Stephanie Mittman (15 page)

He went on to explain to them all about asepsis and germs and the importance of a sterile operating facility.
By the time he got to the types of operations that required optimum conditions and the statistics of survival with and without, he knew he had lost them.

“Let’s take the vote,” someone shouted. “Alice left a pie cooling on the sill that’s calling me all the way from home.”

“I’d like to say something,” Mrs. Youtt, the lawyer’s wife, said, coming to a stand in the front row and turning toward the crowd. “I feel like I’m being ungrateful to Dr. Hendon, saying what I’ve got to say after he saved our boy, but the truth is, while some of us may get sick and a few of us might need that surgery that he keeps talking about, we’re all of us gonna die sometime. And not to have a church service when we go … It’s not like I think we won’t be allowed in the heavenly kingdom or anything, it’s just … well, it’s fitting. A proper end to a decent life.”

“Just like I said,” the reverend said when she was finished, and all Seth could do was shake his head. He knew that in a way Mrs. Youtt was right—with luck and care there’d only be a handful of patients who would benefit from the clinic at any time, but the whole town would enjoy the church. There would be weddings and baptisms and communions. And there would be funerals.

Mr. Youtt spoke next, in favor of the clinic. It was nice for Seth to think that someone who wasn’t in love with him agreed with him. Not that Abby was really in love with him, he thought.

He looked out at the crowd to where she sat beside Frank Walker and reluctantly admitted to himself that they made a rather handsome couple. Not that old one-tooth
Frank was a good-looking man, but Abby more than made up for whatever he lacked. Seth doubted Frank was a day over twenty-three, and already he was managing the mercantile that belonged to his father.

Leeks. The man had brought her leeks and she hadn’t thought it self-serving in the least. As if Frank wasn’t planning on not only getting to taste Abby’s soup but no doubt make an evening of it—he’d start with the soup and he’d move on to tasting Abidance Merganser’s sweet, sweet lips.

“Dr. Hendon?” Horace Parks asked him, nudging his arm. “Did you want to say anything else?”

“I do,” Abby said, rising to her feet while the words she spoke resounded in his mind. Oh, she’d say them in a church one day, but to someone who suited her better, someone who didn’t suck the wind from her sails. And as she proceeded up the aisle between the chairs of the hall which also served as their church, he held his breath, imagining. Tamping down thoughts. Wishing. Tamping down hopes.

“I feel traitorous. And if I didn’t right from the beginning, I certainly have in the last two weeks. I was brought up in the Eden’s Grove Methodist Church. I love the church and I love its reverend.” She smiled at her father. “But the Eden’s Grove Methodist Church is not a building. It’s not a place. It’s a community.

“It didn’t burn down in the fire. That was just wood and mortar. But the people who die leave this community and some of them might not have to go so soon if they get the proper medical attention. Maybe there will be only one person saved by Seth’s clinic. But maybe that one person is the one you cherish most in the
world. Maybe she’s the one who would have given birth to our next mayor, or our next reverend, or the next president of the United States. Maybe he’s the one who would have been there to pull you from the river, or catch you when you fell.

“Is one of us less valuable than all of us?”

There was silence in the grange hall, and Seth thought that his chest might burst with pride. Abidance Merganser was not a child, not some flippant little slip of a girl who didn’t understand the seriousness of his work. As she had told him when his sister was dying and she insisted on buying Sarrie a fancy dress the girl would never wear, there was a difference between frivolity and happiness.

And he had been a fool not to see it before.

“No, Mr. Parks,” he said softly in the quiet. “I have nothing else to say.”

The voting took place by secret ballot. With very little talk people lined up in an orderly fashion and stood waiting for their turn to write either “hospital” or “church” on the small slips of paper waiting on the back table.

“You know a lot of them probably couldn’t spell ‘hospital,’ “Abby said as she walked beside Seth back toward his office.

“Maybe we should have told them to just make a cross or an H,” he said. “Or draw someone in pain. Or a tombstone.”

“An awful lot of people did vote for the clinic,” Abby
said. “If they all donated a bit, maybe you could at least—”

“Don’t you have to go home?” he asked, looking at her as if she was the enemy.

“It wasn’t my fault that they voted for the church, Seth. Don’t take it out on me.”

“I’m not taking it out on you,” he said sharply. “I know you tried. You made a great case for the clinic. You were grand. Better surely than I was. I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all the good it did us. What more do you want from me, a jig?”

“I want you to pick up the pieces, Seth. I want you to figure out a way to get a clinic built without Joseph Panner’s money. I want you to think that while we didn’t win the vote, there were still a lot of people who understood the need for a clinic, instead of that while there were a lot of people who understood the need, we still didn’t win the vote.”

“I can’t do it, Abby. I’d like to, but I just can’t put a good face on it. Not even for you. You’re so very lucky, walking around in those rose-colored glasses of yours, turning things around in a way I can’t. I have to see things the way they really are.”

“I see things the way they really are too. I see that while the Denton baby is failing, the Evans baby girl is hearty and hale. But you don’t. You see that while the Evans baby is thriving, the Denton baby isn’t. I see that while Joseph Panner may have died, your skill beat the frostbite. You see that even though you beat the frostbite, Joseph Panner died. I see that while you couldn’t save Sarrie’s life, you’ve saved the lives of countless others.

“And all you can see is that no matter how many lives you save, it doesn’t matter because you lost Sarrie.”

“You know me too well,” he said, the hint of a laugh in his words. “How is it that when you know me as well as that you still always expect me to be happy in the face of disaster? Why haven’t you learned yet who I am and why I will never be who you want me to be? Why do you keep expecting and wanting—”

“I don’t expect anything of you,” she said, stopping in her tracks. “I don’t want anything of you. You’re right. I should know better. I just keep remembering the man who wrote those silly affidavits for Sarrie and me, swearing that we would be friends forever, and then convincing Mr. Youtt to notarize them. I remember how you let me cry in your arms like a baby when Sarrie took a turn for the worse. I remember your teaching me to dance before the Springtime Ball that year when I was old enough to go.

“I remember your framing my first editorial and hanging it on the wall in your waiting room. I—”

“You were Sarrie’s friend,” he said, as if he didn’t realize that she was much more than that to him. But she knew, she knew how he wished that things could be different as he fought his own feelings for her.

“I was your friend too, Seth. I still am, but you’re shutting me out. This is not about the clinic, Seth. This is about us.”

“Now who’s turning things around? This is not just about us—and I’ve told you and told you that there is no ‘us’—it’s about the clinic. It’s about my losing that vote and—”

“Do you really think that you are the only one who lost back at the grange hall? Do you really think that the world revolves around you and that everyone else is too stupid to understand? That the pain is yours alone?”

“People will die because I couldn’t make them understand—”

“People will die, Seth, if you stand on your head and spit wooden nickels. Unless you sprout wings and figure out a way to convince God otherwise, people will keep dying. That’s what life is all about.”

“For some, but for others I’m their last hope, Abby,” he said sadly.

“Well, maybe those people don’t deserve a last hope. Maybe they just deserve nice funerals. And maybe you should just be happy that some of them—”

She touched the back of her hand to her head, hoping that the coolness would bring some relief to the unrelenting headache.

“I am so tired of your ownership of all the pain in Eden’s Grove. I wanted that clinic. I can’t do what you do, but I wanted to be a part of saving lives.”

“I’m still the only one that will lose them,” he said, having a pity party for himself while the night grew cold around them.

“I have to head on home, to where my family hates me and will have a fine time gloating over their wonderful victory. I only hope they don’t come to regret it.”

“Well, it’ll be a fine funeral when they do, in a grand church, won’t it?”

Her head was splitting apart. It hurt so much that it
made her dinner rise up her throat and threaten to spill into her mouth.

“I’ve got to go,” she said, turning to look down the street and finding it hard to see into the darkness. She fished for her glasses and then decided she could find her way home blind. After all, it seemed as if she’d been leaving Seth and going home alone forever.

F
RANK
W
ALKER WAS HERE EARLIER
, A
NSEL
told Abby when she finally showed up at the
Herald
two days later. So she’d indulged herself in a little pity fest. Didn’t broken hearts need as much tending as broken arms? “He was pretty concerned when I told him that you weren’t feeling too well. You doing any better?”

She nodded. She really did feel better. She’d be darned if she’d let Dr. Seth Hendon rule her life. She’d be darned if she’d let him kiss her feet!

“You see the doctor?”

Oh, that would be a big help, she thought. “I don’t need a doctor,” she snapped at him. “I wasn’t that kind of sick.”

“Pru says—”

“Pru should mind her own business. Do I come telling you—”

“That you’re biting everyone’s head off?” he finished. “Obviously it’s true.”

“What do you all want?” she shouted at him. “When I’m little Mary Sunshine I don’t understand the gravity
of the situation. When I’m not all smiles and cheers I’m overemotional. Why don’t you just tell me what you want me to say, and I’ll say it?”

“I want you to say that you’re over Seth Hendon and that you’re ready to be treated nicely and well.”

“It’s over with Seth Hendon and I’m ready to be treated nicely and well.”

“That was too easy,” Ansel said.

“No,” she corrected. “It was very, very hard. He didn’t come to see me, he doesn’t want me in his life, and I’m tired of pushing myself on him.”

“Did he know you were feeling—” Ansel started, but apparently thought better of it. The last thing Ansel probably wanted to do was defend Seth Hendon.

“So what did Frank Walker want?” she asked. Ansel was as easy to read as last week’s
Herald
. If she was over Seth, then Ansel thought he could just slot in poor Frank Walker. After all, in Ansel’s eyes—heck, in everyone’s eyes—a woman needed a man to take care of her and make her happy.

“He came by to bring you the first of the green peas. I told him you weren’t feeling well and he—” Ansel began, then suddenly began hustling her toward the back office. “Go in the back. Take a rest in the chair, but leave the door open so I can hear if you need me.”

“What?” she asked, pushing at his hands. “Ansel, stop—”

“Don’t argue, for once in your life, Abby, please? You still look pale and I don’t want you tiring yourself on your first day up and around.” He put an arm around her and escorted her into the back office.

Before Abby could get herself up and back into the
main office, she heard Ansel’s loud voice. “Frank! How have you been?”

“Busy,” she heard Frank say. “I had to send wires to four different shops in Estherville before I could find some flowers and have them sent here on the train. But here they are.”

“They’re real nice looking. For Abidance?” her brother asked.

She supposed Frank nodded, smiling that shy smile of his that revealed his missing front tooth.

“Daffodils?”

“Tulips. My sister looked in one of those
Language of the Flowers
books we were selling last winter and she says that tulips mean beautiful eyes.”

“You’re pretty sweet on Abby, huh?” Ansel asked, obviously wanting Abby to hear the answer. Shamefully, when she really should have made her presence known, she waited to hear what Frank had to say.

“I’m not hiding it,” was what he said. “A man can do that and someone else’ll come along and whisk the woman of his dream right out from under his nose. I’m not about to let that happen to me. You think she’s up to visitors? I could just leave the flowers with your mother if you think she won’t want me seein’ her indisposed.”

“I’m fine, Frank,” Abby said, coming out from the back room, her cheeks no doubt as red as cherries in June. “I was feeling very poorly, but I’m over it now. Oh, but those are lovely! I think tulips are my favorite flowers. They mean that spring is right around the corner and that everything will be fine again soon.”