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

came for you,” Jed said. “I got the doc, like I said I would.” And then the boy followed Seth like some lost puppy as he made his way to Panner’s bedroom. Steam rose from the basins of water Ella had used to try to raise his temperature. In the middle of his bed, Joseph Panner looked wholly serene, if a bit gray. Beside him, in apuddle that was soaking into the bedding, lay the largest walleye Seth had ever seen, no doubt the one that Joseph Panner claimed was the largest in the world, the hook still protruding from his mouth.
    “Stupid fool,” Ella said.
    “I don’t think you’re supposed to speak of the dead like that, Miss Welsh,” Jed said, hanging in the doorway as if he were afraid to come into the room.
    “He wouldn’t be dead if he hadn’t been so stupid,” Ella said. “A goddamn fish. What kind of fool risks his life for a goddamn fish?”
    Seth had to wonder the same thing. The man apparently had everything else. “Something about wanting what we can’t have,” he supposed aloud, lifting the fish and handing it to Jed. It was heavy, heavier than any fish Seth had ever caught. Panner might have been right about it being the world’s biggest walleye.
    “If only you’da gotten him here a little sooner,” Ella said to Jed, her expression softening as she pushed Joe Panner’s graying hair off his forehead.
    “He was way over at the Dentons’,” Jed said, clearly defending himself since it had taken so long to bring Seth there.
    The town was too big, too sprawled out for one man to see to it. It was too much for one doctor.
    At least it was too much for Seth.
    “I thought I’d find you here,” Abby said as she came into Seth’s office with what was left of the dessert he hadn’t stayed for. She put two pie halves on his desk,piling his papers neatly in the corner of it. “Massachusetts General Hospital,” she said, pretending to be impressed.
    Seth pulled the paper from her hand. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
    No retort, no joke or cute little answer came to mind, so she told him the truth. “I was worried about you. Jed came home and told us what happened and I thought you might need me.”
    “
Need you?
” He sneered at her, and she caught a whiff of whiskey on his breath. “Need
you?
When chickens talk, my dear Miss Merganser, relative of the loon, that’s when I’ll need you.
If
then.”
    “Tea or coffee?” she asked, walking past him and heading for the small utility kitchen with the little stove meant really for heating up poultices and the like.
    “Go home, Miss Loon!” he shouted at her. His words were just a little slurred. Abby thought that he carried his drunkenness well. But then she thought he did everything well.
    “Tea, then,” she said. “I like how that goes with quince pie.”
    “I hate quince pie,” he said. “And I sure as hell don’t feel like celebrating tonight.” He stood and took the pies over to the door, where he placed them on the seat of a chair.
    “Of course you don’t. I don’t blame you.”
    “Well, I blame me. Who’s fault was it, if it wasn’t mine? Did I make it clear enough to Joe Panner that his penchant for walking on thin ice was going to kill him? You were there. I never even said—”
    “Said what, Seth? That if he fell into a frozen lake he’d likely die?”
    “I was way the hell across town,” he said, coming to lean against the doorjamb while she fussed in his kitchen.
    “You say
hell
a lot when you’re drunk,” she said, throwing him a quick look while she strained their tea.
    “I’m not drunk,” he said, coming closer to her, close enough for her to smell the starch in his white shirt. “You want to know how I know I’m not drunk?” he asked, and put his hands on her shoulders, turning her around so that she faced him.
    “How?” she asked, tipping back her head so that she could see his face, his sad dark eyes with the lines that radiated from them, reminding her of how he used to