Twin of Fire Read online

  “He’s a goner,” Alan said, “might as well leave him.”

  But Blair was looking at the man’s eyes, closed now, but she saw that he was struggling to live. She couldn’t tell what was hurt inside him, but she thought that maybe he had a chance. By all rights, he should be dead now, yet he wanted to live enough that he was hanging on.

  Blair looked at Lee, and for a moment he was reminded of the union organizers’ eyes.

  “I think there’s a chance. Can we open him and see? I think he wants to live,” she persisted.

  “Blair,” Alan said in an exasperated voice, “anyone can see that he can’t live more than minutes. His whole insides must be crushed. Let him die with his family.”

  Blair didn’t even look at Alan, but kept her eyes on Lee. “Please,” she whispered. “Please.”

  “Let’s get him to the operating room,” Leander bellowed. “No! don’t move him. Keep him on that table and we’ll carry it.”

  Blair was right, but so was Alan. His insides were crushed, but not as badly as they’d thought when they’d first opened him. His spleen was ruptured and it was bleeding a lot, but they managed to remove it and clean some of the other wounds.

  Because of the internal bleeding, they had to work fast and, without anyone being conscious of what was happening, Alan was pushed out of the way. Leander and Blair, who worked so well together and who had the experience, sewed as fast as Mrs. Krebbs could thread needles. She was Leander’s favorite nurse and had been with him since he’d returned to Chandler. Alan, realizing that he couldn’t work as fast as Leander and Blair, stepped back and let the three of them repair the man’s mashed insides.

  When they had sewed him shut, they left the operating room.

  “What do you think?” Blair asked Lee.

  “Now is when God comes into the matter, but I think that you and I did the best we could.” He grinned at her. “You were damned good in there. Wasn’t she, Mrs. Krebbs?”

  The stout, gray-haired woman grunted. “We’ll see if the patient lives,” she said as she left the room.

  “Not given to compliments, I take it,” Blair said, as she scrubbed the blood from her hands.

  “Only when you deserve them. I’m still waiting for mine. Of course, I’ve only been here two years.”

  As the two of them laughed together, Blair wasn’t aware of Alan standing against the wall watching them.

  Once out of surgery, they went back to the wards and, late in the day, attended a child who had been scalded. And as the day wore on, Blair and Leander seemed tireless, but Alan followed them feeling more and more as if he were completely unneeded. Twice, he tried to talk to Blair about going home, but she’d hear none of it. She stayed next to Leander’s side every minute. By ten that night, Alan was drooping.

  “Come into my office,” Lee said at eleven. “I have some beer and sandwiches there, and I want to show you something.”

  Alan sat in a chair and hungrily ate his sandwich while Lee unrolled plans and spread them across his desk. “These are my plans for the women’s infirmary, a place where a woman can go for any ailment and get competent treatment. I’d like a training center, too, for women to be taught how to look after their children’s health.” He stopped and smiled at Blair. “No horse manure or cancer plasters.”

  She smiled back at him and realized that his face was inches from hers and that he was moving toward her with an expression on his face that she’d seen only once before—that night. Before she knew what she was doing, she was leaning toward him in a way that seemed very natural to her, and it seemed perfectly normal that he should kiss her.

  But, only a breath away from her lips, he pulled back abruptly and began to roll the plans. “It’s late and I’d better get you home. It looks like we’ve worn Alan out. Besides, it’s useless for me to show you these plans. You won’t even be here. You’ll be in a big city in an established hospital, and you won’t have the nuisance of having to build a place from scratch, of having to plan where you’ll put the equipment, of whom you’ll hire, of planning just what you’ll teach and whom you’ll treat.” He stopped and sighed. “No, in your city hospital, you’ll have everything already planned. It won’t be hectic like this new clinic will be.”

  “But that doesn’t sound bad. I mean, it might be fun to decide how you want things. I’d like to have a burn clinic or maybe a special isolation ward or—.”

  He cut her off. “That’s kind of you to say but at a big city hospital, the people pay their bills.”

  “If a big hospital is so good, then why didn’t you stay in one? Why did you leave?” she asked indignantly.

  With a show of great reverence, he put the plans back into the safe. “I guess I like feeling needed more than I like security,” he said, turning back to her. “There are more than enough doctors in the East, but out here it’s a challenge to keep up with all the work. The people here need a doctor more than they do there. I feel as if I’m doing some good here, and I didn’t there.”

  “Is that why you think I want to return East? For security? You don’t think that I’m up to all the work here?”

  “Blair, please, I didn’t mean to offend you. You asked me why I didn’t want to work at a big, safe, orderly, comfortable hospital in the East, and I told you, that’s all. It has nothing to do with you. We’re colleagues, remember? I’d never dream of telling you what you should or shouldn’t do. In fact, if I remember correctly, I’m the one who’s taking obstacles out of your path. I gave up my intention of marrying you so you could return East, marry Alan, and work in your hospital just like you say you want to. What else can I do to support you?”

  Blair had no answer for him, but she felt unsettled inside. At this moment, the thought of working in St. Joseph’s Hospital seemed selfish, as if she were seeking glory instead of trying to help people as she should be doing.

  “Speaking of Alan,” Lee was saying, “I think we’d better get him home.”

  Blair had completely forgotten Alan and now turned to see him slumped forward in his chair, dozing. “Yes, I guess we’d better,” she said absently. She was thinking too hard about what Leander had said. Maybe a big hospital was “safe,” but the people there got just as sick as they did in the West. Of course, there were more people to treat them there, and here they didn’t even have a decent hospital for women. In Philadelphia, they had at least four infirmaries for women and children, and of course there were women doctors in practice there, and everyone knew that women would sometimes suffer a disease for years before they’d let a man examine them.

  “Ready?” Lee asked, after he’d wakened Alan.

  Blair thought about what Lee’d said all the way home, and she lay awake in bed for a while and thought about it, too. Chandler certainly needed a female doctor, and she could train with Leander and help run that new clinic of his, all at the same time.

  “No, no, no!” she said aloud, as she hit the pillow with her fist. “I am not going to stay in Chandler! I am going to marry Alan, tram at St. Joseph’s Hospital, and I am going to set up practice in Philadelphia!”

  She settled down to go to sleep but as she drifted off, she thought of the many women in Chandler who had no female doctor to tend to them. She had a restless night.

  On Wednesday morning, Lee came to the house to visit her, and Blair found that she was very glad to see him.

  “I don’t have to be at the hospital until late this afternoon, and I thought you might want to go riding with me. I stopped by the hotel and asked Alan to go with us, but he said he was tired after yesterday and he didn’t like to ride anyway. I don’t imagine you’d like to go with me alone, would you?”

  Before Blair could say a word, Leander continued. “Of course you wouldn’t,” he said quickly, looking down at his hat in his hands. “You can’t go out with me alone, since you’re engaged to another man. It’s just that the whole town thinks that I’m to marry you in five days, and no other young lady will go out with me.” He turned to