Hot-Shot Doc Comes to Town

“If you two young people are through putting on a show …” Mrs. Stewart looked pointedly at Taylor Stiles “… and making nice, would one of you mind seeing about my sciatica?”

Taylor blinked in surprise. As if on cue, the room erupted in noise as though the curtain had closed and the play was over.

Shelby cleared her throat. She loved the outspoken and to-the-point woman. “Uh, yes, Mrs. Stewart. You’re next.” Shelby handed the clipboard to Dr. Stiles. “Call the next patient under Mrs. Stewart’s name and put him or her in room two.” She pointed down the short hallway. “I’ll be in after I see Mrs. Stewart.”

Dr. Stiles’s dashing brow rose a fraction of an inch but he accepted the clipboard. Apparently he wasn’t used to taking direction. His deep baritone voice called little Greg Hankins’s name while she guided Mrs. Stewart to exam room one.

“Kind of snooty, that one, but still mighty handsome,” Mrs. Stewart remarked as she took a seat in the chair in the room.

“Um, I guess,” Shelby said as she flipped through the seventy-four-year-old’s chart.

“I could tell by the look on your face you noticed it too. Doc Shelby, you have to start living again. It’s been three years. Your Jim is dead, not you.”

A stab of pain came with that frank statement about her husband. There had been nothing she could do when she’d reached the accident. Despite not being far behind Jim in her own car, his truck had already been wrapped around a tree when she arrived at the scene. Nothing she’d done had stopped his blood from pooling in the mangled metal. The sight, the smell … She’d retched. Three years later she could at least do everything in her power to honor his memory by keeping the clinic open any way she could. The people of Benton she loved so much needed the medical care and she needed the security of knowing she was needed.

“Now, Mrs. Stewart …” Shelby smiled “… I’m supposed to be taking care of you, not you seeing about me.”

“Well, missy, I think you don’t want to see about you, so I’m just going to have to.”

Shelby took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Why don’t you let me examine you, then we can work on me?” Adjusting her bright pink stethoscope in her ears, she placed the disk on the woman’s chest.

“All you think about is this clinic. Maybe with Dr. Kildare here you can have a little fun for a change,” the old woman groused.

“Dr. Kildare?”

“Yeah, he was one of those handsome TV doctors before your time. That new doctor makes me think of him. All tall, dark and handsome.”

Shelby laughed. “Mrs. Stewart, you’re outrageous.” Mrs. Stewart’s youngest son had to be older than Dr. Stiles. “You don’t even know him and I really don’t either. Anyway, he’s only going to be helping out for a couple of weeks.”

“Yeah, but you could have a little fun for a while. You’re not dead. So stop acting like it.”

Shelby patted the woman’s arm. “For you I will try, I promise.”

Without a doubt he had messed up this time. There had been no talking the judge out of his decision. Community service in a rural area. His lawyer had cautioned against arguing with the judge but Taylor had tried anyway. If he didn’t have such a lead foot, he’d still be in Nashville in his nice modern trauma department instead of in a town like Benton. He’d run from a town similar to this one years ago and had never returned.

Taylor lifted the large-for-his-age two-year-old boy up onto the metal exam table. Where in the world did you go to find a piece of medical office equipment from the 1950s?

Thump, thump the table responded in rebellion as the boy’s heels hit its side.

It was a sturdy table, Taylor would give it that.

The thin, frail mother carefully placed a brown bag she’d been carrying on the floor. She reminded Taylor of how his mother had looked when he had been a child, work weary and sad.

“So what’s wrong with Greg?” Taylor looked at the boy’s mother while keeping a hand on the wiggling child.

At one time he’d been like this little boy, dirty and wearing hand-me-down clothes from the church thrift closet. The sharp bite of memory froze him for a second. He pushed it aside. He hadn’t dwelled on his dysfunctional childhood in years and he refused to start again today.

“I think he has something in his nose. We’ll wait and let Doc Wayne take it out.”

The mother doesn’t trust me. Taylor didn’t like that. He was the one with the knowledge who worked in a well-respected hospital, who had managed to get out of a nowhere town like this one, and she questioned his abilities. Turning away as if to get something, he gathered his patience.

Taylor faced the mother again. “Well, why don’t I just take a quick look, okay?” Taylor forced his best smile for the mother then sought the otoscope that should have been hanging on the wall. “Uh, excuse me I need to find a light.”

“There’s a flashlight in the drawer.” The mother pointed to the metal stand beside him.

Taylor pulled the drawer open and found what he needed, including plastic gloves. He checked inside the boy’s nose. “There it is. In his left nostril. A lima bean, I believe. Do you mind if I get it out? Dr. Wayne will be busy for a while.”

“I guess it’ll be all right,” the mother said without much enthusiasm.

“Let me find—”

“The big tweezers thing is in the jar on top of the stand,” the mother said in a dry tone.

“So how often has Greg been in with this type of problem?” Taylor asked as he reached for the instrument in the outdated clear sterile jar.

“This is the third time in two weeks.”

“Really. That often?” Taylor nodded his head thoughtfully. “Greg, you just lean back and hold still. I’ll have that old bean out in no time,” he said sternly enough so the boy would do as instructed but not so harshly as to scare him. The bean slipped out with a gentle tug and Taylor dropped it into the trash can, along with the gloves.

“Okay, young man, you’re done here.” Taylor picked up the boy and set him on his feet.

As if Taylor had pushed the button of a doorbell, the boy burst out crying then wailing. His slight mother hefted the child into her arms. “Shu, what’s wrong, honey? Did the doctor hurt you?”

Great, now she’s making the kid afraid of me.

“Sucker, I want a sucker,” the child demanded between gasps.

Over the noise, Taylor asked, “Has Dr. Wayne been giving Greg a sucker each time she’s taken something out of his nose?”

The woman nodded.

“Greg,” Taylor said firmly, gaining the boy’s attention and shutting off his tantrum. “If you don’t put anything in your nose for one week then your mother will bring you by to get a sucker. Do you understand?”

The boy nodded his agreement and plopped his filthy thumb into his mouth.

“Good. See you next week.”

As they exited the room the mother handed Taylor the brown sack she’d been carrying with extra care. “Your pay.”

“Uh, thank you.”

As the mother and child walked back down the hall toward the waiting area, Taylor unrolled the top of the bag. Nestled inside were six brown eggs. He crushed the top of the bag. He could remember his mother not being able to pay the doctor and bartering her house-cleaning services for medical care for him and his siblings. Of all the places the judge could have sent him, why did it have to be here?

“Where’s my patient?” Dr. Wayne demanded as she looked around him into the room.

“He’s gone.”

“Gone where?”