Chapter 4

4: 4

4

My mother, flour still on her apron, hurried over and steadied her.

"Imogen, take your time. Tell me what happened."

Imogen dragged in a few breaths, her voice tight as a strung wire.

"Ma'am, the flu's spreading through town lately. People in our village are already running fevers and coughing, but when we call 911 there's no getting through, and the clinic says they don't have enough ambulances.

"Ma'am, when I was little I got bitten by a snake. If you hadn't bled the wound and needled me in time, I'd have died long ago. I've never forgotten what you can do. All the young people in our village went south for work, so it's only the old folks and the kids left behind. I had nowhere else to turn, that's why I came to you. Ma'am, I'm begging you, save them!"

"I heard everything that happened to your family, so I got a friend from college to help. It took some doing, but we got a proper clinic license approved. I want to ask you to come treat everyone.

"Ma'am, if you'll just come, Finchville will give you our village's only welfare assistance quota."

She held out a clinic license, fully stamped, and a folded sheet of paper.

The paper was packed edge to edge with the signatures and red thumbprints of everyone in Finchville.

From the folks in their eighties and nineties down to children who'd only just learned to write.

Every one of them agreeing to give the quota to my mother.

My mother stood there, her fingers trembling faintly.

Her eyes full of the hesitation of someone who wanted to reach out but was afraid of being bitten again.

My father sat on the doorsill, smoking in silence.

After a long moment, he said one thing.

"Felicia, you decide."

Imogen looked at me, pleading, a tear hanging off her chin, ready to fall.

I took the stack of paper from my mother's hand and went through it.

The clinic paperwork was in order, even my mother's practitioner's license had been arranged.

I thought it over, folded the paper, and tucked it back into Imogen's bag.

"Imogen, we can treat people. But we charge. The same rates as the herbal shop in town, consultation plus medicine, not a cent less."

Imogen's eyes reddened, and she nodded again and again.

"Of course! You should charge! Never mind town rates, we'd pay county rates and be glad to! Ma'am saved so many people. Even if some don't count it a favor, it was hard work, and you should be paid for it."

My mother turned her face away and wiped her eyes.

Only I knew she was happy.

Happy that we could scrape together the money for the surgery to reset my father's broken leg.

I drew in a deep breath and let it out, and said, flat and final,

"We leave now. If the flu's already spread to Finchville, then Whitney Hollow can't be far behind. Mom, Dad, we'll go stay and practice in Finchville for a month, and come back once the flu's over. That way no one can wag their tongues about us."

Imogen, eyes red, thanked us over and over.

My parents and I gathered up every bit of medicine and every acupuncture needle that hadn't been burned, and set off for Finchville.

Passing the mouth of the village, I saw the sign for the Finch Wellness Clinic already hung up.

Winifred Whitney was directing people to carry IV stands inside, her shouting carrying half a street over.

I paid it no mind, pulled my eyes away, and took the back path.

Finchville was even more remote than Whitney Hollow.

The dirt road was too narrow for a tractor to get through, and the houses were scattered thin across the hillside.

Imogen brought us to the clinic, and my mother, pausing only to gulp a mouthful of water, started seeing patients.

Seventeen people came the first day, feverish, coughing, aching all over.

My mother took pulses until her wrist went sore. I sat beside her writing out prescriptions and measuring the herbs, while Imogen ran back and forth brewing decoctions and carrying water.

People were still lined up after dark, so my mother had Imogen hold a flashlight and saw them one by one.

A week later, Imogen rode her bicycle back from town with a newspaper hanging off the handlebars.

She jumped off and said, "Ma'am! Delia's clinic had its grand opening! They set off a whole string of firecrackers!"

"I heard they're pushing some 'boost your immunity' slogan, running a buy-one-get-one IV drip promotion, and loads of people went."

My mother's hands stilled over the herbs she was drying out. She didn't say anything.

But I knew. Some of the old people in Whitney Hollow were weak in the body,

their bodies simply couldn't take that ice-cold fluid being run into them.

Something going wrong was only a matter of time.

By the eighth day, the flu in Finchville was mostly under control.

I found a moment to go back to our own house for some things.

The instant I stepped into the village, something felt off. There wasn't a soul in sight.

Only the muffled coughing in my ears, as if someone were trying to cough up a whole lung.

The flu in Whitney Hollow was worse than in Finchville.

I didn't linger. I grabbed the acupuncture needles and moxa my mother had asked for and ran for the mouth of the village as fast as I could.

Passing the Finch Wellness Clinic, I suddenly heard a burst of furious shouting.

Charles Whitney had his mother on his back, and he was pounding on the clinic door until it rattled.

"Delia, get out here!"

"My mom had a cold and got an IV here! Less than half an hour after we pulled the needle and got home, her lips went purple and foam started coming out of her mouth!"