Stephanie Mittman (6 page)

“You look to me to be a well-fulfilled man,” Seth said softly. There was a piece of him that resented the path that Ansel had taken, the easy path that gave him a wife and a family and washed his hands of Sarah’s problems.

“I am,” he said, so vehemently that Seth had to wonder who he thought needed convincing.

Suellen dropped back to wind herself around Ansel’s legs. “Papa, can you carry me?” she begged with the same big eyes that belonged to Ansel and Abby and most of the Mergansers. She had that little bow mouth that Abby had, but had Emily’s sharp nose and pale brown hair.

He imagined the children that Abby would have someday and the breath caught in his throat.

“Does she tell you much about her trips to St. Louis?” Seth asked. “I mean, she always seems to come back so full of excitement. She has a good time?”

“I suppose,” Ansel said, busy with trying to keep Suellen on his shoulders and still see while her hands covered his eyes and pushed down on his hat. She was laughing in his ear when Seth asked Ansel whether Abby ever mentioned anyone in particular, and when Ansel asked him what he’d said, Seth thought it best to just drop the subject.

What difference did it make if Abby Merganser had ever been kissed well? What earthly difference could it make to him if there was a man who had pressed his lips to hers and felt that little pink tongue tentatively—

“Watch it there! Careful!” Ansel warned as Seth tripped off the end of the wooden sidewalk.

He’d nearly twisted his ankle.

And he had the bad, bad feeling that Ansel’s warning had come too late.

She’d warned her whole family to behave themselves, with threats of dire consequences. Not that she expected it to do a lick of good, but she was just one of those people who couldn’t help but hope for the best. Ansel teased her unmercifully, asking if she so often neglected to wear her spectacles because she already had on rose-colored ones that made her see things as better than they were, better than they would ever be.

“They’re here,” Prudence sang, making an opera out
of the announcement. “Now I can ask him about my throat. It’s been sore as long as I can remember,” she screeched at the top of her lungs, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind about the cause of her pain. Abby figured that next Jed would complain about the ringing in his ears whenever Patience was singing.

Abby splayed herself against the door, ready to do battle with anyone who tried to open it. If it wasn’t Seth on the other side of the door, the throbbing in her head would have made her go running for her bed. But it was Seth, and no headache was going to stop her from keeping her family in check and making sure that this night went perfectly. Well, if not perfectly, then nicely. Or merely adequately. Oh, all right! She was positively determined that it would at least not be a disaster.

“We will not ask the doctor about our ailments,” she ordered. “We will not sing, dance, stand on our heads”—she looked pointedly at Jed—“or do anything else that every other family in Eden’s Grove doesn’t do.”

“Will we eat?” Michael asked, eyes big and round and fearful.

“Of course we will eat,” Abby assured him. “That’s why the doctor’s coming.”

“Oh, is
that
why?” Patience asked, nudging Jed with her elbow. “So the doctor can eat.”

Abby ignored her.

“May we talk?” Gwendolyn asked.

Abby raised an eyebrow at Prudence, as if to ask whether she could be trusted, and then nodded, albeit reluctantly.

And then Seth knocked on the door, and with a million misgivings, she opened it.

Naturally, all hell broke lose.

Did her father say
Please come in. How nice to see you?
No. Instead he asked, “You think you ought to check my toes?” at the same time her mother was reaching for Seth’s coat and saying that she hoped that Seth liked stew, which was interrupted by Prudence, asking, “Has anyone seen the cat today?” which sounded like she suspected that her mother had used Disciple for the stew, which made Seth blanch, but not for long, because Prudence, never liking to be told what to do, or maybe never remembering what she was told, was busy angling her head near Seth’s chest and opening her mouth wide and pointing at her throat while she made whimpering noises.

“Prudence?” Seth managed to choke out.

“I’m not supposed to tell you that my throat hurts.” She glared at Abby while Michael tugged on Seth’s sleeve.

“Wanna see what’s in my potty?”

Abby rubbed at her temple. The headache was getting hard to ignore.

“I cut my finger with the butter knife this morning,” Jedediah said, thrusting it in Seth’s face. “You wouldn’t think that was possible, would you? I needed something to help me stretch an old rubber gasket around this wire wheel—for the model for my sky cycle,” he added as Ansel and Emily wedged their way in, Suellen in Ansel’s arms.

“It must be so wonderful to be a doctor,” Abby’s mother said. “And be able to help everyone.”

Seth looked at Abby as if he were going under for the third time and she were holding the life preserver out of his reach.

“Say hello to Dr. Hendon,” Prudence directed Gwendolyn. “He’s the man who helped bring you into this world, sweetie.”

“It has its moments,” Seth admitted to Abby’s mother, ruffling Gwendolyn’s blond curls and letting his hand linger on her head.

“Heard you won’t be delivering any more kids to Frannie Wallis unless Bill—” Jed started, then stopped himself when he realized that Bill Wallis’s problem wasn’t a fit topic of conversation in front of his mama, though he’d told Abby that all Bill’s drinking had taken the “manliness” out of him. “Heard he came to see you, Doc, and—”

“Well, he came to see
me
, poor man,” Abby’s father said as he sat down and began removing his shoes. “All a mess like what was happening wasn’t his own fault. And I told him I’d been to the bottom of
that
well myself, and—”

“I’m sure whatever you told him was in confidence,” Seth said, looking around the room with what Abby supposed was escape in mind. “It’s the same with doctors as it is with men of God, and lawyers too, I’ve heard. What patients tell us is in confidence. It’s meant for no one else’s ears.”

“You mean that if I went to you and I told you something, you’d have to keep it a secret?” Emily asked. Ansel looked shocked at the question and more than a little annoyed when Seth agreed that he would keep her confidence.

“But surely not from a woman’s own husband, or a child’s mother, or …” Ansel pressed as Seth bent over and took her father’s foot into his hand.

“Not a young child,” Seth agreed, turning the foot this way and that and spreading her father’s toes, “but the doctor-patient relationship is a sacred one. A patient has to feel safe that he can tell the doctor the truth so that the doctor can best treat him. If he—or she—was afraid that a secret might come out, he—or she—might hold something back that could jeopardize her life.”

“Oh, that must be the best part of being a doctor,” Abby’s mother said.

Seth just rolled his eyes and then released her father’s foot. “They seem just fine, sir. No damage at all.”

Abby’s father wiggled his toes and smiled as if they’d done something extraordinary, while her mother continued her discussion with Seth.

“Of course, not being able to tell anyone … that would be hard,” she admitted. “But being privy to everyone’s secrets!”

“Would you like to know a man is going to die and be forbidden to tell his wife? Would you like to know—” He stood and shook his head. “Most secrets aren’t happy ones.”

“Oh, how solemn we’ve gotten,” Clarice said, “and just when I was going to show you the new crosses that the girls and I are fashioning for Jed to throw out from his skycycle on Easter morning!”

Abby offered to show Seth where he could wash his hands now that he was done examining her father’s
toes. She stood close enough to him to smell his Eau de Pinaud.

“If you want to pretend you have an emergency,” Abby whispered, “I’ll understand.”

“And no doubt follow me,” he said, drying his hands and avoiding her gaze.

“Wherever you lead,” she said cheerily before reminding herself that she was supposed to be interested in someone else, someone in St. Louis. “Or perhaps just as far as the train station.”

Seth frowned, and Abby bit on the inside of her lip to keep from smiling so widely the grin would have split her face. Maybe she did have a crazy family. Maybe she was much younger than he was.

And maybe men had better ways of showing their interest than a scowl, but it would do, and do very nicely, for the time being.

When he was done washing up, Seth followed Miss Abidance-
the loon
-Merganser to the table, feeling like a lamb being led to slaughter. There was a scurrying around, as if any seat were available to anyone, and he watched as Abby put her hands on the backs of two chairs while she stared at everyone else until they quieted.

Well, some of them quieted. Prudence was still humming loudly, he supposed because he’d told her not to sing so that she might rest her throat. And Patience was being fought over by Suellen and Gwendolyn, while Michael was loudly demanding that Jedediah sit next to him.

When they were all seated, they clasped hands and bowed their heads. Abby’s hand was warm in his and
sure within his grip. It had been a long time since he’d said grace, since before Sarrie had been called to His side.

“Michael, I believe it’s your turn,” the reverend said, and Seth was grateful that Merganser hadn’t called on him to say the prayer.

“We thank thee, Lord, for sunshine sweet, For a roof above us and food to eat. We thank thee, Lord, for faith and health, And care we not for untold wealth. For in the end our soul is dear, If you, our Savior, hover near.”

After the amens and the moment of silence, before everyone started reaching for platters and plates and Prudence started to hum again and somebody’s child started crying, the reverend addressed him.

“You weren’t at services again, son,” Merganser said, looking at him as though he were a chick fallen from the nest.

“No,” Seth agreed, offering no excuse.

“God only knows what you’re doing to your soul,” the reverend said with a sad shake of his head.

“Truer words were never spoken,” Abby said, reaching across the table for some green beans and holding them in front of her father as a diversionary tactic. “How’s Mr. Panner doing?”

“Or is that one of those secrets you can’t tell?” the reverend asked, teasing Seth.

“He’s doing well,” Seth said. “I don’t think there’ll be any permanent damage from his dip in the pond.”

“Thank the Lord!” Clarice Merganser said, looked at her husband, and added quickly, “and you, too, dear.”

“I didn’t do anything anyone else wouldn’t have
done,” he said, waving away the adoration as if he truly meant it. “You know the bishop didn’t appoint me pastor of Eden’s Grove just because I have a good heart. It was a calling, and he knew it, heard it—or he heard me hear it, anyways.

“Can you just imagine that new church in the square? Of course, we’ll have to build a square, too, I suppose. But that’ll be easy. You know I read in the
Christian Spectator
that there’s a man who makes church bells that can be heard for over a mile.”

He watched Abby squeeze her eyes shut at the thought of the noise.

“Headache again, dear?” her mother asked. “She does suffer from dreadful headaches,” she told Seth, offhandedly, as if Abby’s problems would be of no more concern to him than anyone else. Which they wouldn’t. Doctors didn’t play favorites. “We tried tying her head with a rope.”

“I put scissors under her pillow,” Patience offered. “After I clipped some of her hair and put it under a rock.”

“And that didn’t do it?” Seth asked, feigning surprise that an old wives’ tale or two couldn’t compete with modern medicine.

“If she’d left that frog on her head until it died, she’d never have a headache again,” Jed said with all the finality that ignorance can impart.

“Is it any wonder I get headaches now and then?” Abby asked, gesturing around the table.

It would have been amusing, had the patient not been Abby, and had the headaches not been bothering her long enough to be subjected to all those remedies.
“Just how long have you been suffering from these headaches?” he asked, watching her until she squirmed under his scrutiny.

“Oh, heavens, they’re nothing,” she said, waving away his concern and reaching for the string beans, which she piled onto her plate and then passed to him.

“Oh, that’s not true, dear. Why, sometimes they’re positively blinding,” Clarice declared. “Once I caught her taking to her bed and she had her head between—”

“Mother! I am fine. Let the poor man eat. If anyone has a medical complaint they should see him at his office. That’s what I would do,
if
I had a complaint, which I don’t. I would not interrupt the man’s dinner with all this shoptalk. Let the man eat in peace!”

But somehow, he couldn’t now. The thought of Abby sick took away his appetite. The thought of her head hurting, or her taking to her bed … He just sat there with the vegetable dish in his hand trying to swallow.

“I know, I know,” Abby said, her smile just as dazzling as ever. “The doctor in Sioux City said that if I’d wear my glasses more often, I’d suffer less. And my toes wouldn’t hurt, either!”

“Your toes?” Seth asked.

She sighed a big exaggerated sigh, raising her shoulders up to her ears and lowering them in a huff. “Well, doubtlessly I’d walk into fewer walls and stub my toes less often!”

“Can not wearing those spectacles that big-city doc gave her really give her a headache?” her father asked.

“Yes,” Seth answered, relief washing through him.
“It most certainly can. Which is just one more reason, young lady, that I don’t want to see you again without those glasses planted firmly on that cute little nose of yours.”

“Oh! He thinks your nose is cute!” Patience drawled out.

He made a fist in his lap rather than bang it against his head. Had he really said she had a cute nose?

“And so it is,” Clarice said, exchanging a telling glance with the reverend that made Seth think he was in for it now.