Lynna Banning - Smoke River Family

Winifred sipped her coffee and looked at him over the rim of the cup. “It must be very hard,” she said at last.

For a moment he couldn’t speak over the ache in his throat. “It is hard,” he said at last. “You have no idea how hard.”

She looked at him with tears pooling in her eyes and all at once he could take no more. “I’ll be at the hospital.”

Without another word he shoved back his chair and strode out the door onto the street.

Winifred watched him through the front dining room window, his long-legged gait decisive, angry, his shoulders hunched forward as if warding off a chill wind. What wouldn’t she give to have met him before Cissy had .

Her coffee cup clanked onto the saucer. Where on earth had that thought come from?

“Somethin’ wrong with your breakfast, ma’am?” Rita stood frowning at her elbow. “Never seen Doc bolt outta here like that.”

“Oh, no, Rita. The eggs were very good, just right in fact. Dr. Dougherty said he had to go to the hospital.”

“Huh,” the woman said. “That man’s working too hard, if ya ask me. Never takes a day off, up all hours of the day and night. Ever since his wife died it’s like he never stops runnin’.”

Winifred tried to smile, but her mouth wouldn’t work right. She clenched her lower lip between her teeth to stop its trembling. She was a silly, sentimental fool.

“I’ll jest put the meal on his account. Yours, too.”

Outside on the boardwalk she stood surveying the streets of the small town she found herself in, then on impulse started down a pretty maple-lined lane. Five houses from the corner an attractive yellow two-story house caught her eye. The white picket fence surrounding the property was thick with yellow roses, the same roses she’d found on Cissy’s grave yesterday.

Just as she drew abreast of the gate, the front door opened and a handsome gray-haired gentleman descended the steps. Clutched in his hand was a bouquet of the same yellow roses.

“Mornin’,” he said as he unlatched the gate. “Another fine day we’re havin’.”

Winifred stared at the man. “What? Oh, yes. Excuse me, but...forgive my asking, but what will you do with those roses?”

He dropped his gaze to the bouquet. “These? Why, I’m takin’ these to the graveyard where Miss Celeste—” He broke off and peered at her with startling blue eyes.

“Say, you must be her sister from the East.”

“Why, yes, I am. How did you guess that?”

“Weren’t hard, seein’ as how you look a lot like her. Name’s Rooney Cloudman, ma’am. I was an admirer of yer sister.”

She held out her hand. “Winifred Von Dannen.”

Mr. Cloudman shifted the roses to his left hand and grasped hers in a finger-crunching grip. “Miss Celeste, she liked roses, so I take some to her grave every day. Sure do miss her piano-playin’. Used to sneak up on Doc’s porch and set in the swing jest listenin’. Most beautiful music I ever heard.”

Winifred swallowed hard, unable to speak for a long moment. “Yes, she was quite gifted.”

“I never let on ’bout me listenin’. Figured Doc wouldn’t mind, but I was afeared she’d stop playin’ if she knew.”

“I am sure she would have been pleased, Mr. Cloudman.”

He gave her a wide smile. “Whyn’t you go on into the house and introduce yerself to Sarah Rose. She loved Miss Celeste’s music, too. Me, I’m off to the cemetery.” He tipped his battered wide-brimmed hat and ambled on down the street.

Winifred didn’t feel like talking to anyone, especially about Cissy, so she decided to return to the doctor’s house on the hill and take her cooking lesson from Sam. She snapped off a single yellow rose from the stems rambling along the fence, spun in place and marched back to the big hill and Dr. Dougherty’s beautiful white house.

* * *

In the hospital foyer, Zane was stopped by Samuel Graham, the physician whose name the hospital bore. The older man laid a gentle hand on Zane’s shoulder.

“How are you managing, son?”

“Well enough, I suppose.”

“Sorry I couldn’t be here when Sarah’s grandson took sick. I was called away to Gillette Springs for an emergency appendectomy.”

“Don’t give it a thought, Samuel. You know Sarah always brings one of her apple pies—that’s a large payment for a small favor.” He tried to accompany the statement with a smile but somehow this morning he couldn’t manage it.

The hand on his shoulder tightened. “Don’t mind my sayin’ so, Zane, but you look fatigued. And your eyes...you been drinking?”

“Some,” Zane admitted. More than “some” on the days Celeste’s death cut particularly deep. His medical partner had sharp eyes.

“Celeste’s sister is here from St. Louis.”

Doc Graham’s salt-and-pepper eyebrows rose. “That so? Must be why you’re frowning. Is she a trial?”

Zane sighed. “She is not.” Winifred was far from a trial, as Samuel put it. She was...he didn’t know what she was, just that he liked having her around.

“She’s older than Celeste. More...mature.”

The keen-eyed physician nodded. “I did rounds at eight this morning. Just leaving now to go back to the boardinghouse. Sarah serves lunch early on Sunday.”

Zane blinked. It was Sunday? Good God, he was losing track of the days again. “Anything new?”

“Mrs. Madsen’s leg ulcer looks better. I’d keep her in bed an extra day, give her some rest from that husband of hers. You’d think he had the only milk cows in the county the way he coddles them.”

“But not his wife,” Zane observed. “That how she fell, a cow knocked her down?”

Doc Graham nodded. “You might look in on Whitey Poletti. Keeps insisting he’s well and itching to get back to his barbershop. Testy, too, so watch yourself.”

Zane had had a bellyful of Whitey. With each haircut the man insisted Zane also needed a shave. He’d tried it once; Whitey had sent him home with some girly-smelling cologne that brought on Celeste’s asthma.

“And Zane,” the older man said. “Cut Nurse Sorensen some slack today, will you? It’s her birthday.”

Graham pivoted toward the hospital entrance and Zane watched his head disappear as he went down the front steps.

He checked on Mrs. Madsen’s leg ulcer, Whitey Poletti’s gall bladder incision and finally Sheriff Silver’s wife and the twins he’d delivered twenty-four hours ago.

“Good morning, Maddie. You ready to go home tomorrow?”

The sheriff’s wife grinned up at him from her hospital bed. “ I am ready, Dr. Dougherty. I’m not sure about Jericho.”

“All new fathers feel somewhat overwhelmed. I know I did. I couldn’t quite believe such a tiny human being was my responsibility. And ever since Celeste—” He stopped short.

Maddie Silver gazed up at him with concerned eyes. “I am so sorry about your wife, Doc. I know I’ve said that before, but, well, you’ve been on my mind ever since the funeral.”

Zane took her small, capable hand in his. “And you’ve been on my mind, as well. It isn’t every day a doctor gets to deliver twins. Especially for a Pinkerton agent.”

He checked Maddie over, asked whether the twins were nursing regularly and left to seek out Elvira Sorensen. Elvira was the full-time nurse the hospital employed; Zinnia Langenfelder worked part-time as a nurse’s aide.

“Elvira, I want you to take the rest of the day and evening off.”

“What? But why? You know I always work the Sunday shift.”

“Zinnia can cover for you. You go on over to Uncle Charlie’s bakery for one of those lemon cakes you’re so fond of. Tell him to put it on my account.”

He planted a kiss on the older woman’s cheek. “Happy birthday, Elvira.” Then he strode out of the hospital and down the front steps.