Home by Morning (12 page)

Jess rested her forehead on the palm of her hand. “I know. She’s already crossed my mind. I’m not in a position to refuse, but I don’t know if she’d work with me.”

“Oh, I think she would.”

Jess glanced up. “You mean she’d probably
revel
in it, getting the chance to try and show me up?”

A shadow of chagrin flitted over Amy’s expression. “Well, yes, probably.”

“I don’t care about that. I can’t. It’s the least of my problems.”

Her sister dribbled a little more cream into her cup. “Anyway, I know she’s already seeing some people who’ve gotten used to going to her for medical help. You might as well join forces.”

The coughing from downstairs and across the hall made Jess swallow her lukewarm coffee in one unladylike gulp. She had work to do. “I’ll go talk to her as soon as I get a free minute.” Standing up, she walked to the sink to rinse her cup. “I just hope that old woman doesn’t gloat.”

It was late in the afternoon when Adam Jacobsen, clutching his bouquet of chrysanthemums and box of chocolates, walked toward Main Street and Jessica Layton’s office. The flowers were the last ones in his yard, and Nettie Stark had picked them herself for the dining room table. He’d grabbed them right out of the vase.

He wondered briefly if the gift of the chocolates might seem too forward, like he was rushing things. After all, he’d brought Jessica the first bouquet just a couple of days earlier. Another was probably all right, but was it too soon for candy? He hadn’t had much practice in calling upon a lady. He did know that Jessica’s time would be short in Powell Springs if he couldn’t win her over and make her stay permanently—as his wife. Ultimately, he’d gone to Bright’s Grocery, which was allowed to remain open for business, and bought a Whitman’s Sampler. Seeing the bouquet Adam carried, Roland Bright had asked several probing questions, trying to learn who the presents were for. Adam had evaded his curiosity.

He mulled over the procedure of courting Jessica as he walked along, imagining a future with her. Powell Springs was a town of tidy homes and large yards, with trees that had matured enough to offer shade in summer. It was a good place to raise a family. Of course, if he could win Jessica’s hand, she would have to give up her work. A woman couldn’t devote herself to her own husband and children, and hold the kind of demanding position she had now. By that time, Pearson would be here anyway.

A few children, given an unscheduled vacation from the new school year, played in their yards and on the damp streets. They waved to him as he passed, and he waved back. Gray clouds scudded overhead, and a stiff breeze rustled the leaves of oak, maple, and locust that had begun to turn and drift earthward. It happened every season, it was part of the cycle of life.

But this year the change seemed ominous to him. He felt a dread in the air.

Some houses were quiet, with blinds drawn tightly, although it was only late afternoon. Adam knew without being told that sickness lay behind their doors. His father probably would have said this scourge was God’s punishment of an evil world. He supposed it was true, but these were areas of thought where Adam sometimes felt the slightest tremor in his conviction. His father had been unswerving in his certainty of God’s plans. But what sin had Eddie Cookson committed to deserve the punishment of an agonizing and untimely death? How were the guilty chosen? Or were they chosen at all? He kicked at a stone in his path. Maybe souls were captured in God’s dragnet regardless of their innocence or guilt, like unseen and unsuspecting insects crushed beneath a heedless boot.

The thought was not only depressing, it was frighteningly sacrilegious, so he shook it off. Despite his occasional questions, he held the unwavering belief in the promise of heaven and that paradise was the reward for the righteous. Just as fervently, he believed that the guilty should and would be properly and unflinchingly condemned to eternal damnation.

When he reached Jessica’s office, he noticed a few wagons and an automobile or two parked in front. He glanced briefly at his own reflection in the window glass to make sure his tie was straight, then opened the door. In the waiting room, he found a scene he was not prepared for.

The small space was packed with sick people, at least ten or fifteen of them. Every seat, more than he remembered seeing here before, was occupied. Some patients even lay on the floor under thin blankets. Others listed on their chairs, plainly lacking the strength to sit upright. All of them were shivering and coughing violently.

Stunned, Adam let the bouquet drop to his side.

“Mr. Jacobsen,” a man called from a seat in the corner. Adam saw Wilson Dreyer, who sat beside his wife, Lily, propping her up. She was Powell Springs’s librarian and Adam barely recognized her. She looked as horrible as she probably felt. “You aren’t sick too, are you?”

“Um, no, Mr. Dreyer. I was just…” Just what? How could he explain his arrival with the trappings of a man who’d come courting, especially under these circumstances?

Some of the others who noticed him looked up with glazed, fever-bright eyes.

“If you’re waiting to see the doc, get in line. I’ve been here for an hour already,” said another man whom Adam didn’t know. “But I’m ahead of them,” he said, indicating a pair on the floor. The man looked like a drifter, with ragged clothes, several days’ growth of beard, and shifty, reddened eyes. One side of his jaw was swollen considerably. Adam made a mental note of him—with the war on, they couldn’t be too careful about strangers these days. Spies, the American Protective League told its members, were everywhere.

“Watch your manners. He’s our minister,” Wilson Dreyer snapped. “And I don’t know who you are.”

“I don’t give a damn if he’s the King of England. He can wait like everyone else. I got me a rotten tooth that needs pulling, the dentist ain’t in, and the barber won’t touch it.”

Over the racket, he heard the sound of staccato heels on the hardwood floor. Jessica emerged from the back room, looking harassed but tightly controlled. Her sleeves were rolled up to expose pale, slender arms, and she had on a wilted bib apron, like the kind grocers and soda fountain clerks wore. A stethoscope dangled from her neck. But even in this chaos she was alluring.

“Oh, Adam, it’s you,” she said. “I thought I heard the bell.” She glanced around the waiting room. “There are a lot of people ahead of you.”

“No, no, I’m not sick. I, well—” He gestured slightly at the flowers and candy, trying to be discreet. “I didn’t realize you were so busy.”

Seeing his gifts, her cheeks flushed slightly. “It’s very nice, but—” She stopped and considered him. “Come to the back.”

“Hey—what about my bum tooth? I was here before him,” the seedy man complained, jerking his head in Adam’s direction.

“Yes, and I’ll be with all of you just as soon as I can.” She turned and nodded toward her back office.

“I’m sorry,” Adam said, once they were out of the others’ earshot. “I guess this isn’t very appropriate.” He held out the candy and flowers. She took them and put them on the work table.

Smiling, she said, “It isn’t that I don’t appreciate the thought, Adam. It’s just that, well, it’s been a…trying day. I had to send Amy home. She’s a big help, but she’s not used to dealing with this much bedlam.”

He felt heartened that he hadn’t seemed to offend her. Then from overhead, a child’s thin cry reached him. He glanced up.

“I’ve got two patients in the beds upstairs, but I need more room. I can’t use this office to treat all the people who are going to need me. And I can’t go to their homes.”

“You need a hospital.”

She nodded. “Yes, ideally, and Powell Springs doesn’t have one. I need more help, too, but I’m working on that part. You’re on the town council. Do you know if there’s a bigger space available around here? Like—like the grange hall, or a meeting place?”

He thought for a moment. “What about the high school gymnasium? The schools are closed anyway.”

“That would be perfect!” She gazed up at him with such a grateful expression that he felt a foot taller. “I hate to bother Mayor Cookson with this—can the town council act without troubling him? Do you think you can arrange for that?”

“Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of it.” Buoyed by Jessica’s attention, Adam believed he could manage anything.

“Well, well. So now you want my help, eh,
Doctor
Layton?”

How was it that some people could make her title sound like a filthy epithet? Jessica wondered. She had dashed through the rain to climb Mae Rumsteadt’s stairs with some trepidation. Her uneasiness was not without merit, she realized. She clenched her jaw as she stood in the woman’s parlor, feeling most unwelcome. Mae lived in rooms above her restaurant that were cluttered with mismatched furniture and stacks of newspapers. Jess could see a length of clothesline strung in the small kitchen, from which hung bunches of drying herbs and other plants. The smell of rosemary and sage were especially strong.

“I need
every
pair of hands I can get,” she said. “People are getting sick and I’m asking for volunteers. I need women to provide nursing care.” Jess was practical but not without her pride—she didn’t want to give Granny Mae the impression that she was the only person who could help.

Mae’s high-cut nostrils usually made her look as if she wore a perpetual sneer, and right now Jess swore she could see all the way up the woman’s nose to her frontal sinuses. Her jaw was set, and her smug expression made Jess sorry she had come.

“Well, I don’t know,” she drawled, plainly enjoying her position. “I’m already taking care of sick folks, myself. You’re not getting every patient in town, you know.” She crossed her bony arms over her flat chest.

Ignoring her coyness, Jess continued. “Adam, that is, Mr. Jacobsen is arranging for me to use the high school gym as a temporary infirmary. We need the space, and it will be easier to treat people if they’re grouped in one spot. We just need to get some people to help us set up.”

Mae smoothed the sleeves of her faded house dress and brushed at her apron. “I suppose that might work. I’m not saying I’ll do this, mind. I still don’t hold with a lot of that folderol you school-learned doctors use. Just because you didn’t hear about something at college or read it in a medical book doesn’t mean it won’t work. I’ve seen my share of ills and cures in my lifetime, and
I’ve
got books, too. Handed down to me by my grandmother and great-grandmother. A lot of the remedies came straight from the Indians. They know plenty about healing and natural cures. Like the Bible says, ‘The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth: and he that is wise will not abhor them.’ There’s a reason that kidney beans have their name—they’re good for kidney troubles! Drinking nothing but cold water stops diarrhea. And a good soak in urine will cure ringworm. I told your father and Cyrus Vandermeer the same things time and again, but would they listen to a word I said? Oh, no, they just…”

And on and on. Jessica rubbed her forehead with the fingertips of one hand. She was bone-tired, she had not even been invited to sit down, and the woman was going off on the same tired diatribe Jess had heard so many times before. She whipped her hand back to her side, her arm stiff, and caught Mae’s faded blue gaze as surely as if she’d gripped the old lady’s dress lapels.

“Granny Mae Rumsteadt, in the name of humanity! I need help, not someone who wants to argue about who’s right! I left five patients in the waiting room to come over here, people I haven’t even examined yet.” One of them was Bert Bauer, the drifter she’d first seen at Tilly’s who’d reported the story about a man with a nosebleed. At the time she’d thought it was an outrageous lie, told for the chief purpose of cadging free drinks. Now she knew better. “People in this town are getting sick, and a lot of them, a great deal of them, might very well die. Before I came over here, I checked on Anna Warneke—she’s taken Eddie Cookson’s place in the bed over my office. She has turned as blue as a new pair of Levi Strauss’s denims and she’s bleeding from her nose—”

“Did you put a penny in her mouth? Everyone knows a penny in the mouth stops nosebleeds.”