreated. She was quick to explain that she’d fallen the night before, but what he was seeing wouldn’t have been caused by any fall. Ugly bruises marred her upper right arm and webbed onto her neck. A cut over her right eye was still crusted with blood. The eye would be black before morning. She flinched every time he touched her shoulder, and when he attempted to check her ribs, she gasped with every touch.
He glanced at the cheap, thin wedding band on her finger. This woman wasn’t his first case of ill treatment. After a few years in practice, he recognized abuse when he saw it.
The reality was that Glenna MacMahon was wracked with pain and soreness. Two broken ribs, a number of bruises, and a badly sprained shoulder weren’t the only causes of her misery, but they definitely contributed to it.
With her face turned away, she said, “Is my arm broken, then?”
Daniel shook his head as he finished binding her ribs. “Not broken, but badly sprained. Most of the pain in your arm is coming from your shoulder. And as I told you, you have two broken ribs. I’m afraid you’re going to be extremely sore for several days.”
He glanced at Addie Rose, who stood waiting. After binding the patient’s ribs, Daniel said gently, “Addie Rose will help you with your things. Then we’ll talk in my office.”
“Oh, but I have to get back. I don’t have time—”
“You need to make time,” Daniel said firmly. “It won’t take long.”
Dismayed, Daniel realized that what he was seeing in her eyes at that moment was nothing short of panic. Her voice trembled as she again protested. “No, really, I can’t! I have to get home. I shouldn’t have stayed away this long.”
She was already off the examining table and reaching for her things. When Daniel put a hand to her arm in an attempt to persuade her to stay, she shrugged him off almost violently, flinching with the pain the movement obviously caused her.
“Please,” she choked out. “I have to go!”
Across the table, Addie Rose gave a quick shake of her head to warn Daniel off, so he stepped back. “All right,” he told her with reluctance, “but I want to see you again in two or three days.”
He followed them to the waiting room, watching while Addie Rose helped the woman with her coat. “Don’t forget,” he told her, “I want to check on you again. Soon.”
She made no reply as she hurried out the door.
Later, as they tidied the examining room, Daniel said, “She won’t be back, will she?”
Addie Rose’s expression was troubled. “Most likely not.”
“Since you obviously know her, fill me in.”
“I’m afraid I don’t really know her all that well. We went to school together for a time, but she dropped out and got married before graduation.”
“You were in school together?” Surprised, Daniel added, “She looks a good deal older than you.”
“She’s not, though. We’re about the same age.”
Addie Rose stopped but then went on. “I think Glenna has had a hard life.”
“She’s been abused,” Daniel said flatly.
She hesitated, but only for a moment. “I’ve heard as much.”
“What do you know of her husband?”
Her back was to him as she washed her hands. She didn’t reply until she turned around and faced him.
“I believe he’s several years older than Glenna.”
“A miner?”
She nodded.
“Are there children?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so. I’ve never seen her with any.”
That in itself was somewhat odd. Most of the miners Daniel had come to know had fairly large families.
Thinking, Daniel stuck his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. “I’m not comfortable with letting her go like that. She’s in a lot of pain, and it’s not going to get better right away.” He stopped. “Will it make things worse for her, do you think, when he learns that she came here? And he will find out, since I bound her ribs and put iodine on those cuts.”
“You had to do what was needed.”
Daniel drew a deep breath. “And yet I may have caused her more trouble than she had before she came.” He stopped, knotting his hands into fists in his pockets. “I hate these kinds of cases!”
She shot him a look. “There have been others?”
“Too many.”
“Well, at least you care. I can’t think that other doctor would have been concerned one way or the other. Not from the tales I’ve heard about him.”
“Oh, I care,” Daniel said. “But what’s frustrating is that there’s nothing I can do about it, nothing except to treat her wounds. There should be a way to keep it from happening in the first place. Or at the very least, those responsible for the abuse should be punished.”
“I doubt that’s likely to ever happen,” she said, her tone bitter. “No one talks about it, but it’s common knowledge that the law turns a blind eye to a man who beats on his wife.”
She was right, of course. He had dealt with wife-beating too often not to be aware of the ease with which most men seemed to evade even the feeblest form of punishment for abuse of their mate. And in a rough-edged community such as a mining town, ill treatment of women—and even children—seemed to occur all too often.
Not that such abuse was limited to the poorer classes. He had encountered firsthand in his practice a number of women married to well-to-do-professionals who had carried on the despicable vice of wife-beating. He had even treated one tormented victim in New York who adamantly refused to admit that a particularly vicious form of abuse had been perpetrated upon her by her husband—a well-known clergyman.
After a moment, Daniel realized that Addie Rose was staring at him in confusion. Apparently, she’d asked him a question and he hadn’t answered. He sighed, realizing he had most likely drifted off into one of his more annoying habits—annoying, at least according to Serena, a habit that she had more than once described as his “bothersome woolgathering.”
He was quick to apologize. “I’m sorry?”
“I said you’re obviously upset about this—about Glenna and the abuse problem.”
Daniel nodded. “It’s just so….wrong. Something needs to be done about it, but what you said about the law turning a blind eye? That’s what I’ve run into anytime I’ve reported a similar case, even though I could document it. It doesn’t help that most women won’t accuse their husbands. They stay silent, pretend that they’ve fallen or hurt themselves in some way.”
“That’s because they know what will happen if their husbands find out they’ve reported them,” Addie Rose said quietly.
Daniel looked at her. For someone so young, she seemed extremely wise.
He was growing to respect her more and more, this daughter of the mines, for a number of reasons—and not only for the wonders she had worked in his office in such a short time. In fact, if he were to be altogether honest with himself, he was becoming uncomfortably aware that his feelings toward Addie Rose Murphy might possibly be edging toward more than respect.
And that was no good. No good at all. For one thing, she was too young for him to be thinking of her with that kind of interest. And for another, he suspected that hard-edged father of hers might take a very dim view—to say the least—of even the hint of an inappropriate “interest” in his daughter. He liked Dominic Murphy, even respected the man, but he had no illusions about what the irascible miner might be capable of should someone even appear to step over the line with him.
Besides, what about Serena?
Just then Addie Rose appeared at his office door to announce that her father had arrived and she’d be leaving for the day.
With a strange kind of relief, Daniel stood to say goodbye, but he refrained from walking with her to the door as he usually did.
EIGHTEEN
MORNING MUSINGS AND A SURPRISE
Lord, give me faith!—to leave it all to Thee…
JOHN OXENHAM
Stephen Holliday greeted the late September morning by taking his usual walk just after sunrise. He wanted to make the most of these days. Too soon the trees would be losing the season’s fire to dry and decay on the ground, adding the scent of approaching winter to the air. As he always had, he would hold on to the sights and sounds that were a part of his morning walks as long as possible, sorely reluctant to let them go into his storehouse of memories.
He always chose this time of day for traipsing about, checking on the animals and the property, scouting for any needed repairs, and simply enjoying in his own way his quiet morning meeting with what he thought of as the family farm. If it bothered him that the “family” part of the farm had dwindled, he usually managed to bury his mixed feelings of discontent and sadness in the reminder that a small family was still a family. He was realist enough to know that the tragedy of losing his older son in the war would never stop gnawing at his heart, but he still had his younger boy, Clay, and, of course, his wife, Esther. His love and steadfast drive to protect them and provide them with a good life had been enough to keep him from sinking into relentless despair.
Almost from the day the shattering news of Ben’s death had arrived, and through every day after, he had resolved to keep his own grief from increasing Esther’s and Clay’s. The two boys had been close, as much friends as brothers, so he knew Ben’s passing had left a terrible void in Clay’s life. And Esther—although he had sensed her making an effort to be strong for his sake, he knew all too well what the pain of losing a son could do to a parent.
He found it harder some days than others to keep from giving in to the heartache that nagged at him like a predator, but he continually fought it as best he knew how. For the most part, he thought he had succeeded more than he’d failed. And these days, thanks to the good Lord, it couldn’t be more obvious that Esther absolutely glowed with happiness.
He smiled to himself. Even after all these weeks since his wife had unveiled the startling news that they were going to be parents again, he couldn’t control his raw delight and eagerness at the thought of a new baby around the house. If he had asked for a God-given gift, one to put the joy back in Esther’s heart—and, yes, in his own heart as well—he couldn’t have imagined such a sweet, special answer to a prayer as this one.
His mood grew more solemn as he was reminded—not for the first time—that Clay’s attitude toward the baby was the only dark cloud on the horizon. It wasn’t that the boy seemed averse to the idea of a new baby brother or sister. It was more that he appeared to be indifferent. He’d shown almost no interest when they first announced the news, and as time passed, his apparent lack of interest couldn’t have been more obvious. Any attempt to engage him in a conversation about the baby brought a detached, if not downright rude, response.
Esther thought the boy would come around after the baby actually arrived, but Stephen wasn’t so sure. If he wasn’t mistaken, the only real interest their son had these days wa
s focused on Elly Murphy. Clay worked the farm as he always had, did the tasks he had always done, and still maintained his part-time job at Sam Riegel’s leather shop, but so far as Stephen could tell, he did it all with little enthusiasm. The only time he showed any real eagerness was when he left the house in the evening, presumably to spend time with that girl.
Esther had tried to be a kind of buffer between him and Clay. She seemed to have a good deal more patience for their son’s romantic obsession than he did. He could tell she tried not to be too obvious when she chided him for his disapproval of Clay’s interest in the girl, teasing him that he had been even more distracted when they were courting, but Stephen couldn’t help but be concerned. Even though he knew his impatience with the situation created a rift between him and his son, he couldn’t very well pretend to approve of the relationship when he didn’t, could he?
On his way back to the house now, he heard Clay calling for him. Something in his son’s voice made him pick up his pace, and when the boy shouted again, Stephen took off at a run.
As usual, Sarge beat Daniel to the door when the knocking sounded. The last person Daniel would have expected to see was Clay Holliday. One look at that tanned, sharply chiseled face—so much like Stephen’s—made it all too clear that something was very wrong.
“Clay?”
Over the boy’s shoulder, he saw the russet-and-white quarter horse Clay always rode. The stallion had clearly been ridden fast and hard.
He opened the door a little wider. “Come in, come in.”
Clay shook his head. “There’s no time! Dad said could you come right away? It’s Mother. She thinks the baby is coming.”
Daniel quickly calculated the time. Esther’s delivery date was a good month away, possibly a bit more. “I’ll have to get my bag and the buggy. You go on back home. I’ll be there just as quickly as I can. Make sure your mother stays warm. And get some water boiling.”
