Miss Julia Delivers the Goods by Ann B. Ross Read Free Book Online Page A

things, I would’ve taken more note of his uncommon presence at home two days running.
    “No, sweetheart,” he said with a distracted look. Then he put aside the yellow legal pad he’d been writing on and gave me his full attention. “Just trying to work a few things out.”
    “Oh, my goodness,” I said, hurrying to sit beside him. “What is it? Have you thought of what could be wrong with Hazel Marie? Tell me, Sam, I’m about to lose my mind with worry.”
    “Those tests take time, Julia,” he said, holding me close. “You have to allow for that and not get yourself all worked up. I know it’s hard, but for her sake, and Lloyd’s, too, we have to wait it out.”
    “You’re right. I know you’re right. I just keep thinking that if Dr. Hargrove were here, we wouldn’t be going through all this. Well, anyway,” I said with a sigh, “I guess we’ll know soon enough. But it doesn’t help that she’s thrown Mr. Pickens over. I’m still so shaken that she sent him packing that I can hardly comprehend it. And she didn’t even tell anybody, not even Lloyd. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with her. She just kept it bottled up so long that it had to come out some other way.”
    “When did all this happen?”
    “I don’t know. I was so stunned I didn’t think to ask her. And she didn’t much want to talk about it.” I sat still for a second or two, then raised my head from his shoulder. “You know what I think? I think she’s been sick longer than we’ve realized. If she’d been feeling herself, she’d never have cut him off. Maybe I ought to tell that doctor. It could be an important symptom.”
    “Julia,” he said, pulling me back closer. “If it is, let her tell him. It’s not our place.”
    “Well, people do make bad decisions when they aren’t feeling well. Life-changing decisions, too.” And speaking of that, I still wondered if Hazel Marie’s problem didn’t have to do with the change of life. Dr. McKay hadn’t even mentioned that, but I could’ve told him of three people I knew who’d gone off the deep end during those times in their lives. One had gone into a steep decline and stayed in bed for the next seven years, and another refused to recognize her own children, and the other had taken after her husband with a butcher knife.
    You can’t be too careful when certain internal changes begin to occur, and Rick should’ve had that uppermost in his mind.
    I guess, though, if all Hazel Marie did was throw up all over the place and tell Mr. Pickens to take a hike, maybe we were getting off lightly.
    It didn’t take long for the word to get around town that Hazel Marie was in the hospital. Nurses talk, too, you know. So the phone started ringing off the hook with everybody wanting to know what was wrong, how bad it was, and what they could do to help. It just did me in to have to keep saying that I didn’t know what she had and neither did her doctor. That opened the door for all kinds of speculations.
    Mildred Allen said, “You remember Mamie Harrison? They put her in the hospital without knowing what was wrong and you know what happened to her. She was never the same again.”
    And LuAnne Conover phoned, wanting to know why I hadn’t called her with the news. “I can’t believe you, Julia. You know I’d want to know and I had to find out at the post office. I’d’ve been by your side every minute if I’d known. Now listen, I heard about this new treatment that some clinic right outside of town is offering. I’d look into that if I were you.”
    Betsy Harris called wanting to know if we’d thought of a chiropractor. “You wouldn’t believe how much better I felt after having my back aligned,” she said.
    And, Lord help us, Margaret Benson from the Lila Mae Harding Sunday school class called wanting to know if Hazel Marie would consider acupuncture. “You’d be amazed, Julia,” she said. And I probably would if anybody ever got me near that many needles.
    Etta Mae