Skip Rock Shallows (13 page)

Ned’s eyes sparked with interest. He nodded.

“Several weeks, according to how quickly you heal,” Paul said.

“What if I just leave it be? I’ve got used to the pain.”

Lilly listened as she gathered supplies to treat the wound: black salve, sterile gauze, a bandage, metal fastener tacks. She knew exactly what Paul would say.

He didn’t put it gently. “Loss of the entire limb from gangrene and most likely the loss of your life.”

Nervously, Ned unfastened and fastened the top button of his shirt. “You’re saying I don’t have a choice?”

Lilly poured water in a basin for Paul to scrub his hands. She could easily dress Ned’s wound herself, but Ned needed to form a bond with Paul. It would ultimately help him make the right decision.

Paul undid his cuff links and began to roll his sleeves. “On the contrary, Ned, the choice is yours alone. Meanwhile, Dr. Corbett,” he said, drawing Lilly into the conversation, “I hope you have some crutches.” He nudged the peg with one foot. “Ned won’t be using this again.”

Ned moved to sit on the end of the exam table. Lilly watched as Paul applied a sterile bandage from the knee joint to the stump. He worked in oblique and circular turns, which he carried alternately over the face of the stump and round the limb. It was like watching an artist at work.

Beads of perspiration dotted Ned’s forehead. “It’ll heal up for a while, then break open again. This is the worst, though.” He wiped sweat with the crook of his arm. “I don’t see why it won’t callus over.”

“I’m amazed you’ve done as well as you have,” Paul said. “Your surgical repair was rudimentary at best, but surely lifesaving.” With the tiny toothed tacks, Paul fastened the bandage, then gently tapped the stump. “No weight bearing on this.”

Ned slid off the table and balanced on the crutches Lilly provided. “I thank ye,” he said.

Paul’s eyes narrowed as he stroked his mustache with his thumb and index finger. Lilly could almost see the gears in his brain turning. “There would be no charge for the surgery or the prosthesis if you would be willing to come to Hamilton Hospital in Boston. Your case would make an interesting opportunity for my students.”

Ned leaned forward, using the crutches to propel himself toward the door. “I’ll think on it,” he said as he carefully maneuvered over the threshold. “Looks like the storm’s taking a break. Hey, look at the rainbow.”

Arm in arm, Lilly and Paul stepped out into a world washed clean. The air smelled fresh as just-ironed linen. The wind-whipped trees and flattened grasses were a brilliant green against the backdrop of sunshine spearing through dark-gray clouds. A rainbow of pastels arced gracefully across the sky.

“That was quite a piece of work,” Lilly said as Ned disappeared around the corner of a building.

“Well, my dear, I’ve bandaged many a wound,” Paul said, tightening his one-armed embrace.

“Yes, I know, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“A bit of charity is good for the soul.”

“You’re a good man, Paul Hamilton,” Lilly said.

“Do I deserve a kiss?”

“Paul! Mind your manners.”

“All right—this time,” Paul said. “But you don’t make it easy.”

The rain continued on and off all day. Toward late afternoon, the sun burst forth, chasing the clouds away and leaving the air humid and close. Paul and Lilly took a late supper with the Jameses. Myrtie had gone all out with chicken and dumplings, stewed tomatoes, creamed corn, dressed eggs, and her special potato salad made with mustard and mayonnaise dressing.

They’d just filled their plates when a knock at the door called for Myrtie’s attention. “Come in. Come in,” she said, ushering Tillie and Turnip Tippen into the room. “Stanley, get the extra chairs.”

Turnip held up a palm to stop her. “Thank ye kindly, Mrs. James, but we ain’t staying. Another storm’s a-coming in.” He rolled his eyes. “But Tillie here wouldn’t rest until I brung her and her cake over. It is good cake, if maybe just a little damp.”

Always the perfect hostess, Myrtie would not hear their refusals. “Should we say grace again?” she asked as bowls and platters were served to the Tippens.

“I reckon the Lord heard us the first time, Myrtie,” Mr. James said.

Lilly listened with some amusement as Mrs. Tippen regaled Paul with the story of Darrell’s accident and Lilly’s intervention to save her son’s leg.

“And I told Turnip here, I says, ‘For a woman, that Lilly Corbett’s a fine doctor.’ Didn’t I say that, Turnip?”

Turnip lifted his head from the plate of chicken and dumplings. “That ain’t exactly how I remember it.”

“Do you want a taste of that coconut cake or not?” Mrs. Tippen stage-whispered.

Lilly caught the look on Paul’s face. His tight-lipped smile said,
“Get me out of here.”

Turnip sopped gravy with half a biscuit. “That’s what she said, all right.” He popped the biscuit into his mouth, leaned back in the chair, and patted his round belly.

Myrtie set a crystal cake stand on the table. “Dr. Corbett, would you do the honors?”

Lilly sliced the cake, mischievously cutting Paul’s extra thick as Myrtie poured fresh coffee. The dessert was surprisingly light and delicious.

Paul plowed through every bite before he excused himself from the table. “Ladies, thank you for dinner. I don’t know when I’ve had a finer meal, but daylight comes early. Dr. Corbett, if I could have a word.”

Their footsteps squelched against the wet grass. Paul clasped Lilly’s hand, moving it back and forth, forging a swinging bridge of intimacy. Lingering raindrops showered down from the branches of a tree. Laughing, they ducked and ran the last few feet to her stepping-stone stoop.

“Do they eat like that every day?” he asked.

“Hardly. Couldn’t you tell you were being honored?”

“Honored to death,” he said. “That meal was dangerous to one’s health.”

Lilly lingered at the door. She wished she could ask him in, but she didn’t have a sitting room and couldn’t very well have him in her bedroom. It wouldn’t be proper. Besides, there was too much gossip about her already. It made her miss the city, where one’s every move was not scrutinized.

Dr. Coldiron’s letter was burning a hole in her pocket, but she could hardly discuss it while standing under a threatening sky. As if in punctuation to her conundrum, thunder clapped and a hundred fingers of flame turned the night sky into a Dresden plate crackled with age. Dark clouds formed and raced across the moon.

They saw the door to the Jameses’ house open. “Best come in here until the storm blows over, Dr. Hamilton,” Mr. James yelled from the lit doorway.

Paul squeezed her hand. “Until the morning, darling Lilly. Sweet dreams.”

She returned the pressure. His hand was strong and sure. Singular, fat raindrops pelted down a warning. “Good night, dearest. Now run!”

From the safety of her window, she laughed to see him hotfooting it across the yard. “Poor Paul; I surely hope the Tippens have taken their leave.”

After turning up the wick of the coal-oil lamp, she flicked the head of a sulfur match across a striking strip, held the flame to the wick, watched it catch, and seated the chimney. With her elbows propped on the table, she reread Dr. Coldiron’s letter—then she read it again. A smudge of smoke cast a shadow across the pristine pages.

“Bother,” she said louder than was necessary in an empty room.

On the bottom shelf of the washstand, she found one of Myrtie’s cleaning cloths. Lifting the chimney once again, she ran the rag up inside the globe. Satisfied that it was spotless, she turned the wick down a smidgen, folded the rag, and settled back at the table.

Wind whined at the door like a hungry dog. Against a sudden chill, Lilly plucked a shawl from the back of the chair and draped it across her shoulders. Beyond her cozy nest, rain increased in a torrent’s fall.

The wall clock struck ten. Lilly stretched her arms overhead and yawned, tired but not too sleepy to reply to Dr. Coldiron’s letter.

She opened the top of her portable writing desk and perused her options: small pots of blue, navy, or black ink; heavy vellum or light onionskin stationery with matching envelopes; two rolls of stamps; clean blotters; penholders of various hefts and colors—all waited her selection. The navy on the cream-colored vellum. She dipped the nib of a tortoiseshell pen into the navy pot.

I hope this missive finds you in good health. I cannot begin to tell you of the blessings I have received from my internship here in Skip Rock. I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to you, my benefactor.

Words flowed smooth as silk from her pen as she relayed medicine practiced and lessons learned. Toward the end of the second page, she realized she was putting off the inevitable. She hated to disappoint her mentor, but the words had to be written, and in all fairness, he knew she hadn’t intended to stay past September.

Eleven chimes.
Goodness, how did it get so late?
She rolled her head on her shoulders to loosen up the kinks, then dipped the pen for what must have been the hundredth time and continued:

Lilly hoped Dr. Coldiron would sense the humor in the last sentence. He of all people knew that she was much too headstrong to let a man, even Paul, deter her from her goals.

She closed with the usual obligatory sentiments, set the inked pages aside to dry, addressed the envelope, and pasted a stamp in the upper corner.

There—finished.
She slapped her hands lightly as if dusting all her cares away. But doubt niggled at her conscience. She studied the flame in the lamp as if it could burn away any lingering guilt. The flame reminded her of the gay bonfire from the night before and of Mr. James’s words:
“If things was different . . .”
Therein lay the doubt and the guilt. Things were different. Dr. Coldiron’s letter made it so.

Lilly shrugged. Really, she had no debt to these people. Nothing was owed except finishing out her tenure. It wasn’t as if she would leave them in a lurch. The college and the coal company would work in tandem to find someone more than willing to practice here. Her desire was to be where she could make a difference; Skip Rock, with all its prejudices and backward ways, was not that place.

She reached to turn down the wick, but something stayed her hand. She had not prayed about this. She had not searched the Scripture. She cupped her chin in her hand and idly flipped through the pages of her Bible.

As a girl, she had collected words. She smiled to remember that she had once determined to name her children Verily, Inasmuch, and Cipher—just because she liked the way the words tripped off her tongue.

Closing her eyes, she let chapter and verse glide past before stopping her index finger to mark a place. She had watched her mother do this many times when she was seeking God’s direction. She opened her eyes. Oh, dear; she’d turned to Job—not the happiest of books. Job 40:14 to be exact. She read aloud: “‘Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.’”

Whatever could this mean? The rain drummed on the roof like a mantra leading her to a quiet place, cleansing her of every thought, every worry. She would be still and wait upon the Lord. When she was perfectly calm, she opened her eyes. At her right hand was a pot of ink and a pen, the letter, and the envelope addressed to Dr. Coldiron.
“Thine own right hand can save thee.”

She put the ink and the pen back into her writing desk. The letter she studied. With a sigh, she slid it under a short stack of stationery before closing the portable desk. She would wait a few days to put it in the mail.

Lights off, she dressed for bed, knelt for prayer, and slipped between freshly ironed sheets. Sleep came quickly if not sweetly.

Dark and depressive memories, masquerading as dreams, darted like bats through her sleep. Her younger self dwelled in an unreal world where dogs could talk, houses had no walls, and tin roofs slammed open and shut, open and shut, open and shut, like an unlatched door in a high wind. The noise was so loud, she woke with a start.

“A dream, it’s just a dream,” Lilly said with relief as she searched with her feet for her slippers. But
bang! Bang! Bang!
The noise persisted.

Tying the belt of her dressing gown, she went to answer the knock at the door. The dark stoop was empty. Puzzled, she stepped outside, minimally protected by the roof’s overhang. The washtub thumped against the wall. As lightning rent the eastern sky, the tub popped loose and wheeled down the road. The big snowball bush beside the overflowing rain barrel writhed in the squall. Beneath her feet, Lilly could feel the ground rock in harmony with the rolling thunder. A sudden rainy gust nearly sent her scooting off the porch. Grabbing the doorframe, she pulled herself inside and with effort pushed the door closed. She leaned against its smooth surface, catching her breath.

The house groaned and shuddered around her. Hurriedly, she stripped off her soaked nightdress and pulled on the clothes she had laid out the night before. Fingers thick with fatigue, she fumbled with the clasp on her pearls. The darkness seemed suffocating. She lit the lamp; her claustrophobia dissipated in the yellow glow only to be replaced by true alarm at what the lamp revealed.

Curtains billowed at the closed windows. Soot and gray ash spouted from the potbellied stove, filling the room with the lonely smell of fires long dead. She stared in disbelief as a ball of mouse-colored fluff tumbled out from under the bed and skittered across the floor. Hitting the wall, the fluff broke apart; it was every mouse for himself then as the creatures ran like long-tailed demons along the baseboards.

Lilly yelped and was reaching for the broom when the earsplitting sound of a sawmill made her cringe. Thinking to save the most valuable thing in the room, she dove under the table with her doctor’s satchel. As the wind peeled the tin roof like a ripe banana, she wished she had grabbed something else instead. Covering her head with the satchel, she darted up and seized her Bible. “Sorry, Lord,” she said.

After venting its wrath upon her roof, the storm waned. Through a gaping hole in the ceiling, she could see stars through the thin clouds.
Amazing.
The house was in shambles, but she was intact. Lilly tucked the Bible safely inside her case and hurried to the door. Anything could have happened during the storm. People might be injured—the clinic might have blown away.

The inside door was who knew where, but the screen door angled drunkenly across the threshold. With hardly any effort, she jerked it free. She spotted Mr. James walking across the yard. “Are ye of a piece?” he asked.

“Gracious, I’m fine. Do you know if anyone is hurt?”

“Looks like the town took the brunt of the storm. We’d best hasten that way.”

Her heart took a tumble. Paul was staying at the boardinghouse. “Yes,” she said, nearly running beside him, “let’s hurry.”