At the Scent of Water (24 page)

“Had a good night’s sleep last night. Amanda and the kids are doing great. Delivered two babies this morning, and after I see a few more patients, I’m headed for the golf course. Come go with me.”

Sam shook his head. “Thanks to you, I’ve got house calls to make and free clinic this afternoon.”

Ricky grinned. “Whoo doggies, you’re going to need some coffee.”

“I’ll grab a cup on my way out.” He rose to leave.

“Hey, Sam,” Ricky said, and Sam turned. His brother’s face was serious. “I heard the news about Kelly Bright. I’m so glad. It’s an answer to prayer. A big part of what I’m happy about,” he said, and Sam remembered how Ricky had been there in the bad times. He supposed he had the right to rejoice now that a little of the pressure had eased.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’m relieved, too. It’s still an awful situation, but I feel better just knowing she’s being looked after. No one should die like that.”

Ricky’s telephone rang. Sam raised a hand in good-bye, then took his leave after his brother began talking. Someone’s water had broken, and he saw Ricky’s golf game receding into a faraway dream. He waved to his sister, who was also on the phone. He went outside and took a deep breath of the warm air.

Twenty-five

The house calls weren’t too difficult. A baby with the croup, a two-year-old with a suspected case of roseola, an old woman needing a listening ear for a moment or two, and a routine blood pressure check. Sam shook his head. He couldn’t believe Carl traveled twenty minutes up in the hills just to take somebody’s blood pressure, but actually, that had been the best call of them all. He had sat on the porch with the old man, had drunk a cup of coffee, and listened to the creek run. He had felt at peace, at least for a time.

Elijah was finishing up the chores when Sam arrived back at Diane and Carl’s. Annie’s rented car was gone. He wondered what she had done with his truck. He would like to have that truck back.

“Hey there,” Elijah greeted him. “I was just fixing to eat the lunch Annie left. You’re just in time.”

Lunch sounded good. He felt as if he’d covered miles already today, and he had an hour before the free clinic began. With any luck no one would show up and he could leave.

They ate the sandwiches Annie had prepared, and Sam admired her handiwork. Annie understood how to make a sandwich, using a good inch of meat and another of cheese, moist, thick bread, and lettuce, tomato, and salt, with a dill pickle on the side. He remembered her canning her own cucumbers into dills and sweets, lining the walls of their tiny kitchen with the Mason jars, smiling with delight on canning day when the jars would seal and the pops sounded through the house.

He finished his lunch, then went out to the office. The drugs were in a locked cabinet, of course, and he wished Annie were here with the key. Well, he would do the best he could today. That’s all anyone could ask. Odd. But he realized he meant it. Somehow he did not expect perfection from himself here, and he knew it was because there was so much less at stake.

He made sure there was clean paper on the examining table, emptied the garbage, tidied the waiting room, put on a pot of coffee and another of hot water. He checked the sign-in clipboard to make sure there was paper, and he wished again he had someone to help him. He would have to sign people in, pull their charts, and treat them.

He was as nervous as a groom when he heard the first car drive up. When he looked out and saw it was Annie, it did little to relieve it. She handed him two keys triumphantly. “This is for the drug cabinet. This is for the supply closet.”

“Thank you,” he said. “And thanks for the sandwiches.”

“No problem,” she said. “It’s nice of you to do this for Papa.”

He nodded. Tomorrow they would have to get back to the real business of why she had come here, but for now he would take his reprieve.

He went back inside the office, opened the drug cabinet, and checked Carl’s supplies. Here, at least, Carl was efficient and well stocked. Epinephrine, injectable amoxicillin and several other antibiotics. Morphine, diazepam. Glucose for diabetics. Some antinausea agents. Prednisone. Activated charcoal in case of accidental poisoning. Atropine and a few other emergency heart and stroke medications. He felt a little more prepared. He checked Carl’s office and brought out the
Physician’s Desk Reference
and a
Merck’s Manual
. At one o’clock he drew a deep breath, but the telephone rang before he could open the doors.

By the time he had finished the call, it was five minutes after one. He stepped out into the waiting room, and to his surprise, at least twelve people were lined up in and around it. They were sitting in the chairs, standing out in the driveway, chatting quietly, waiting patiently. He was surprised but only for a moment. Times were hard. There had been layoffs at the local industries, and the drought had been easy on no one. Free medical care was a gift. He went to work greeting the patients, asking each one for their presenting problem, trying to make decisions quickly and efficiently.

“Looks like you’ve got your hands full.”

Sam glanced up at Elijah and nodded. He didn’t want to be rude, but the answer was obvious. He was in the midst of trying to separate the urgent from routine. So far he had gotten halfway through the line, asking each person what brought them here so that a chest pain didn’t wait behind a sprained ankle.

“I could help you with that,” Elijah offered. “I could do the triage, and you could get started on the urgent cases.”

Sam looked up sharply, surprised, then after a moment’s realization, shook his head at his own obtuseness. He had been so absorbed in his own problems, he had not even asked what type of missionary Elijah Walker had been.

Elijah clarified the unspoken question. “I’m a physician also. Traveled over most of Africa treating everything from cholera to polio. I’m not licensed to practice medicine in North Carolina, but I could be your assistant.”

“I’m sure you’re more than equal to this task,” Sam said. “And I’d be grateful for the help.”

They triaged together, then briefly compared notes, agreeing on who should be seen first. Annie returned and received the news of Elijah’s profession with amused resignation.

“Of course. Who else would I sit down beside? I told you, the landscape is littered with doctors. I attract them. I’m an MD magnet.”

She helped them, gave out numbered pieces of paper to the crowd, pulled charts, then brought new twin lambs out from the barn to entertain the children.

By the end of the afternoon they had seen sixteen patients, written ten prescriptions, lanced a boil, sent one man to the emergency room at Gilead Springs, and patted many hands.

****

“I don’t know how Carl does it,” Sam declared flatly after demolishing a plate of his mother’s pot roast and vegetables. They took their cake and coffee out onto the porch.

Elijah and Mary chatted easily, and when Mary rose up to do the dishes, Elijah insisted on helping.

Sam lifted an eyebrow when they had gone.

Annie, rocking in the swing, smiled. “What?”

“Oh, nothing,” he replied. “Just wondering if there’s a little romance in the air.”

“Mary and Elijah?” She seemed intrigued by the prospect. “Well, why not?”

“Why not, indeed,” he said. “I guess they used to know each other years ago.”

“Is that a fact?” Annie was intrigued.

“That’s a fact.” He was too tired to care about his mother’s love life, but he was enjoying sitting here with Annie as the day ended. She took another bite of her cake, and the swing creaked companionably.

She sighed and her expression changed.

“What is it?” He tensed, not sure if he wanted to know.

“I’ve taken a new job,” she said, turning to look at him. “I’m moving to Los Angeles. That’s where I was headed when I decided to come here.”

“Los Angeles.” He felt a thud as reality settled onto him.

“Writing for the
Times
.”

“Congratulations.” He tried to keep the disappointment from his voice. “You’re running with the big dogs.”

She shrugged.

They chatted a little more, but something was different after that. Reality had made an appearance, and he couldn’t pretend otherwise. Truth was like that, he realized. Once out, it did not disappear easily.

“I’m about used up,” he finally said, rising from the porch. “I think I’ll turn in.”

She stood, as well, taking her cue. “I should leave, too. I need to get business taken care of tomorrow.” She did not look at him.

He heard her go into the kitchen, thank his mother, and speak to Elijah. He went into his room and closed the door and did not come out even after he heard her get into her car and drive away.

Twenty-six

The weekend passed quickly. On Saturday Sam made a few house calls, then worked on cleaning and restocking Carl’s office as well as charting, filing, and making clear notes for Margie Sue, the billing clerk, who would no doubt arrive eventually. He did not see Annie. The little rental car was gone, and he supposed she had gone to see her father. He had intended to visit Carl himself on Saturday evening, but after returning to his mother’s house, he had eaten the supper she’d prepared, then had lain down on the bed for a half hour’s rest, and had fallen asleep. He’d slept better and longer than he had in months—perhaps years. He awoke once at two in the morning, when he climbed under the covers, and then not until Sunday morning at ten.

The house was quiet. Mama was at church, of course. He had not been to church in years. Five, to be exact. He had not made a conscious decision to avoid it. It just seemed that unless he made it a priority, work filled in the space. But this Sunday he did no work except to return a few telephone calls, which were quickly dispatched. Instead, he passed a quiet day with his family. Jim and Laurie and Ricky and Amanda and all their children came over. Mama made supper for everyone, and Elijah joined them. He fit in naturally, chatting with the men, giving his kind courtesy to the women, but he was especially popular with the children. He played ball with Jim and Laurie’s youngest boy and girl, then spent nearly an hour swinging Ricky’s little daughters. When he sat down to rest, they crawled all over him. Sam heard the youngest call him Pawpaw, the name they had given his father. It gave him pause. Not because of any sense of possessiveness, but he realized again that Elijah’s leaving would leave a gap—especially for his mother.

He had watched her during the gathering. It could have been his imagination, but several times he thought he saw her eyes rest on Elijah, and when she did her face lit with a contentment he hadn’t seen in many years.

Now, Monday morning, Sam stepped onto the porch of the guesthouse and tapped on the door. He had invited Elijah to come with him on rounds and house calls this morning, Annie’s having insisted during Friday’s supper that she could handle the chores on her own.

“Diane does them by herself,” she had said with that lift of her chin, and Sam knew better than to argue.

“Come on in,” Elijah called out. Sam did.

Elijah was bending over the small kitchen table. “I’m just checking my bag to see if you might want to use it.” Sam imagined the traditional black satchel and was formulating a polite reply. If he wanted one of those, he could have his choice. He had his father’s and his grandfather’s somewhere up in the attic, not to mention Carl’s in the supply closet back at the clinic. When he came closer he was surprised. The bag was heavy-duty silver nylon, equipped with a sturdy lock, and was well stocked with an array of medications and instruments. He scanned them and saw everything he would need for any conceivable situation and some he could not conceive of.

“These are antimalarials,” Elijah said, setting aside a handful of vials. “These are AIDS and antiparasitic drugs.” Another handful joined them. “We probably won’t be needing any of them here.”

“Probably not,” Sam agreed. There was a good selection of antibiotics, two antipsychotics, a few standard heart medications, steroids, Valium, morphine, emetics, and antinausea medications, a good stock of vaccines, injectable and sublingual glucose, local anesthetics, Narcan in case of accidental drug overdose, asthma medications, tetanus vaccine. Ipecac. There was an assortment of simple surgical instruments, bandages and dressings, casting and splinting materials. Umbilical thread and obstetrical forceps.

“You’re ready for anything,” Sam said admiringly.

“Had to be,” Elijah said with a nod. “You get a week or two out, and you’re not coming back because you forgot something.”

“I suppose not.” Sam looked at the older man with a newfound respect. “Tell me about your work,” he said as they walked out to the car.

“I started out in Kenya,” Elijah said as they got in and began the drive to Carl’s office. “While I was there we built two hospitals. Then I worked in the Upper Nile area in South Sudan. We used to go in there with four-wheel drives, go as far as we could, then walk the rest of the way on foot. There’s so much war and poverty and disease, you feel like you’re dipping out the ocean with a teaspoon.”

“It must be very hard for you to come back after so long away doing such intense work,” Sam said, and he was struck with his own insensitivity. He had been so wrapped up in his own problems that he hadn’t even registered anyone else on his radar.

“It’s a bit of an adjustment,” Elijah admitted with a tight smile.

“I imagine you’re aghast at the excesses here,” Sam said, “having gotten by with so little for so long.” He thought of the expensive tests and equipment, the incredible amount of technology absorbed by each one of his tiny patients.

Elijah’s head jerked around quickly, his expression amazed at Sam’s comprehension. “That’s exactly it,” he admitted. “The most desperate situation here is usually still better than what we saw there every day,” he said. “The people have so little, and they’re so grateful for help. It’s hard, too, when I visit churches and see how absorbed everyone is in their lives and how little they think of or pray for the missionaries. I try not to judge,” he said quietly, “but it’s hard sometimes.”

“I can imagine.” He felt convicted himself.

“But the thing that is the hardest of all is the lack of faith I see here.”

Sam frowned. “What do you mean, exactly?”

“Living on the edge as we did, we had to have faith. We couldn’t have functioned without it. We were in desperate straits, and we prayed desperate prayers. And I believe as a result of that, we got answers. I’ve seen miracles. I’ve gone to villages, and as we prayed I literally saw medicine not run out when it should have. I saw dose after dose—thirty or forty—being administered from the same vial, and when we left it was still half full. I saw a little girl once, ready to die from malnutrition. We laid hands on her and prayed after we’d done all we could, but to tell you the truth, I never expected to see her alive when we went back the following week. She was up walking and talking,” he said, shaking his head. “I saw a man healed of leprosy.” Elijah carefully looked toward him for his response.

“I’ve seen miracles, too,” Sam admitted after a moment, and he remembered how he used to feel the empowering as he picked up the scalpel and did what he shouldn’t have been able to do. “Perhaps not quite like those, but they were miracles all the same. I haven’t seen too many recently,” he admitted.

“You’re here, aren’t you?” Elijah pointed out. “And so is Annie.”

“I guess you’re right about that.” He smiled.

They didn’t speak much after that. They arrived at Carl and Diane’s. He parked the car, and the two of them got out.

Annie was there, and Sam’s heart thumped when he saw her. She had apparently finished the chores and was headed somewhere. She was dressed in a beige linen suit, looked polished and professional, and he remembered what she had said about moving to Los Angeles. He realized how foolish he had been to take hope from a few conversations and smiles.

“I’m going to see Papa,” she said, and he could have imagined it, but it seemed as if she was looking everywhere except at his face. “There’s some cereal on the stove and fruit in the refrigerator if you’re hungry.”

“We’ll grab something on our way out of town,” Sam clipped back, and he saw her eyes cloud.

“Fine. Do you want the house key?”

“No. Go ahead and lock it up. I won’t need anything but what’s in the office. Tell Carl I’m glad he’s better and that I’ll be down to see him soon.”

Annie nodded. “See you both later, then.”

He doubted it. He nodded back. “Good-bye.”

Throughout their exchange Sam had been aware of Elijah watching with an expression of pain on his face, but now he lowered his gaze.

As Annie turned to leave, Sam turned his own face resolutely away, then unlocked the door to Carl’s office. He checked the appointment book. There were three office visits scheduled for this afternoon and two home visits this morning. And his patient in the hospital could probably be discharged today. He would go there first. He checked the telephone for messages and took care of them quickly. They were prescription refills and appointments to be scheduled. When he was finished, he changed the message on the greeting, giving his cell phone number as the one to be contacted in case of emergencies.

Sam and Elijah left, locking the office door behind them. They went to the hospital and discharged Sam’s patient, who was doing much better on the new heart medication.

“Thank you so much, Dr. Truelove,” she beamed, and Sam felt a flush of pleasure. She was a lovely lady.

“It was entirely my privilege,” he said, and she fairly glowed.

He bought Elijah breakfast at the Cracker Barrel and saw Ricky coming in on their way out. “That’s what I’m talking about, bro!” his brother crowed. “You’re getting the hang of this now.”

“The hang of what?” Sam asked, acting irritated with his brother out of habit.

“The hang of having a life.” Ricky grinned delightedly and shook hands with Elijah. “Good to see you again, brother. This gentleman is speaking at our church next Sunday, Sam,” Ricky informed him. “You ought to come. The quartet’s singing, too.”

Of course. Sam calculated and realized the annual Truelove reunion was coming up, traditionally the month when the Ambassadors reassembled and made their yearly appearances. With all the upheaval in his personal life and Carl’s illness, he had forgotten. He wondered if his mother had forgotten, as well, since no mention of the reunion had been made. “We’ll see,” he told Ricky, though Mama would probably invite him to church, too. If he wanted to say no to her, he would need to be hardening his heart well in advance. He was grateful for the warning.

“Gotta go,” he said to Ricky, who beamed and waved good-bye on his way to the booth.

Sam paid and then they headed for the hills to make their first call.

****

“How did this happen?” Sam asked, examining the farmer’s swollen eye.

“Got kicked by a mule.”

“How?”

“Shoeing him.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

“This is going to need to be seen in a hospital.”

“Not going to no hospital.”

“This gash is going to require sutures.”

No answer, just a shake of his head.

Elijah cocked his eye and shrugged, began taking out the 4.0 Prolene and lidocaine. “Any loss of consciousness?” he asked. “Vomiting?”

“Neither one,” the man answered and hooked a thumb through the strap of his overalls.

“Seeing double?” Elijah continued.

“Seeing just fine. One of everything.”

Sam examined the eye, touched the bones and felt nothing obviously out of place. He wondered if he should make an excuse to go to the car and check his Merck’s Manual. “Look this way,” he instructed. “Now over there. Now up. Down.” No trapped ligaments, and the pupils looked good to him. He handed the ophthalmoscope to Elijah, who did the same.

“I ain’t paying for two doctors,” the man said suspiciously.

“I’m here as a bonus,” Elijah said with a smile. “Won’t cost you a dime. Looks all right to me,” he said to Sam after a quick look.

“You should really go and have this looked at by an ophthalmologist,” Sam urged. “And have a CT scan of your head to make sure you didn’t injure your brain.”

“I’m not going to do that,” the farmer said flatly. “I didn’t even want to call you.”

Sam could see the wife hovering around the corner.

He sighed, swabbed the eye area with Betadine, took the syringe from Elijah, injected the local anesthetic, and sutured the wound. The man sat stoic through the entire procedure. It took four stitches. Sam clipped the last one, and Elijah cleaned up. “Any problem getting a prescription filled?” Sam asked, wondering if the man was morally opposed to pharmacies as well as hospitals.

“I can take a prescription to town,” the wife said, suddenly appearing with coffee and a plate of cookies.

Sam wrote out two. One for an antibiotic and another for a nasal decongestant. “Don’t blow your nose for a week or two,” he said.

The farmer nodded, put back on his John Deere cap, and left. The wife wrote out a check for fifteen dollars while Sam and Elijah sat down and ate molasses cookies and helped themselves to coffee.

“He’s an ornery old coot, but I love him,” she told Sam, her eyes shining.

Sam smiled and took the check. He put it in his pocket and thought about how his life had changed.

“Thank you kindly, doctors,” she said.

“The pleasure was ours,” Elijah answered, and they went on to the next call.

****

Eliza Goddard was the exact opposite of the mule-kicked farmer. She lived in a huge Victorian house perched incongruously on a ridgetop. Sam could see a panoramic vista of the Great Smokies from the bay windows in the living room. She wrote romance novels for a living. Her message said she felt a little woozy, like her blood pressure might be a bit high. Sam rang the bell, he and Elijah were admitted by a maid, and when the waifish mistress of the house appeared, her face fell with disappointment upon seeing the two of them.

“Where’s Carl?” she asked, longing in her voice, and Sam made his diagnosis immediately.

“I’m afraid Dr. Dalton is in the hospital himself,” he said, and his analysis was confirmed when her face went white with dismay. Miss Goddard was in the grip of a vicious case of doctor crush. He would prescribe a dose of reality. “He’s recuperating, with his wife and daughter by his side.”

“Oh.” Silence. “He’s all right, though?”

“He should be fine.”

Another silence.

“You were concerned about your blood pressure?”

She brightened and nodded, apparently the topic of her health sparking her interest. “When I stand up I get dizzy and have to sit down again. I wondered if I might be having high-blood pressure. My father had it, you know.”

“Are you on medication for your blood pressure?”