The World Made Straight. Ron Rash

said. “Maybe we’ll be in homeroom again, like in tenth grade.”

      “Maybe we could do something before then.” Travis spoke the words quickly, afraid if he didn’t they would hang on his tongue and he’d swallow them.

      “I’d like that,” Lori said.

      “Can I have your phone number?”

      She blushed slightly but kept her eyes steady on his.

      “We don’t have a phone.”

      “Can I call you at work?”

      “Yes,” Lori said, and took a blue pen from her apron. She looked for a piece of paper but there was only the ivory colored hospital chart.

      “Write it on my hand,” Travis said.

      He laid his open palm on the aluminum rail. Lori’s left hand gripped his wrist, the firmness surprising him. The pen tickled as she wrote the numbers.

      “Don’t forget and wash it off,” she said, a playfulness in her voice he hadn’t heard before.

      “I’ll not do that,” Travis said, making a fist as though afraid the numbers might slip away.

      When the nurse came in later he asked her to write the number on a card and put it in his billfold. That night as he drifted toward sleep he remembered Lori’s fingers and thumb as they enclosed his wrist, how good that felt. Travis wondered if her fingers had measured how much her touch speeded up his heart.

      July 14, 1857

       A.M.

      Nail Hinson, age 6.

      Complaint: Copperhead bite.

      Diagnosis: Non-envenomed snakebite. Corn snake? No fang marks or noxious swelling.

      Treatment: Moistened tobacco applied to soothe pain.

      Fee: One dollar. To be paid with two peck of apples at harvest.

      Georgina Singleton, age 10.

      Return in regard to July 11 complaint of puniness and diagnosis of whipworms.

      Treatment: Two drams tobacco seed, whiskey, turpentine at bedtime for three nights.

      Wool rag soaked in heated turpentine on stomach each morning.

      Response: Voided fifty-seven worms. Continue treatment two more nights.

      Fee: None.

      Levi Peek, age 35.

      Complaint: Vomiting blood.

      Diagnosis: Hematemesis.

      Treatment: Alum and yellow root tonic before meals. No drinking of any spirits for month.

      Fee: One dollar. Paid with four pecks of chestnuts.

       P.M.

      James Shelton, age 28.

      Return in regard to broken leg set on June 20.

      Wear splint ten more days.

      Fee: No charge.

       Ten P.M.

      Summoned to Winchester Farm.

      Ellie Winchester, age 19.

      Complaint: Remittent fever three days. Abdominal pain.

      Shivering. Fifth day after childbirth.

      Diagnosis: Puerperal fever due to rupture and infection of fundus uteri. Lochia excessive.

      Treatment: Camphor. Boneset tea but patient too distressed to drink. Cold poultices to forehead. Sent husband to office to fetch Meigs’s Treatise on Obstetrics.

       Twelve A.M.