Tattler's Branch by Jan Watson Read Free Book Online

platinum in her locks   —the one she’d been born with, the one that started at her widow’s peak and ran like a vein of mercury to the very tips of her hair. Tern loved that oddity, and admittedly so did she.
    “Well, Dr. Still,” she chided her reflection, “it seems you have an unsightly streak of vanity to go along with the streak in your hair.”
    Lilly had been particular with herself and her things since she was a girl, the need for perfection as tenacious as a weedgrowing in a garden of daisies. She longed to be more like her mother, whose natural beauty had not faded with time because it came from within, or like Armina, who didn’t even own a mirror.
    Turning away from her reflection, she secured her hair in a familiar chignon but looked back as she stuck a long jet-beaded pin through her hat. She just couldn’t bring herself to go out into the world with a cockeyed hat on her head.
    A verse from Philippians memorized in her Sunday school days came to mind. “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” Or as Mama would say, “Pretty is as pretty does.”
    Lilly knew she wasn’t guilty of thinking she was better than anyone else, but vanity   —caring too much about appearances   —was definitely a weakness she needed to work on.
    Still, she couldn’t leave the bathroom without first straightening the wire soap dish on the counter and adjusting the cotton towel on the rack so that all its corners were even. Lastly, she draped her stethoscope around her neck. There, everything was in order. Her mind was filing a list of things still needing to be done as she stepped back into the office.
    She was startled to find a man standing at the window, staring out into the darkening night. He wore a blue shirt tucked in on one side and rumpled suit pants.
    “Excuse me?” she said. “This office is closed.”
    The man turned slowly toward her. “The door was unlocked.” He tipped his brown felt fedora but did not take it off. “Is the doctor in?”
    Lilly suppressed a sigh. She should take to wearing a sign around her neck. Obviously her stethoscope was not marker enough. “She is.”
    Sweat beaded just below the band of his hat. His set lips were a slash of pain, the skin around them white. “I figured to see a man,” he said.
    “On the one hand, you’ve got me,” Lilly said. “On the other, I’m all there is.”
    He swayed on his feet and steadied himself against the desktop. “If you don’t mind.”
    “One moment,” Lilly said, going past him to open the door wide. Just yards away, the street was busy with folks coming and going. The commissary was within yelling distance. She didn’t feel unsafe, just cautious.
    “What seems to be the problem?” she asked.
    Standing where he was, the man began to inch his stained chambray shirt upward, not bothering with the buttons. He grimaced as he ripped the bloodstained fabric from his side, revealing two distinct wounds in his right upper quadrant.
    “Take a seat.” Lilly patted the end of an exam table.
    “I can stand.”
    “A seat,” Lilly directed, as much to take command of the situation as to make the exam easier for herself. She was glad she had just washed her hands. She would rather not turn her back on this patient.
    “Doc Still?” she heard from the doorway. “I saw your door standing open and came to check on you.” Timmy Blair looked in from the small back porch.
    “How’s your arm, Timmy?”
    The boy lifted the sling that cupped his fractured limb. “I was a-wondering, Doc: will I ever play ball again?”
    “You’ll be back at bat and good as ever in a few weeks.”
    “Maybe could I go in the front room and play with the forewarning bird? Mommy’s shopping in the commissary. It’ll take forever.”
    Lilly kept the canary she’d once rescued from the mines in the clinic’s waiting room. It served to entertain her patients while they