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Martin was on his way back to his office when Lily came chasing after him. “Dr. Ruth says she’s gotta talk to you right now.” Lily grabbed his hand as if to tug him along.
Martin followed the girl back to the clinic. Lily was turning out to be one of their most reliable messengers. He was glad to see her finding a place for herself. Too many of Ted’s kids were cycling through odd jobs without discovering something they wanted to stick with.
This time, the waiting room had a lot more people in it, but when the woman at the desk saw him, she ushered him right through to the inner sanctum. He followed her down to Ruth’s office.
“Problem?” he asked.
Ruth looked pale, her eyes a little too large. He knew immediately that they had their first case of flu. “You’re sure?” he asked softly.
“It’s different every year, but I think so,” Ruth whispered.
“What do we know?” Martin whispered back. It wasn’t as if anyone could eavesdrop, but the gravity of the situation made him lower his voice.
“Not much. We only have the one case so far. Early symptoms seem mild. We’ll have to wait and see.”
“Don’t know how lethal?” Martin asked. He knew Ruth couldn’t know in the first few hours of the disease, but the more real information he could offer people, the less panic there would be.
Ruth covered her face for a minute. It was totally out of character and sent a chill through Martin. “I hope not,” she whispered.” It’s Tillie.”
“Tillie,” Martin repeated flatly. “Our Tillie?” He knew it was a stupid question, but the further he removed himself from that ultimate knowledge, the easier it would be.
Ruth just nodded, which was also out of character. He had fully expected her to yell at him for being so dense. The fact that she didn’t, made him feel worse. She took a step towards her desk then back again. “I, I have patients. I guess I should...”
“Get back to work,” Martin finished her sentence for her. “As we all should. We don’t know how this is going to go. Maybe this year will be different.” His words sounded false even to himself, but he couldn’t stand there in silence looking at Ruth’s crestfallen face.
She mumbled something as she scuttled out of the room. Martin followed slowly. He knew he couldn’t look worried or even surprised going through the waiting room, or he’d start a storm of gossip. He stopped in the hallway trying to empty the swirling thoughts out of his brain. Luckily, he ran into James.
“No loss of limbs,” James said cheerfully as he lugged his emergency cases to the supply closet. His shirt was spattered with blood, and he had a smear of grease on his forehead.
“Everyone okay?” Martin asked.
“It was a close thing, but I think they will finally be instituting the safety practices I recommended.”
“So we’re calling it an accident?” Martin asked, glad for the distraction.
“Yes. He caught his shirttails when he leaned too far over the gears. No sign of foul play or intoxication,” James reported. “A couple broken fingers and some lacerations. He was lucky that it’s such a small mill. They all saw him fall and shut everything down right away.”
“Good to hear.”
James hesitated awkwardly. “Should I write some sort of report?”
“That’s a good question. We don’t have anyone working on public safety.” Martin frowned in thought. He didn’t want to be the person in charge of that. Nor did he think they needed a whole department for it. And he knew that Angus would not be pleased to give over one of his engineers to create a department that had very little to do. “Maybe just start a file for industrial accidents. If it starts getting thick, we’ll put something together.”
James looked relieved. “Will do. I think I’ve only got this case to put in there for now.”
Martin had inched his way out towards the busy waiting room with James following. “Good. Thanks for letting me know how it went at the mill,” he said for the benefit of his audience. “I’m glad that he’ll be okay.” It wasn’t the real reason why he’d come to the clinic, but it would do for now. There would be a panic when they made the announcement about the first case of flu. He wanted to handle that more carefully than letting it travel the grapevine.
He went straight to Angus’s office hoping that he would be there. As usual, his office was full of people, and they were engaged in at least three separate and very animated conversations. Angus was standing at a map of the farms listening to a man with muddy boots and a weathered face.
“I need you for a minute,” Martin said pulling on Angus’s arm.
“Be right back,” Angus apologized as he let Martin drag him away.
There was a small storage room that Angus used for private conversations. It had been transformed into a gentler space with three armchairs around a coffee table in his usual informal style. Children’s artwork covered the walls giving it a cheerful tone. Martin didn’t let him sit. He just blurted out his news. “Tillie’s our first case of flu.”
Angus blinked at him as though he’d said something in another language, and it was taking him a moment to translate it in his brain. “Oh. I see.”
Martin didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but that calm response wasn’t one of them.
“I might be next,” Angus said.
Martin’s mouth went dry at the flicker of hope in the old man’s eyes. Angus wanted to follow Tillie wherever she went. Losing them both would be unbearable. “Maybe you want to go see her?”
“Symptoms?”
“Ruth was kind of vague.”
Angus frowned at the door as if he was seeing all the conversations in the other room. “We said our good-byes this morning. Standing at her bedside won’t change the outcome.”
“Maybe you want to check in on her?” Martin asked.
“Should I?” Angus asked in a near whisper. The emptiness in his eyes tore at Martin’s heart.
Then an alarm began blaring which put all thought of Tillie out of his mind.