Read Online Stephanie Mittman by A Heart Full of Miracles - Free Book Online

Seth had been out to their farm.
    “He won’t …” Caroline Denton began, looking down at herself shyly, as if it were somehow her fault that the boy was failing to thrive. “At first I was hurting some, but I’m afraid now that I might be drying up, Dr. Hendon, and soon there won’t be anything for him to take.”
    There were tears in her voice and he put his stethoscope to the boy’s chest, praying to hear something, anything that he might be able to treat, to put a name to, to cure. The boy was just fading away, failing to thrive. He lay in his little cradle like an old man, just waiting for death without putting up a fight.
    “Will he take the sugar water?” Seth asked. His hope was to enrich the water, add cow’s milk to it if Caroline ceased to produce. He could—
    “Hardly any.”
    “Well, at least his breathing seems good. That’s a good sign. He needs plenty of fresh air, but with the weather so cold, I wouldn’t recommend taking him outside. Just keep the window open a bit for good ventilation.”
    She nodded, hanging on his every word, as if opening the window would save her son.
    “No drafts on him, of course,” he added.
    “Of course,” she repeated like the amen of a prayer.
    “We’re going to have to try to peptonize some modified cow’s milk for him if he doesn’t turn around in the next day or two,” he said.
    “Peptonize,” she agreed, as if the word had any meaning to her, as if hydrolizing milk was something she did every day.
    “I’m also going to stop by Mrs. Jenkin’s place,” he said. “Her Thomas is about weaned and she might be able to give James here some nourishment.”
    “I still do have milk,” Caroline said, her hand between her breasts, rubbing unconsciously at the pain in her heart.
    “Sometimes another woman’s milk helps,” he said, making sure not to imply that there was anything wrong with Caroline Denton’s milk, that it wasn’t her fault that the baby was wasting. “They call it marasmus,” he told her. “A failure to thrive.”
    “Marasmus,” she repeated. “Can you cure him?”
    He shook his head. “I’ll do what I can, but there’s no organic disease to fight. And he’s so very little.”
    She nodded, accepting. They were always accepting, it seemed to Seth. While he railed and shook his fist at the heavens, they lost their sons and daughters andhusbands and wives and accepted it because he told them there was nothing else to do.
    He washed his hands at the Denton’s sink and took the towel that Caroline offered him. “Where’s Mr. Denton?” he asked, not wanting to leave this poor young mother alone with her ailing baby.
    If Seth had had a sick child he would want to be there with the child and for his wife, not off somewhere.
    Now, there was a strange and errant thought—Seth Hendon with a wife and a son. A chill ran through him. He’d had sickness in his family. He’d had death. He’d buried his parents. He’d buried Sarrie. He’d attended the funerals of every patient that hadn’t made it. That was more than enough, thank you. He was done.
    “Horse threw a shoe and Jimmy had to take him in to town,” Caroline said. They smiled sad smiles at each other, an acknowledgment that life had a way of going on.
    Caroline took back the towel and poured them each a cup of tea. When she set the cups out on the table she seemed unnaturally calm.
    Seth knew what was coming, wanted to race out of the house before she could ask it, wanted to jump into his buggy and be halfway to town before she could get the words out so that he wouldn’t have to hear them, wouldn’t have to answer them.
    But instead he pulled out the chair and sat. And as he knew she would, she asked. Her eyes were clear and dry and except for the grip on her teacup between her hands, one would have thought the question had nomore import than whether or not it was going to snow. “Is he gonna die?”
    “A baby needs to eat,” Seth answered. “An adult can go