Heart and Home(2)

Tears welled up in Miss Sparks's eyes and she brushed them away. "Don't  you understand? It's already hopeless, and she's already had more pain  than she can stand-than I can stand."

Adam clinched his teeth as the dying woman took another rattling breath. "Is there other family I can talk to?" he asked.

"No. We only have each other." She turned to him and spoke fiercely for  the first time. "I won't let you experiment on Grams. If you can't help  her sleep, then there's nothing you can do."

Adam hesitated. This wasn't how he had imagined starting his practice.  He had planned to save his patients. Especially the first one. "Miss  Sparks, you don't need to be afraid of modern medicine. I'm a trained  physician. I want-"

"Thank you for coming, Doctor. I'm sorry I bothered you. If you'll just tell me what I owe you … "

She had dismissed him. She returned the cloth to the basin, repeating a  task she had doubtless done a thousand times. He watched her for a  moment, then found the bottle of morphine. He poured a tiny measure of  the powder into a folded paper and crimped the edge closed.

Handing it to her, he told her the price and said, "Dissolve this in a  little water and see if she can drink it. I don't think you'll need more  than that." He hoped she understood the last as his prediction on how  much longer she'd have to nurse her grandmother.

She reached for it cautiously. As soon as it left his fingers, he turned  from the room. She caught up with him in the kitchen and paid him the  money without another word.

He made his way back through the dining room and down the hall,  wondering who would finish preparing the meal while she waited for the  old woman to die. He knew he shouldn't be angry with Miss Sparks. She  thought she was protecting her grandmother. Still, he couldn't help  thinking that a dramatic rescue of such an ill patient would have gotten  his practice off to a better start.





Jane returned to her seat beside Grams just as she heard the front door  close behind Dr. Hart. What had she expected? That the doctor would tell  her Grams wasn't dying, that everything would be all right? Had she  expected him to offer a miracle cure the other doctors had not?

She shook her head. Of course not. Grams had taken ill almost three  months ago and had been unable to leave her bed now for several weeks.  Even if she survived the pneumonia, she would never be well. Dropsy, the  doctors had said. Her heart was failing.

All Jane had expected from Dr. Hart was something that would stop the  pain when Grams awoke. Every breath was agony for her grandmother, and  all she could do was cry.

Jane fingered the paper in her hand. That was what he had given her, something for the pain. Then why did she feel cold inside?

Because he had put it into words. Grams was dying. Not in a few months  but now. And he had forced her to make the choice to let her.

"Oh, Grams," she whispered. "Did I do the right thing?"

When she thought of the doctor poking a hole in Grams's frail side,  forcing a tube into her chest cavity, which hurt already, Jane knew she  had been right. She had to believe she was right.

She refreshed the cloth on Grams's forehead one more time, then went  back to the kitchen. With the door open she could hear nearly every  breath her grandmother took. It had become the rhythm of her life these  past few days, the slow labored inhale and exhale. With both dread and  longing she waited for the moment when the breathing would stop. How  could Grams take much more of this? And - how could she?





Adam's trunks arrived shortly after he returned. He set to work  unpacking them immediately, glad for the activity. The steady stream of  patients he had imagined didn't materialize. He checked his front door a  couple of times and finally left it open so he'd be sure to hear a  knock. All the time he was upstairs he listened for a voice from below.  He opened the windows, thinking he might hear footsteps on his porch. He  finished unpacking and returned to the front room, having been  uninterrupted the entire time.                       
       
           



       

Uninterrupted if he didn't count his own thoughts. He kept seeing Jane  Sparks with tears in her eyes and that poor woman lying beside her.

He could have saved her. He still could. There was probably still time.  But how would he convince the granddaughter? She hadn't been willing to  consider the procedure. And he didn't know how to convince her.

If he were more experienced, had seen a little more death and had saved a  few more people, he would know what to say. But he didn't, and his  first patient in his new home was going to die, probably within the next  few hours.

He was pacing the front room, seething with guilt and frustration, when  he finally heard footsteps on his porch. He turned toward the open door  to find Mayor Pinter there.

"Evening," the little man said. "Did you get settled in?"

"Pretty much," Adam said, forcing a smile. "I hadn't realized it was dinnertime already."

"We eat a mite earlier here than in the city, I suppose."

"I won't complain about that," Adam said, realizing how hungry he was.  Wonderful smells had been wafting through his open windows and door all  afternoon, smells he had tried his best to ignore because he knew they  came from Miss Sparks's kitchen.

"It's nice of your family to let me come to dinner," he said, slipping into his suit coat as he joined Pinter on the porch.

"I don't have a family," Pinter said, preceding Adam down the steps. "I  take breakfast and dinner at the boardinghouse. Got myself a permanent  seat at her table. I recommend you do the same. Unless you got talents I  don't know about, it'll likely be the best food you're gonna find."

The boarding house. So much for putting Miss Sparks out of his mind. Not  that he would have anyway, Adam supposed, but he had been looking  forward to a distraction.

"Miss Sparks has got four rooms upstairs that she rents out. If they're  all filled, she can accommodate only three more guests at her table. You  gotta arrange ahead, like I did for you tonight. There's money left in  the fund we started to bring you here. It's payin' the rent on that  little house, but there's enough left to feed you. Besides," he added,  leaning closer to Adam's shoulder, "the little lady needs the money. I  should know-I'm the banker."

As Pinter opened the front door of the boardinghouse, Adam noticed a  small sign nailed to the siding an inch or two below eye level. The  words Almost Home were painted across it in ornate script He had missed  it during his earlier visit.

Inside, Pinter led the way to the parlor. The shades were open, filling  the room with afternoon sunshine. Two women were seated at opposite ends  of the comfortably furnished room.

"Ah, the Cartland sisters are here already," Pinter said. "Ladies, have you met the new doctor?"

The women smiled and murmured their greetings. They were both in their  thirties, Adam judged, and dressed rather elegantly, or at least more  elegantly than Miss Sparks had been. He would have guessed they were  sisters, for they had the same large nose.

Pinter took a few steps toward the window, putting him closer to one of  the women. "This is Naomi," he said, "and yonder is Nedra."

Nedra's hair was an odd shade of yellow, while her sister's was … orange.  Maybe unusual hair color ran in the family along with the nose.

"Come sit here, Doctor," said Nedra, indicating the space next to her on the velvet settee.

Adam tried to smile graciously as he crossed the room to join her.

"The ladies are planning to open a dress shop," Pinter said. "That will  be such a welcome addition to the community, don't you think?"

The question rang with a certain amount of desperation. Catching  Pinter's need for help with the conversation, Adam spoke up. "Where are  you ladies from?"

"St. Louis," Nedra, the yellow-haired one, said. "Our father left us a  small inheritance, and we decided we could make more of it out here than  in the city."

"Our skills are needed here," declared Naomi, as if she saw their move  in a very different light. " And I don't just mean our sewing skills.  These people are in desperate need of civilizing influences."                       
       
           



       

"The good doctor will help us with that," Nedra said, turning a radiant  smile on Adam. "I understand you're from back east." She made it sound  like a foreign country.

Before Adam could reply another guest entered the parlor. Pinter was  quick to make the introduction. "Tim Martin, meet our new doctor, Adam  Hart. Tim's a salesman. He makes the boardinghouse his base whenever  he's in the area."