Of Flesh and Blood (8 page)

Dot’s bright red lips broke into another self-amused smile. “Hatred doesn’t always have a rhyme or reason to it, darling. Take the present-day version of our Alfredson clan. Frankly, putting money squabbles aside, I suspect many of us would still
loathe
each other.”

“I’m not so sure,” Lorna said, though she silently agreed with her great-aunt. “When I was a kid, we used to have those family reunions.”

“Ah, the annual screaming matches. They hardly lasted, though, did they?” Dot eyed her with a glimmer of mischief. “Of course, the whole
merry
tribe will be reuniting for the Alfredson board meeting in a few weeks. Will you be attending, darling?”

Lorna buried her nose in her drink. “I haven’t decided yet,” she lied. “How about you?”

Dot’s eyes lit. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”

Eager to change the subject, Lorna put her glass down on the coffee table. She fixed her great-aunt with a penetrating stare. “Dot, there has to
be more to it. What went so wrong between your grandfather and Evan McGrath?”

Dot sipped her own drink unhurriedly. Her gaze drifted to the mantel bearing graphic figurines. “The thing that usually comes between two men.”

Lorna nodded. “A woman.”

“Dr. McGrath was right, of course,” Dot said vaguely. “Within hours of being stitched up, Olivia began to improve. The fever broke. And soon she began to eat again.” Dot ran a hand over her shorn white hair. “Yet every day, for weeks on end, he would still come back here to this house, riding Seattle’s new electric trolleys as far as they would carry him and then walking the last mile.”

“Was he falling in love with Olivia?”

Dot shrugged. “Evan insisted that it was merely a matter of conscientious postoperative care. Of course, as Olivia improved, the young doctor and patient had a chance to branch out beyond dressing changes and dietary restrictions.”

Lorna raised an eyebrow. “Branch out?”

“Mind out of the gutter, darling.” Dot winked. “Theirs was still an innocent relationship. But they had a shared passion. After reading fantastic accounts of Florence Nightingale’s exploits, Olivia was
fascinated
by all things related to health care. Evan, of course, was passionate on the subject. He dreamed of opening a new clinic in the Pacific Northwest. Olivia would hang on every longing word of his description.
Naturally
, the friendship blossomed.”

“I take it Marshall did not approve.”

Dot laughed. “About as much as Romeo’s or Juliet’s father might have.”

“Was Marshall that much of a snob?”

“Oh, probably,” Dot said. “But this had nothing to do with social status or even patient-doctor etiquette.”

“What then?”

“Evan was already married.”

Lorna fought off a smile, realizing that her long drive was proving worthwhile. “Ouch. Awkward.”

“Awkward,
indeed
, darling.” Dot raised a bony finger. “Now if you’ve ever seen erotica of the period, you would realize that behind closed doors those randy old Victorians—in all likelihood my grandfather among them—were
up to sexual exploits that would make an X-rated-film star blush. But in public, prudishness and naïveté reigned supreme. Marshall didn’t appreciate the
appearance
of a deepening relationship between his daughter and her married surgeon.”

“No.” Lorna sputtered a laugh. “I suppose he wouldn’t.”

“Marshall was
so
outraged that he found Olivia a new doctor and banned Evan from his house.”

“I’m guessing that didn’t keep them apart, though.”

“Olivia secretly went to work for Evan.”

“
Secretly?
” Lorna frowned. “How do you secretly work at a doctor’s office?”

“I imagine you don’t, darling. Olivia came to work for Evan at his own home. To help his wife, Virginia.”

Lorna shook her head and sighed. “Okay, now you’ve lost me.”

“At that time, Virginia McGrath was a shut-in.
Utterly
disabled. Out of gratitude to Evan, Olivia came to his house to help out. A companion. The kind of horrid care aide thing my nieces and nephews want to impose on me now.” Dot rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Could you imagine?”

The poor care aide
, Lorna thought, but she shook her head sympathetically and smiled. “What was wrong with Virginia?”

Dot swept a hand from her knees to her hips. “The ‘creeping paralysis’ is what they used to call it.”

The partnership between Alfredson and McGrath sprang almost spontaneously from their first meeting. In Evan, Marshall recognized a visionary. And in Marshall, Evan found a champion.

—
The Alfredson: The First Hundred Years
by Gerald Fenton Naylor

Evan and Virginia McGrath lived in a four-bedroom home of the newly popular four-square style. Identical houses had begun to pop up all over Seattle in subdivisions that sprouted around the new cable car lines like barnacles on a dock. Having little interest in architecture or social appearances, Evan had chosen the house because of its proximity to the city’s only hospital (a modest two-story structure on Fifth Avenue, run by the Sisters of Providence) and its setting on a flat, easily accessible street that would allow wheelchair entry.

Outside of his work, Evan’s sole focus for the last few years had been the care of his ailing wife. But in the past three months a new distraction had crept into his life.

Sitting in the dining room across the oak table from Evan, Olivia Alfredson wore a blue high-waist jacket and matching skirt with her long red hair piled and pinned above her head. Her pink cheeks were scattered with light freckles, and Evan noticed how agreeably they had filled out in the weeks since her surgery. She had shed some of her shyness and, despite her well-mannered deportment, a spark of mischief danced in those jade eyes.

The McGraths’ regular housekeeper, Mrs. Shirley, was at home tending to her ailing son. Her cousin, Miss Adele, was coming twice a day to perform light housekeeping and prepare meals, neither of which she did nearly as well as her cousin. But Evan considered Olivia a godsend. Without her, he would have had to leave Virginia alone during stretches in the daytime.

Olivia reached for the pot of tea she had steeped and poured it into two waiting cups. Leaving the third one empty, she put the pot down and covered it with a colorfully embroidered cozy. “Will Mrs. McGrath nap for long?” she asked.

Evan rubbed his eyes wearily. “Perhaps. As you know, these days, Virginia is so fatigued.”

“Is that because of her multiple scler . . .” Olivia struggled to finish the term.

“Multiple sclerosis,” Evan said.

“I had not heard of this disease before,” she said sheepishly.

“Most people have not,” Evan said. “Many still know it as ‘creeping paralysis.’ Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot only discovered it twenty-five years ago on cadaver dissections. Prior to his astounding work, even doctors used to consider the disease a type of hysteria or acquired imbecility.”

Olivia passed Evan the sugar. “It is a disease of the nervous system?”

He nodded. “Dr. Charcot showed that multiple sclerosis affects the entire nervous system from the spinal cord to the deepest areas of the brain.”

Her eyes burned with curiosity. “Are people born with this illness?”

Her interest fueled his enthusiasm. “No. The symptoms do not usually set in until adulthood. That is when the brain damage begins. Virginia did not suffer her first attack until she was twenty-one.”

“So there was a time when Mrs. McGrath could walk?”

“
Walk?
It was not that long ago that she used to run on the tennis court, Miss Alfredson!”

Olivia reddened. “I’m sorry, I did not know.”

He held open his hands. “How could you? All you have ever seen of her . . .”

Olivia tilted her head and her lips formed a tentative smile. “What was Mrs. McGrath like . . . before? Please, I would like very much to know.”

“Virginia is such a spirited woman. She used to love the outdoors—to go for long strolls and to swim. And whenever we could find someone with a tennis court, she was a lioness on the grass.” He smiled at the memory. “And she used to sing in the church choir. She was a contralto with a low voice that was as lovely as she was—as she is.”

Olivia looked down at her teacup. “Of course.”

“The illness struck five years ago. At first, it was just numbness in her hands. We thought it was a matter of overexertion. Then she developed the tremors. Of course, when her vision began to tunnel—”

“
Tunnel?
” Olivia shook her head. “What does that mean, Dr. McGrath?”

“The field of vision closes in from the sides, like looking through a telescope.” Evan pantomimed peering through his touching forefinger and thumb. “Once she developed the tunnel vision, I realized the diagnosis. The answer had been staring me in the face all that time. I should have recognized it much sooner.”

Olivia clasped her hands together. “Perhaps you did not want to, Dr. McGrath?”

“No question, clinical judgment becomes clouded with loved ones.” Evan stared into her sympathetic eyes. “Three years ago, the disease attacked her sense of balance. That was a cruel blow. Virginia has not been able to walk in over two years. And, as you know, her speech has become difficult to understand at times.”

Olivia nodded. “Do you know what causes this affliction?”

Evan shook his head. “Some doctors believe it is a problem with the sweat glands—a lack of proper secretion—but I think that is nonsense.”

“What do you believe?”

Evan stared into the bottom of his cup. “There are diseases, like sugar diabetes or kidney failure, where organs that had once worked perfectly well simply fail. I have seen the autopsies. It’s not merely a matter of these organs
wearing out, as with old age, but more as if they were specifically targeted for attack. As if their own bodies had turned against them. I believe the same has happened with Virginia’s nervous system.”

Olivia nodded. “Is there medicine that will help?”

“No.” Evan felt the bile rise in his throat again. “Of course, there are no shortage of charlatans promising cures. That is what brought us to Seattle in the first place.”

“You came here seeking treatment for your wife?” Her face creased, bewildered. “But . . . but you are a doctor.”

“My area of specialty is limited to surgery. No surgical procedure can help Ginny. Even in the reputable hospital where I worked in San Francisco, none of my colleagues could offer her anything. Then someone told me of a man in Seattle who specialized in chronic debilitating diseases. A Dr. Garth Sibley.” His lip curled on speaking the name. “I corresponded with Sibley for a while. He had an understanding of multiple sclerosis, but I did not trust his hypotheses, and I was very leery of his grand promises.” He shook his head angrily. “I should have never read his letters to Virginia, but they made her so happy. In her mind, Sibley became her savior. I could not refuse to bring her to see him.”

“It did not go well?”

“No, it did not.” The memory of it stoked Evan’s ire. “For a small fortune, the quack treated her with one of his patented panaceas, Sibley’s Elixir. His snake oil almost killed her. I had to threaten to beat the life out of him before he confessed that his ‘curative’ was nothing more than red wine with a small portion of sulfuric acid added.”

Olivia wrinkled her nose in shock. “
Sulfuric acid?
”

“Sibley and his ilk,” he growled. “They are the problem with my profession. Anyone can present himself as a doctor or a healer. These people offer nothing but lies and pseudoscience. Worse still, they break the first law of medicine.”

“Which is?”

“Hippocrates said, ‘Above all, do no harm’!” He gazed at her intently, his chest thumping with a blend of indignation and affection. “I have seen this maxim contradicted far too often, Miss Alfredson. Patented ‘cure-alls’ thrown together with whatever chemicals are lying about. Outdated and dangerous treatments like bleeding or even the drilling of holes into people’s skulls.
People want so badly to find something to help that they will trust anyone. However, these unproven procedures and spurious medications kill patients. I have signed far too many death certificates as a result.”

Olivia shook her head in distaste.

“In San Francisco, at the Morgan Clinic, we practiced medicine supported by scientific principles and evidence,” Evan went on. “There is nothing comparable here or anywhere in the whole state.”

Olivia leaned forward, her eyes suddenly wide with excitement. “You could establish such a facility, Dr. McGrath. Right here in Seattle!”

“Could you imagine it, Miss Alfredson?” He reached forward and almost grabbed her hand in his exhilaration, but stopped himself. “A clinic where the best practitioners and researchers in medicine come together to care for patients, share their knowledge, and search for new and better remedies.”

Evan looked away in embarrassment. He had never discussed the idea with anyone, but he longed to see such a clinic built, and not only for professional reasons. He was also thinking of his wife, imagining her in an environment that offered a glimmer of hope for the future.