Healer of Carthage (18 page)

How dare Mama bust in and take over like she was an attending—or worse, a mother who could tell her incompetent daughter what to do? Lisbeth offered a stony, silent response.

Mama shrugged. “She’s your patient. Do what
you
think is right, Lisbeth.”

Her mother’s use of her name, after so many years of nothing but the lonely howl of desert wind, jarred her every time.

“However,” Mama continued, “the gurgling hack of Junia’s cough indicates her lungs are inflamed and flooded with fluid.”

Mama’s eyes, calm as sea glass, assessed her refusal to speak and inability to act. “I see your father never broke you of that nasty pout.”

“I do not pout.”

Her brows arched. “Really?”

Lisbeth detected a riptide lurking beneath the surface of her mother’s controlled reaction, a force she remembered capable of snatching the feet right out from under those lazy site excavators Papa was so fond of hiring. Mama reached inside the medical pouch slung across her shoulder.

“Here.” She handed Lisbeth a bundle of dried leaves. “Crumble a handful of these, and add the powder to the boiling water. It’s not an antibiotic, but the camphor in the eucalyptus will help open her airways. Oh, and take these.” She pulled out a small cloth purse. “Black mustard. Don’t apply these seeds directly to the child’s skin, but a compress made of these little jewels is good for chest congestion.”

She whirled and started for the door.

“Wait.” Lisbeth’s indecision hung between them, a tension so thick Mama’s crude scalpel could have sliced a bloody incision. Did she want her mother’s help? Or did she want Mama to walk out that door and disappear from her life once and for all? “She has measles.”

“I know. No worry. You had your immunizations as a child.”

“This isn’t about me.” Lisbeth swallowed the fear clogging her throat. “I don’t know what to do with weeds and seeds.”

Mama’s shoulders lowered. She turned, pleasure snapping in her eyes. “Surely you saw Aisa use local remedies to treat the men in your father’s camp.”

“Leave Papa out of this.”

Mama’s cringe, albeit ever so slight, indicated Lisbeth had dealt the blow she’d wanted to deliver from the moment she realized her mother was alive and had chosen to make her life eighteen hundred years away. Despite the twinge of guilt, in Lisbeth’s opinion, this woman had lost any right to claim she knew
anything about the wonderful man who’d grieved her loss for two decades.

“Good luck, Lisbeth.” She reached for the door.

“Wait.” Lisbeth grabbed her arm, feeling every bit the frightened five-year-old who’d waited all night for Mama’s return to the tent. “I don’t want this child to die.”

Mama’s gaze probed so deeply into hers that Lisbeth feared she would discover the truth . . . that her daughter was an incompetent doctor, nothing like the doctor she’d been or had wanted her daughter to become. Lisbeth lowered her eyes and waited, the sound of her racing heart thrumming in her ears.

Mama set her basket on the floor. “Then we must do what we can . . . together.”

20

N
UMIDICUS BURST THROUGH THE
door, winded and yanking scavenged supplies from inside his ratty garment. “Soldiers are everywhere. They search for someone.”

Mama snatched up the pomegranate and tossed it to Lisbeth. “Then we must be quick.”

While Lisbeth carefully measured and mixed honey, salt, and pomegranate juice into a pitcher of sterilized water, Mama worked on a poultice. From the corner of her eye, Lisbeth observed this woman she no longer knew. How could someone so smart cower in the presence of an idiot like Aspasius, yet confidently concoct weedy pharmaceuticals in a mortar? What a strange and foreign person her mother had become, an emotional combination of brokenness and strength Lisbeth desperately wanted to understand.

Mama poured warm water over the powdered black mustard, then stirred until she made a goopy paste that smelled like a Fourth of July picnic with Queenie’s relatives. Then, as easily as Mama used to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the shade of a dig site tarp, her practiced hands spread the spicy mustard between two layers of clean cloth pilfered from her supply basket.

Holding out the steamy poultice, Mama said, “This needs to
cool a bit before we apply it to her chest. See if you can convince her to drink your tonic.”

With a little coaxing, Lisbeth managed to rouse Junia. Her difficulty in swallowing even a tiny sip told Lisbeth the pocks had moved from inside her cheeks and invaded her throat. “Try to drink, sweetheart.”

To Lisbeth’s relief, Junia licked her lips and gulped down several ounces of the homemade Pedialyte. Lisbeth gently returned Junia’s head to the pillow, dreading what was coming next for this child. Without a better option, she stepped away, and Mama moved in with the poultice.

Lisbeth couldn’t stand watching Junia writhe under the discomfort, so while Numidicus propped the foot of the bed, she restocked the vaporizer pot with boiling water and a handful of crushed eucalyptus leaves.

Fifteen minutes later, Junia had finally settled into a fitful sleep. Mama produced another loaf of bread from her basket. She ripped off a hunk and dunked it in wine from the skin in her basket. “Eat, Lisbeth. You’re exhausted.”

“Give it to Numidicus.”

Mama lifted her chin. “You know why the airline stewardess says to apply the oxygen mask to yourself before you apply it to your child?” She spoke in English. “If you don’t take care of yourself, you’ll do this child no good.” She waved the bread under Lisbeth’s nose.

Trying to get at the headache forming behind her eyes, Lisbeth ignored the bread and dragged her hands over closed eyelids. “Flight attendant, Mama,” she answered. “Nobody calls them stewardesses anymore.” Lisbeth opened her eyes to find Mama staring at her, silent, eyes glistening. “Is that how you justified not coming back to us, Mama?” Her voice broke. “You took care of yourself first?”

“Flight attendant?” Mama whispered, setting the bread upon an empty wooden plate, her hand quivering. “I guess I’ve been gone longer than I thought.”

They sat in silence, Lisbeth watching a hard-shelled bug struggling to carry a bread crumb across the floor.
Beetle Bug.
That’s what Papa called her. Would her father understand Mama’s choice to never come home, or would it be the blow that finally killed him? She turned to tell her so and noticed Mama fingering a tiny gold ring threaded through a leather cord around her neck.

“That’s the ring Papa gave you at the cave.”

Mama smiled, a faraway, pleased look on her face. “Do you remember the little ceremony we had beneath the stars?”

“I remember Aisa saying it was a bad idea.”

“Your father couldn’t afford a diamond when we first married, so when he found this, he wanted me to have it. He said the eagle carved into the carnelian would carry my soul into the presence of the gods.” A tear trickled down her swollen cheek. “Instead it carried me straight into hell. At first I was so angry at him, but as the days passed I realized it was the only thing that tied me to the future.” She kissed the ring and dropped it back inside her tunic. “Time goes by so quickly, Lisbeth. Don’t waste it.”

Before Lisbeth could form a coherent response, Junia launched into another coughing spell. “Quick, roll her on her side,” Mama ordered.

As Lisbeth rotated the child onto her left side, she pondered Mama’s losses: Papa. Her. The future Mama had always wanted. Time to fix mistakes.

The possibility of time becoming confused or difficult to pin down had not even occurred to her. Had she been in the third century longer than she thought? Had Papa grown old and suffered without her there to keep his thoughts sorted? Lisbeth’s knees liquefied. She sat with a thump upon the edge of the bed.

“Lisbeth?”

“I’m fine.” The lie, the same one she’d told herself since she was five, rolled off her tongue and fell in line with the fortified barrier she’d erected around her heart. She wanted to tell Mama all about Papa, but the words stuck in her throat. “How long do we leave her like this?”

“A couple of minutes should do.” Mama patted her hand. “You sure you’re all right?”

Lisbeth began counting out loud to avoid having to lie to Mama twice. “One thousand one. One thousand two. One thousand three.”

Lost seconds ticked away. Mama let the door close on the tiny crack a moment of weakness had exposed in both of them, asking no more questions.

Two minutes later they rolled Junia to her right. Racking coughs followed each repeated roll on the hay tick.

“It’s not enough.” Lisbeth’s desperation drifted between Junia’s father standing in the corner waiting for news and Mama waiting for her to make a decision. “I don’t know what else to do. I wish I at least had my stethoscope.”

“You have your hands.”

“My hands?”

“Fremitus. The importance of a doctor’s hands.” Mama took Lisbeth’s hand. “You felt your way through saving Laurentius, did you not?”

“I guess.”

“Technology has surely increased since I’ve been away. Probably wouldn’t know my way around an OR anymore.”

“There’re all kinds of fancy machines to zero in on tumors and diagnose diseases.”

“But can they get to the source of a broken heart or measure the longings of the brain? I’ve learned that touch is the best
medicine I can offer. When I place my hands on a patient and look them in the eye—there’s a bond. A trust. Hope.”

“They don’t give us a lot of time for touching patients. I’m expected to do a full patient workup in ten minutes or less.”

“A complete physical exam can be more valuable than any lab test or X-ray. When you touch a patient, it says I’m on your side. Who doesn’t want someone on their side?” Mama removed the poultice from Junia’s chest. “Let’s sit her up.”

Lisbeth helped elevate Junia to a sitting position.

“Go ahead,” Mama said. “Don’t be afraid to touch her.”

Lisbeth remembered Abra, how if she’d taken a moment to press on that child’s distended belly she would have known it was an obstructed bowel. A simple surgery fix. How could she have been so stupid? Mama showed Lisbeth how to use her hands to probe the child’s body, especially the jugular vein.

“Is it distended?” Mama asked. “The vein’s like a dipstick. Too much fluid backing up, you can see it in the neck. The single best tool I have is the jugular. If it’s distended, it tells me what?”

“A key indicator of heart failure.”

“Bravo.” Magdalena moved her out of the way. “Here, let me show you.” She arranged Junia into an upright sitting position. “Can you say EEEEEE?” Junia shook her head. “Try. Please. EEEEEE.”

“EEeeee” rattled out of Junia.

“EEEEE.” Mama encouraged Lisbeth to walk her palms down the child’s small back. “Good girl. Feel right here, Lisbeth. Feel the vibration during the low frequency?”

“I do.”

“Sounds clear of pneumonia, which is a good thing, since antibiotics are a luxury we don’t have.” Mama made a fist and began pounding the child’s back. Junia started crying, but Mama didn’t stop.

Together, they placed the child’s right arm across her stomach and bent her knees to her chest. Three minutes later, Junia expelled phlegm, followed by a couple of successful deep breaths. The child’s breathing immediately settled into a less labored rhythm.

“I can’t believe this home-remedy stuff is actually working.” Lisbeth offered Junia another sip of the rehydration solution. “Look at her suck it down.”

Mama nodded. “Roman medicine can mend broken bones, reduce dislocations, cauterize wounds, engage in phlebotomy, and even perform various surgical operations. I have learned much from these people. And so have you.”

“Like what to do with crushed eucalyptus leaves?”

“Many of the things you learned in med school were discovered centuries before you were born.” Mama poured a few mustard seeds into her makeshift mortar bowl. “But when the Roman docs don’t know what to do, they leave the sick to the healing power of nature.”

“You mean they let them die?”

“They rely on what works. When the techniques they know fail, they do what doctors have had to do for centuries . . . they move on.” She picked up the wooden spoon she used as a pestle and ground into the seeds. “Not me.” Surety laced her voice.

A snort of disbelief left Lisbeth’s mouth. “Does traveling through time give you supernatural powers or something? Because if it does, I’m not feeling the magic.”

“No.” She pulverized the tiny seeds into dust. “It gave me God.”

“Don’t tell me you’re really one of
them
.” Disgust spiked Lisbeth’s voice.

Mama raised her head slowly. “Yes.”

“I don’t even want to know how that happened.” Lisbeth snatched up an empty clay pot. “We need more hot water.”

SUSPENDED BETWEEN
what she knew to be an impossibility based upon her mother’s nonreligious upbringing and the conviction she’d heard in her mother’s own words, Lisbeth tossed chips of dried animal dung into the fire ring. Had Mama been so desperate for a sliver of kindness that she’d fallen in with a cult?

The day’s meager meals had been prepared, and the plebeian women had all retreated to their cramped quarters, leaving Lisbeth to tend the fire alone.

She gathered a handful of brittle grass. Working to push away the absurd notion that Mama had fallen victim to some sort of Christian spell, Lisbeth tucked sprigs of straw beneath the scant pile of fuel. Striking the flint upon the rock, she managed a spark. She blew the tiny tendril of smoke into a little flame that set the dung ablaze. Crouched beside the fire, she waited for the water to boil.

Lisbeth made a mental list of the things she was fairly certain of. One, she was at least eighteen hundred years from everything she once knew. Two, she was a thousand miles from a father who needed her now more than ever. Three, finding her mother after all of these years had messed with her equilibrium. And four, even if she knew where the time portal was, reversing the emotional damage caused by this little foray into the third century was scientifically impossible. She would never look at her own hands and not see those of her mother. Battered and scarred from years of hard work, they possessed what she did not have . . . the touch of healing.