Solitude was not something that had ever concerned Gerald Anderson. Long nights studying anatomy alone with the company of a single candle was his preparation. Waiting for hours, sometimes days, by himself to see if a cure had taken in a comatose patient gave him practice, and since the incident at – for a few years now, almost no patients to speak of allowed his perfection of sitting silently, without moving, just waiting.
Rarely had he ever been in a place so beautiful.
Gerald was seated by a large bay window, summer sunbeams pouring through the panes, watching nothing in particular. It was enough to just sit.
The ticking of a clock reminded him, as it chimed eleven, he had not eaten that morning. No matter; he was accustomed to eating little, especially after leaving Houston.
A woman walked past the window and smiled at him. Her dark hair was falling over her eyelashes, and her gown was a deep blue. Gerald almost forgot to smile, so unusual was this encounter – but he rose suddenly, accidentally knocking over his chair, when he saw by her trajectory that she was making for his own front door.
“Good morning, Doctor Anderson,” said the gentle voice at his front door – left open to keep the air moving through his new home. “I trust I am not disturbing?”
Gerald almost fell over himself in his enthusiasm to greet her at the door, but the stranger was already in the hallway when he arrived. “Good morning, madam,” he bowed courteously. “And how may I be of assistance?”
She returned his bow with a curtsy, and smiled broadly. “I have been experiencing headaches, Doctor Anderson, terrible headaches, and I was hoping you would be able to advise me?”
For a moment, Gerald blinked. A patient. An actual patient. How long had it been – a year?
“That is,” and the woman now spoke with a hint of trepidation in her voice, “if it is not too much trouble? I understand from my husband you are ready to practice medicine?”
Gerald laughed awkwardly and beckoned her in. “Of course, Mrs Bryant, of course – please, come this way. I am afraid to say I have not yet completely unpacked,” and he attempted to kick his luggage, half opened and sprawling across the hallway, “but the surgery is ready and waiting.”
Well, he called it a surgery, he mentally berated himself. It was more a room with plenty of light, but there was no way Pastor Bryant would have been able to predict what he would need, and it certainly did not hurt.
“Sit yourself down here, Mrs Bryant.” Gerald indicated the softest armchair he had found in the house, which he had situated just before the window in the surgery, and took a wooden stool from behind the desk, bringing it round so he was closer to her. “Headaches, you say?”
The woman sat and put a finger to her temple. “Katherine, please, Doctor Anderson – I imagine you are accustomed to first names wherever you treat the sick, and I would like you to become a part of our community – our family – as soon as possible.”
It was impossible to prevent the heat of confusion from spreading across his face as Gerald stared at her. “Family?”
Katherine Bryant laughed. “My word, Doctor Anderson, do not look alarmed! All I mean is that this place was first created by a family, the Bryants, and it is still inhabited by a generation of Bryants. I myself have married one of them – but now Sweet Grove is growing, we want to share that familial love with the whole community.”
“Community?” Gerald stared at her. “I was not aware that any, save myself, had moved to the area?”
“Well, none as yet,” shrugged Katherine, laying down her hat and her reticle. “I am to be the new schoolteacher when we have more children, and Aaron and Phoebe are opening a general store, but before long we will need more hands to work in the orchard, and a blacksmith, and stable, and livery – my dear Doctor Anderson, are you quite well?”
A chill had shaken through Gerald’s body. So many people, so many opportunities for discovery – and he had thought Sweet Grove, of all places, would be quiet! Retiring, out of the way . . . unlikely to be found.
“Nothing, I assure you,” he said with some effort, smiling at his patient. “After all, you are the one here to be examined! Now, look up for me.”
He performed the standard checks without thought, almost glad to give his conscious mind over to the unconscious rhythms a doctor memorized long before he was let loose near any patients. A change in the refraction of her left eye – there. There it was.
Gerald smiled. There was nothing more satisfying than catching at the cause of a problem.
“You, my dear Mrs Bryant, need spectacles,” he pronounced authoritatively. “And not before long, either, if your headaches are any indication.”
Katherine stared at him, open mouthed. “Spectacles!”
He nodded and pulled out some notepaper from his desk. “I shall write a letter to an optician I knew, a very good man, very trustworthy,” and something caught in his throat but he pushed it aside and continued, “who will be able to fit some spectacles for you to my measurements. You will find reading easier, and the headaches will disappear.”
There was silence. Surely, he could not have said anything wrong – surely there was no problem? Gerald was almost afraid to look up, but when he did, he saw a warm smile of approbation in Katherine Bryant’s eyes.
“Thank you,” she said warmly. “I cannot express my delight in the thought of ridding myself from these debilitating headaches – and as you say, the sooner the better.”
She had already risen, picking up her hat and reticle, when a flash of gold caught Gerald’s eye. Looking up, he saw not jewelry nor ornament, but a woman with golden hair that gleamed in the sunlight walking past his window.
“Who is that?”
It took him a moment to realize he had spoken aloud, and he smiled clumsily at Katherine as she stood.
“That,” said Katherine softly, “is Mariana Bryant.”
“Another Bryant?” Gerald attempted humor, but immediately desisted. “Tell me, Mrs Bryant; what is her story?”
For a moment, he was worried he had overstepped the line and been too inquisitive too early. But one day had passed since he had entered the town, if you could call it a town, and to ask such impertinent questions of a young lady –
“Mariana Bryant,” said Katherine heavily, sinking back into the chair, “was born able to see as well as you or I – though perhaps I should say, as well as you, considering your medical pronouncement!”
Gerald smiled automatically, but could not drag his eyes from the blonde-haired woman walking slowly down the road. “And then?”
Katherine sighed. “You know she and my husband, Thomas, are twins? Jonathan the eldest, then Aaron, then the twins, and lastly Abigail.”
He raised his eyebrows. “They look nothing alike, but in my profession I have met with several instances in which the mother, favoring a lighter complexion, and the father, with more of a darker hue – ”
“When they were but four years old,” interrupted Katherine, and Gerald bit his tongue over his tangent. “Thomas dragged Mariana down to one of the lakebeds, about half a mile from here. They were forbidden from going there, so Jonathan – the oldest of the Bryants – told me. They played there for several hours, but when they returned, Mariana was fretful, and hot.”
Gerald’s blood went cold. That could only mean –
“An infection,” Katherine said heavily. “No one knows, even to this day, exactly what she had caught down there, but considering that several dead rats were found there the day after when their parents went to look . . . A doctor was called, but by then it was too late. There was nothing that could be done. She lost her sight.”
“‘Tis strange,” Gerald spoke softly, his eyes now unfixed as he gazed, unseeing, at the window behind Katherine. “For a person who has the knowledge of sight, to be so well adapted to the darkened state – in truth, you would never have guessed that . . .”
His voice trailed off as he saw the confused, and slightly disgusted, look on Katherine’s face.
“Do you have no pity, sir?” she asked quietly. “Is Mariana just a medical marvel to you?”
The paring knife caught on her thumb nail, and Mariana drew in a hasty breath.
There was a small cloth, left slightly damp, beside her. Placing the knife down carefully to easily find it again without trouble, she picked up the cloth and dabbed at her thumb.
She could smell the sharp tang of blood, and sighed.
“Not again,” she murmured as she brought her thumb to her mouth.
It was ridiculous. Here she was, twenty-seven years old and essentially a spinster, barely able to perform those small household chores that Sophia, at eleven, had already mastered.
But those apples won’t peel themselves. It was determination, sheer determination, and a desire to prove herself once more pushed her to put down the cloth and pick up the paring knife once more.
“No, I have not met him yet.”
Mariana tilted her head. Abigail – slightly out of breath. She must be walking with Elizabeth, who was a few inches taller. She could only tell through their embraces at Christmas and on birthdays, but Abigail fitted under the crook of her arm better than her sister-in-law.
“Katherine told me he was incredibly clever, and was able to solve her headaches within a few minutes,” a voice was saying. Yes, it was Elizabeth. The two of them were in the hall. The front door had opened, but the door from the kitchen to the hallway hadn’t stuck on the flagstone yet.
And now it did.
“Ouch!”
“Elizabeth, I told you the door always sticks there – come, put the bushel here on the table.”
The clunk of woven wicker on wood.
“Good afternoon, Mariana,” said a gentle voice. It was Elizabeth’s, and Mariana pasted a smile on her face in case she had to turn around.
“Hello there, Elizabeth.”
“Goodness, all together?” Phoebe’s voice rang out from an open window, and Katherine squealed in delight.
“Excellent, we are all here!”
Mariana dully continued with her task as Katherine cried out, “I had to tell you all – and what better time than when we are all together: I am going to have a baby!”
Delighted squeaks of joy rang out over the kitchen as Abigail and Phoebe cried out their congratulations. Mariana murmured her best wishes, and it was then she noticed that Elizabeth was silent.
Mariana sighed. It was not fair, of course, that one sister should fall with a child while the other . . .
The rustle of skirts, steps on the ground, and a sudden hug.
“Ahhh,” breathed Mariana, and she closed her eyes in irritation. Another cut to clean.
“Oh, I am sorry, Mariana,” came Elizabeth’s anxious voice. “I did not see you were using a knife!”
“A knife!”
Now Abigail’s anxious voice was added to the throng, and Mariana sighed audibly this time. Honestly, she did not want to be mollycoddled by anyone, let alone her baby sister.
“Please, I am quite capable of looking after myself – ”
But it was not to be. No matter how much she tried to insist, Mariana Bryant was not to be allowed the courtesy of sucking her own thumb. No, Abigail had run outside for some water, and Phoebe was fussing around her, almost tripping over her own skirts if the skids and foot slips were anything to go by, and it all ended in Mariana being forced to sit at the kitchen table holding a sodding wet cloth around her thumb, and her sister and sister-in-law clucking around her like two hens.
“It does not look deep,” said Abigail fretfully in a quiet tone, “but then, I am no great judge when it comes to these matters.”
“We could always ask the Doctor.” Phoebe’s voice was closer, and Mariana could sense her leaning in, trying to see her thumb and assess the damage herself. Elizabeth’s voice had disappeared from the throng; she must have slipped out in the confusion.
“‘Tis just a small cut,” she said quietly, accepting that she would be unheeded. “Please, Abigail – Phoebe, I do not need to see – ”
“But does he do house calls?” Abigail’s voice was full of anxiety, and she sounded slightly further away now. Perhaps sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the table?
Katherine’s laugh was so loud it made Mariana jump. “House calls? Abigail, there are only three other houses here in Sweet Grove at present, and it would not take him more than twenty steps to reach any one of them!”
Mariana had never seen Abigail; she had been seven when the youngest Bryant had been born, and by that time had been blind almost half her life. She could imagine, however, that Abigail looked uncomfortable a lot of the time, with hot cheeks just like Mariana felt whenever that idiot Doctor was mentioned.
“I do not need any medical assistance,” she repeated, louder this time, in the hopes she would finally be attended to. “All I need is a clean scrap of cotton, and I can tie it round my thumb easily enough.”
There was silence, but not quite. Although her sisters and sisters-in-law said nothing, there was a rustle of movement just quiet enough that the inattentive would not notice it.
Mariana was never inattentive. “Whatever it is that you are mouthing to each other, or gesturing about, you can cease immediately.”
A pause.
“Now then, Mariana,” Phoebe’s voice was placatory, and Mariana smiled slightly. It was always nice to throw people’s balance off, occasionally. “You know we want what is best for you.”
Mariana groaned. “Please do not give me that speech, Phoebe, I have heard it a thousand times from my brothers!”
“And from me,” chimed in Abigail’s nervous voice, “and yet you never heed our advice!”
“That is because I do not need it,” said Mariana, irritably. “Have I not always asked for help, if I have needed it?”
“No, you have not,” shot back Katherine, her tone harsher now, but still conciliatory. “Did I not find you lost, not two months ago, when they started building the church? You had moved from tree to tree along that pathway, and had become confused when one of them was cut down.”
Mariana flushed, and the heat of embarrassment flooded through her body. It had been a difficult day for her when Thomas and the others had removed some of her anchors to this world.
“Apart from that,” she said uncomfortably.
Someone sighed. Judging by who spoke next, Mariana guessed it was Abigail.
“He is a Doctor, Mariana, he will not bite you.”
“And Katherine tells me,” interjected Phoebe, and it was evident a broad smile had spread across her face; she could hear it in the lightness of her tone, “that he is a prodigious handsome man, Mariana, so you will have something pleasant to look at while he examines your . . . your thumb.”
She had realized her mistake almost immediately, but Mariana gave her no opportunity to apologize.
“Oh, well, that is of great comfort to me, I assure you,” Mariana sneered. “So long as I have a pleasant aspect to view while the smallest cut experienced by mankind is examined on my thumb – Phoebe, are you senile? What good is a handsome man, any man, for a blind woman!”
“I only thought,” whispered Phoebe’s voice, and a step told Mariana that her sister-in-law had moved away from her, “I just – he is such a handsome man, and – ”
“Ha!” Mariana’s sardonic laugh burst out of her like a bark, and she rose from her chair, furiously throwing down the wet cotton. “Perhaps, Phoebe, you should think a little harder before you start throwing imbeciles like that Doctor Anderson at me!”
She walked, anger hastening her speed, but the bushel of apples recently lain on the table went flying. One caught under her toes but she was agile, used to preventing herself from falling over, and within another second she was out of the kitchen, into the hallway, and throwing herself up the stairs.
One of the benefits of Mariana’s bedroom was that the door had a reassuringly loud slam.
She fell onto her bed and burst into floods of tears. Always the one left out, always alone, always in the dark. Was this to be the sum of her existence? Is this all you have planned for me, Lord? Where is your healing power?