The Doctor's Undoing. Allie Pleiter

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СКАЧАТЬ Daniel replied with a smile, “you are.”

      This sent MacNeil into a gush of laughter. “I don’t know why everyone says you’re such a serious lot. I find you funny. Smart, yes, but you can make your share of jokes when it suits you.”

      “Only with you.”

      “Well, I’ll be making no jokes with the kitchen drains this afternoon. We got one working fine enough, but the other one’s giving me fits. I might need to buy some new parts.” He delivered that last line with the air of bad news. It was—the Home had endured a run of failing equipment in the past month, and the budgets were stretched already.

      “Parkers prevail, MacNeil. We’ll find a way to make it work.”

      MacNeil nodded as he turned toward the door. “You always do, sir. You always do.”

Chapter Four

      Ida sat on the side of her precious private bathtub Friday evening and gingerly toweled her hair. My, but a cool bath did wonders to ease the tightness of a hot Charleston day. She’d been at the Home all of five days, and had discovered that by supper she felt so sticky and tired it was a challenge to converse with the other staff at all. Maybe that’s why the children were so quiet at supper—perhaps the days sapped their energy, as well. But they were hardly more boisterous at breakfast. No matter what the reason, Ida just hated to think that life had beaten the joy out of so many children all at once.

      She walked into her bedroom, glad again to catch sight of the cheery yellow curtains her friend Leanne had delivered this morning. Leanne Gallows had been her roommate at Camp Jackson, and the two had fast become dear friends as well as colleagues. Leanne had met her new husband, Captain John Gallows, at the camp in a whirlwind wartime romance with the happiest of endings. John and Leanne lived in Charleston for now, but would soon be heading up to Washington, DC to John’s new post in the diplomatic corps. It seemed a special grace that even when Leanne left, these bright yellow curtains would remain as a daily reminder. They brightened the room the same way Leanne’s friendship brightened Ida’s service in the long, difficult war.

      The old curtains had been a horrid dark green, nearly as lifeless as the endless gray of every building wall. Today even the old red brick of the building exteriors seemed to boast more life than the dull walls inside. Where were the paintings? The drawings? The happy fixtures of a joyful home? How could children grow and thrive without color and light?

      Ida let her hand run along the frilly yellow ruffles that now skimmed her windowsill. She couldn’t wait to watch the sunlight catch them tomorrow morning. Braiding her hair, Ida toured her three-room suite again, giddy at the luxury of so much space. Walking over to the bureau in her parlor—her heart bubbling Look at me, I have a parlor! for the tenth time as she did—Ida opened the bottom drawer, where she’d stowed her paints and charcoals. These new days at the Parker Home were like a feast for the quantity of fresh faces to draw. Even now her hand hovered over a set of sketching pencils, eager to capture that skeptical look in Donna Forley’s brown eyes or the sharp angles of Fritz Grimshaw’s brows.

      Only one thing stopped her: the charcoal’s gray color. She couldn’t bear to bring one more drop of gray into this world—even with something as harmless as a sketching pencil. I’ve simply got to paint. Certainly there were a dozen tasks clamoring for her attention on her first free afternoon tomorrow, but none of them would be more satisfying than to paint. Just the thought of filling any blank canvas she could find with a festival of color lightened her spirits. Ida wanted to capture the gentle blue of Gitch’s mischievous gaze or the particular pink of Jane Smiley’s ears when she got mad.

      Or the curious puzzle that was the color of Dr. Parker’s eyes. She’d never thought of a set of eyes as colorless before. Not that they were without hue, but they seemed to have no distinct shade. They were dark, surely, but even the darkest brown eyes had flecks of warmer tones in them. Dr. Parker’s seemed neither brown nor gray, and yet Ida knew they couldn’t be a true black, either. The artist in her longed to stare at them hard in good sunlight, to unlock the mystery of why she couldn’t see colors in those eyes.

      Restless, Ida closed the drawer and returned to her bedroom windows. She opened them as wide as they would go, hoping to catch Charleston’s famed off-the-water evening breeze, but the night’s stillness prevailed. The heat was like a living thing here, pressing against one’s chest, pulling a soul down. Ida found she had to deliberately fight it, the same way a war nurse deliberately fought against sadness and despair. “Not even a foothold,” her nursing teacher would always say. “Mind your thoughts as much as you mind your sanitation, for both can infect with equal power.”

      Guard my heart, Lord, Ida prayed as she slipped into bed, thinking even the thin sheet too much tonight. Already her night shift felt as if it were cementing itself to her arms. And if it’s not too much trouble, send a breeze.

      An hour later, Ida turned over yet again, unable to get comfortable in the thick night air. No matter how much she needed sleep, it was nowhere to be found tonight. Her ability to nod off in even the worst of conditions had been a blessing at Camp Jackson—Ida couldn’t remember the last time she had trouble catching winks. “Fine!” she declared to the dark room, sitting up and reaching for the light. “Now what?”

      She didn’t feel like reading. She’d already organized most of her things, and that sounded as if it would make too much noise anyhow. There wasn’t enough light to paint properly, and the black and white of sketching sounded entirely unappealing.

      It wasn’t a breeze that the Good Lord sent, but an idea with just as much refreshment. Dashing to the bottom drawer of her bureau, Ida found her knitting needles. Leanne had taught her the craft at Camp Jackson, where many of the nurses worked in their free time to make socks for the thousands of soldiers who fought for freedom on tired, cold feet. Ida had become a competent knitter, even if the required soldier colors of navy, black and olive left much to be desired.

      Now that the war was over, colored yarn had become one of life’s everyday luxuries. As a matter of fact, Ida was pretty sure she had just enough... “Aha!” she cried, as her hand found the small ball of bright pink yarn. It had been a gift from Leanne. A cheery bright pink was just the thing to lift her spirits.

      Trouble was, the only thing Ida really knew how to make from memory were socks, and this ball wasn’t enough for a full-size pair, nor was it the proper thickness.

      Unless the feet were very small. Surely, somewhere in all those children in all those sizes was a pair of feet tiny enough to fit whatever socks emerged from this yarn.

      Grinning and wide awake, Ida peered at the ball and her needles, calculating if her memorized sock pattern could be adapted just enough to create a pair of small pink socks. “There’s only one way to find out,” Ida told the yarn in her hands. “I’m ready if you are, and it surely beats staring at the ceiling.”

      Adjusting her lamp, Ida tucked herself into the chair by the window and began to knit.

      * * *

      Saturday morning had brought a drenching rain, a sweet relief to the choking heat that had pushed children and staff to the limits of their manners. While Daniel could always do without the mud puddles and the leak that invariably sprung in one roof or another, he was always grateful for the way a good “gully washer” could rinse the world fresh and clean. A smile found its way across his face as he walked in the welcome shade of the afternoon. Midsummer like this, rain perked up the plants around the grounds, coaxing out a few of the blooms that still graced the yards from the years when СКАЧАТЬ