With Every Breath (36 page)

Except there was something wrong with her. She hadn’t eaten in days and had been too tired to follow him home in the evenings. This morning he saved some bacon from his breakfast
tray to bring down for her. He found the dog lying on her side under a chestnut tree behind the hospital. She lifted her head when he approached, but then set it back down again.

“Come on, Princess. It’s bacon! Can’t you smell it?” He beckoned again, and the dog pushed herself up, lumbering over slowly. She nosed the bacon, her pale tongue flicking at it. She lapped up a crispy piece, her jaws pumping, and then whimpered as most of the bacon fell from her mouth.

Princess turned her big liquid eyes to look up at him. He rubbed the fur on the top of her head, wishing the dog could speak and tell him what was wrong. Why wasn’t she eating or drinking when she must be starving by now?

There was only one thing left to try. He would catch grief over it, but he wasn’t going to let his dog die because he was too shy to ask for a favor. The new field of veterinary science was beginning to turn out doctors for animals, but they lived in rural areas and only treated farm animals. If Trevor wanted his dog cured, it was going to be by a human doctor.

“You want me to operate on a dog?” Dr. Schrader asked, disbelief in his eyes. With his white beard and pale-blue eyes, Dr. Schrader was washing his hands in the washbasin outside the operating room. He spoke loudly enough for some of the nurses laying out the day’s supply of bandages to hear. The nurses exchanged glances and giggled.

“I’ll operate, but I need you to administer the anesthesia,” Trevor said. “I think there’s something wrong in her throat or esophagus. She can’t eat or drink. I nearly lost a finger the one time I tried to get a better look.”

“I’ve never operated on a dog,” Dr. Schrader said.

“Neither have I, but I’m guessing we should use the same amount of anesthesia we’d give a child. I need to get in and look without getting my fingers bitten off.”

Dr. Schrader reached for a towel, drying his hands briskly and refusing to make eye contact. “Neither one of us know what we’re doing. We could lose the dog.”

“I’ll lose her if we do nothing,” Trevor said. “And I really care about that dog. I’ll try anything.”

“That’s so sweet,” one of the nurses cooed. She was looking at him with calf’s eyes, and the other looked a little flushed as well. Trevor turned back to Dr. Schrader.

“I’ll pay for all the expenses and use of the operating room. We’ll have to do it after business hours. Are you willing?”

Dr. Schrader tossed the towel into the laundry bin. “I’ll meet you at five o’clock. Just don’t blame me if the mutt dies on the table.”

Relief flooded through him. How pathetic that he allowed a mangy old dog to become his most precious companion, but there it was. It had never been easy for him to make friends.

Except for Kate. His friendship with Kate had been easy. He never had to pretend to be somebody else or feign interest in fashionable things when he was with her. Kate accepted him as he was, blunt edges and all.

He still wondered if he’d done the right thing in letting her go. What if he never found a cure for tuberculosis? Would his sacrifice have been worth it? His need to cure tuberculosis was more than just ambition or an award to hang on the wall. It was a calling. Why else would God have spared him from an early death if he were not to use his insight to join the fight?

He walked up to his office. “Good morning, Philip,” he said as he crossed the room to his desk.

It still seemed strange to see Philip Walsh sitting at Kate’s desk every morning. Kate had worked here for only six months, but in that time she’d ingrained herself into every square inch of this clinic. He couldn’t look at the daily statistical reports
without remembering how Kate would hold her breath and wait for his reaction. The stolen hours up on the roof or how they’d share a meal at the staff table. Even how she nagged him about his manners and bickered with him in such amiable familiarity. Most of all he remembered her laughter. It felt like a shower of gold coins raining down in the midst of a gloomy day. Kate had always had that effect on him. He would never find another woman who suited him so well.

Not that it mattered anymore. He collected his chart and glanced over at Philip. “Let’s make the rounds.”

* * * *

It only took a minute to locate the problem. As soon as Princess was anesthetized, Trevor used a long pair of tweezers to extract the three-inch fish bone lodged in the back of his dog’s throat. No wonder she’d been too miserable to swallow anything.

“What have you been feeding this dog?” Dr. Schrader asked as he examined the bone.

“I gave her a second serving of whatever I had for dinner. She always seemed to like it.”

“You can’t feed a dog the way you feed a human. No wonder she got sick.”

A wave of guilt swept over him. How was he supposed to know? He’d never had a pet before! He’d get some veterinary books and read up on the proper diet for a dog, so he wouldn’t do something so foolish again.

Both men began washing up in the sink. The surgery had taken less than ten minutes, and it was still early in the evening.

“Can I take you out for a drink to thank you for saving my dog’s life?” Trevor asked. It was the polite thing to do. Kate had drilled that much into him, and perhaps if he worked a little
harder at making friends, he wouldn’t be so dependent on the companionship of a dog.

“Thanks for the offer, but my wife is probably keeping dinner warm,” Dr. Schrader said as he shrugged into his suit coat and left the room. Trevor met Mrs. Schrader once, and given that woman’s open adoration of her husband, it was little wonder he was eager to return home to her.

The thought made Trevor even lonelier.

It wasn’t until after Dr. Schrader left that Trevor realized he had a sixty-pound problem lying on the operating table. Princess was going to be groggy for hours, and there was no way she could walk all the way home to his apartment. He squatted down to slide her off the operating table, carefully draping her head and forelegs over his shoulder. It was awkward angling out the door with a slumbering dog weighing him down, but he got her up the stairs to the clinic.

Marlene nearly had a fit when she saw him lugging the massive dog through the clinic’s front doors. After helping monitor Nurse Ackerman’s nefarious activities in the wards, Trevor offered both Oskar and Marlene positions at the hospital. Oskar had no interest in staying, but Marlene was desperate to quit working as a prostitute. She wouldn’t always be healthy enough to work, but he’d take care of her for as long as necessary. For now, she covered the overnight shift at the clinic, drank his cod liver oil daily, and seemed to be maintaining her health.

“Will you open my office?” he asked her. “I’ll be staying the night with my patient.”

It wouldn’t be the first time he spent the night on the floor of his office. On nights he had to work late, it was easier to grab a pillow and a blanket from the supply closet and stretch out on the floor. It wasn’t like there was anyone at home who would miss him.

Could it be that his only friend in the world was really a dog?

After getting Princess settled on the floor, he darted downstairs to slip a few dollars to a janitor with instructions to do an extra-thorough job cleaning the operating room. Trevor knew better than anyone how that dog could shed.

It was too early to sleep, and the isolation in his office held no appeal. He walked the floors to shake the hollow ache of loneliness expanding in his chest. How could he be in a building full of people and still feel so alone?

The hospital always seemed different at night when the bustle of the daytime had faded. His footsteps echoed off the cold tile as he walked the dim corridors. He paused when he came to a wall with framed photographs of former employees of the hospital. Three nurses and a doctor, with a small bronze nameplate beneath each photograph. All of them had died because of their work here. Two of the nurses contracted diphtheria and one caught typhoid, all from treating infected patients. Dr. Edwin Jones cut himself during surgery, contracted septicemia, and died two days later. For all Trevor knew, someday he would finally fall victim to tuberculosis, and then his photograph would hang on this wall as well.

He braced a hand against the wall, hanging his head to stare at the floor. Was it worth it? He had lost the only woman he would ever love because he wouldn’t walk away from this exhausting and demoralizing work.

He squeezed his eyes shut as the knot of anguish expanded.
Kate
. Sometimes the regret was a physical pain that threatened to swamp him. Right now she was probably sitting at that brightly lit dining table in the boardinghouse, surrounded by dozens of people. Dinner would have wound down, and everyone would be drinking coffee and gossiping about the latest happenings on Capitol Hill. The temptation to run across town and join
her clawed at him. Was he destined to live out the rest of his life alone?

“Dr. Kendall?”

He straightened, embarrassed to be caught off guard. A pretty young attendant with kind eyes was standing beside him. “Are you all right?” she asked. “You look ill.”

There was concern in her face, as though she were truly worried about him. He wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of sympathy, and it unsettled him. He straightened his coat and smoothed his tie.

“I’ll be fine, thank you,” he said. He glanced at the soiled mess she held, the stink of vomit rising from the wadded-up sheets. “It looks like you haven’t had an easy night either.”

She gave him a weary nod. “The patient at the end of the hall hasn’t been able to keep anything down in days. He’s got a gallbladder infection, poor man. I’m going to fetch clean linens.”

“It’s not an easy task, is it?”

Her shoulders sagged a bit, but she gave a resigned smile. “It’s not so bad.”

“He’s lucky to have you looking after him. Hang in there. You’re doing a good job.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. He didn’t exactly have a reputation for being chatty with the staff, but he meant what he said. The nurses and attendants did heroic duty here, bathing patients, wiping up vomit, carrying bedpans.

She smiled back at him. In that split second when he met her eyes, a silent message hummed between them. A message of comfort, of empathy.

“Thank you, sir.” The nurse walked toward the laundry with the foul mess in her hands.

Only the people who worked under this roof could truly understand the toll caused by caring for the sick, and not everyone
was cut out for it. He thought Kate would be up to the challenge, but he’d been wrong.

He hung his head as he continued walking the halls. That wasn’t true. Kate could handle the work; she just couldn’t tolerate
him
working here.

It was time to get back and check on the dog. He grabbed a bowl of water for Princess, but when he returned to his office, she was still slumbering. He tossed a pillow and a blanket on the floor. The tile was hard beneath his shoulder blades as he lay down beside the dog. A glance to his side showed she was drooling on his floor, and he smiled a little. Another mess to clean up in the morning, but he didn’t mind. If nothing else, Princess taught him the value of patience.

He wondered what Kate would think if she knew he had adopted Princess. He turned his face up to stare at the ceiling.

He needed to quit thinking about Kate so much. She had made her choice, and he was a distant second to her fears. He didn’t like it, but he needed to accept the way things were.

* * * *

The next morning, Princess downed a plate of cooked barley and two full bowls of water. Trevor monitored each mouthful as it went down. She ate slowly, as though the back of her throat still ached. But she got it down, and Trevor smiled in satisfaction. Afterward he walked Princess down the stairs and tied her to a tree in the back of the hospital, where he could keep an eye on her from his office window.

When he returned to the clinic, he froze at the sight of the last person he expected to see in a tubercular ward.

“What is
she
doing here?” he snapped to Nurse Augusta.

Irene Bauman flashed him a coy smile as she turned away from the nurses’ station to face him. “Dr. Kendall! We miss you
at the dinner table. Everyone who stays at the boardinghouse is so old and boring. I wish you would come back.”

He looked impatiently at Nurse Augusta. “What is she doing here?” he repeated.

“Kate Livingston sends letters to the patients every week,” the nurse replied.

“I know. That still doesn’t explain why Miss Bauman is here.”

“You don’t have to sound so scary,” the girl replied. He wondered if that pout worked with her father. It didn’t work with him.

He glared at the stack of letters on the nurses’ counter. Clearly the girl brought them along and had probably been doing so for some time. He lowered his voice and pointed to his office.

“Follow me,” he snapped. “I need to speak with you.”

26

H
ow could a man as young and healthy as Roger Moreno suffer from such a bizarre assortment of ailments? Aside from spelling errors, the young law clerk also suffered from a severe case of hypochondria.

Kate sat at her desk and tried to block out Mr. Moreno’s voice as he shouted into the telephone mounted on the wall in the corner of the office. There was no need to shout into a telephone to be heard on the other end, but Mr. Moreno apparently didn’t know this as he recounted his medical plight to his mother, who lived ten miles away in Alexandria.

“My gums are turning white,” he shouted into the telephone. “They hurt when I eat, and I don’t know what to do.”

Kate continued proofreading a legal brief on insurance law and tried not to think about Mr. Moreno’s sore gums. The man was likely to live to be ninety, but the past five months of sharing an office with him had been torture.

One good year with Trevor would beat fifty with Mr. Moreno.