LITMIR.BIZ

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going to be there?”

      “Most of the day. I can call someone else. I thought I’d give you a crack at it first, but you have to be sober.”

      “I’m sober,” she insisted. “Totally.”

      He doubted it. He expected she would have a flask with her as she cleaned. But the risk he was taking, and it was not a pleasant risk, was that she would do it for him, and do it very well if it was for him. Cheryl had had a crush on him since he hit town and found excuses to be around him. He tried very hard never to give her any encouragement. But despite her struggle with alcohol, she was a strong woman and good at cleaning when she put her mind to it.

      “The door’s open. Get started and I’ll be out later.”

      He hung up the phone and Preacher said, “Need a hand, man?”

      “I do,” he said. “Let’s close up and get the cabin fixed up. She might be persuaded to stay.”

      “If that’s what you want.”

      “It’s what the town needs,” he said.

      “Yeah,” Preacher said. “Sure.”

      If Mel practiced any other kind of medicine, she might’ve put the baby in the old doctor’s arthritic hands and gotten in her car to leave. But a midwife would never do that—couldn’t turn her back on an abandoned newborn. For that matter, she couldn’t shake a profound concern for the baby’s mother. It was settled within seconds; she couldn’t leave the baby to an old doctor who might not hear her cry in the night. And she had to be close by if the mother sought medical attention because women in childbirth and postpartum were her specialty.

      During the rest of the day, Mel had ample opportunity to check out the rest of Doc’s house. The spare room he provided turned out to be more than something for overnight guests—it was furnished with two hospital beds, an IV stand, tray table, bedside bureau and oxygen canister. The only chair in the room happened to be a rocking chair, and Mel was sure that was by design, for the use of a new mother and baby. The baby was provided with a Plexiglas incubator from the downstairs exam room.

      The doctor’s house was completely functional as a clinic and hospital. The downstairs living room was a waiting room, the dining room was fronted by a counter for check-in. There was an exam room, treatment room, both small, and the doctor’s office. In the kitchen there was a small table where he no doubt ate his meals when he wasn’t at Jack’s. No ordinary kitchen, this one had an autoclave for sterilizing and a locked medicine chest for narcotic drugs kept on hand. In the refrigerator, a few units of blood and plasma, as well as food. More blood than food.

      The upstairs had two bedrooms only—the one with the hospital beds and Doc Mullins’s. Her accommodations were not the most comfortable, though better than the filthy cabin. But the room was cold and stark; hardwood floors, small rug, rough sheets with a plastic mattress protector that crinkled noisily. She already missed her down comforter, four hundred count sheets, soft Egyptian towels and thick, plush carpet. It had occurred to her that she would be leaving behind creature comforts, but she thought it might be good for her, thought she was ready for a big change.

      Mel’s friends and sister had tried to talk her out of this, but unfortunately they had failed. She had barely gotten over the traumatic experience of giving away all of Mark’s clothes and personal items. She’d kept his picture, his watch, the cuff links she had given him on his last birthday—platinum—and his wedding ring. When the job in Virgin River came available, she’d sold all the furniture in their house then put it on the market. There was an offer in three days, even at those ridiculous L.A. prices. She’d packed three boxes of little treasures—favorite books, CDs, pictures, bric-a-brac. The desktop computer was given away to a friend, but she’d brought the laptop and her digital camera. As far as clothes, she’d filled three suitcases and an overnight and gave the rest away. No more strapless dresses for fancy charity events; no more sexy nighties for those nights that Mark didn’t have to work late.

      Mel was going to be starting over no matter what. She had nothing to go back to; she hadn’t wanted anything to tie her to L.A. Now that things in Virgin River were not going as planned, Mel decided to stay and help out for a couple of days and then head out to Colorado. Well, she thought, it’ll be good to be near Joey, Bill and the kids. I can start over there as well as anywhere.

      It had been just Mel and Joey for a long time now. Joey was four years her senior and had been married to Bill for fifteen years. Their mother had died when Mel was only four—she could barely remember her. And their father, considerably older than their mother had been, had passed peacefully in his La-Z-boy at the age of seventy, ten years ago.

      Mark’s parents were still alive and well in L.A., but she had never warmed to them. They had always been stuffy and cool toward her. Mark’s death had brought them briefly closer, but it took only a few months for her to realize that they never called her. She checked on them, asked after their grief, but it seemed they’d let her drift out of sight. She was not surprised to note that she didn’t miss them. She hadn’t even told them she was leaving town.

      She had wonderful friends, true. Girlfriends from nursing school and from the hospital. They called with regularity. Got her out of the house. Let her talk about him and cry about him. But after a while, though she loved them, she began to associate them with Mark’s death. Every time she saw them, the pitying looks in their eyes was enough to bring out her pain. It was as if everything had been rolled up into one big miserable ball. She just wanted to start over so badly. Someplace where no one knew how empty her life had become.

      Late in the day, Mel handed off the baby to Doc while she took a badly needed shower, scrubbing from head to toe. After she had bathed and dried her hair and donned her long flannel nightgown and big furry slippers, she went downstairs to Doc’s office to collect the infant and a bottle. He gave her such a look, seeing her like that. It startled his eyes open. “I’ll feed her, rock her, and put her down,” she said. “Unless you have something else in mind for her.”

      “By all means,” he said, handing the baby over.

      Up in her room, Mel rocked and fed the baby. And of course, the tears began to well in her eyes.

      The other thing no one in this town knew was that she couldn’t have children. She and Mark had been seeking help for their infertility. Because she was twenty-eight and he thirty-four when they married, and they’d already been together for two years, they didn’t want to wait. She had never used birth control and after one year of no results they went to see the specialists.

      Nothing appeared to be wrong with Mark, but she’d had to have her tubes blown out and her endometriosis scraped off the outside of her uterus. But still, nothing. She’d taken hormones and stood on her head after intercourse. She took her temperature every day to see when she was ovulating. She went through so many home pregnancy tests, she should have bought stock in the company. Nothing. They had just completed their first fifteen-thousand-dollar attempt at in vitro fertilization when Mark was killed. Somewhere in a freezer in L.A. were more fertilized ovum—if she ever became desperate enough to try to go it alone.

      Alone. That was the operative word. She had wanted a baby so badly. And now she held in her arms an abandoned little girl. A beautiful baby girl with pink skin and a sheer cap of brown hair. It made her literally weep with longing.

      The baby was healthy and strong, eating with gusto, belching with strength. She slept soundly despite the crying that went on in the bed right beside her.

      That night Doc Mullins sat up in bed, book in his lap, listening. So—she was in pain. Desperate pain. And she covered it with that flip wit and sarcasm.

      Nothing is ever what it seems, he thought, flicking off his light.

       Three

      Mel woke to the ringing of the phone. She checked the baby; she had only awoken twice in the night and still slept soundly. She found her slippers and went downstairs to see if she could rustle up some coffee. Doc Mullins was already in the kitchen, dressed.

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