A Time to Bloom (Leah's Garden #2)(59)
RJ stiffened. “I don’t think so.”
“I was skeptical too, young man. But I’m a believer now.” Mrs. Jorgensen adjusted her shawl once more. “I’d best get back to my husband. I just thought I should let you all know. Good night.” With nods all around, she made her way to the door and down the steps.
Robbie and Sofie ran after her to wave good-bye on the porch.
“Come, it’s getting dark.” Forsythia drew her children inside and closed the door. “RJ, I know this might seem an odd treatment, but where’s the harm in trying? For Mrs. Jorgensen—I didn’t want to give details while she was here, but Adam examined her in his office before you came, and the majority of the boils had already opened and are now draining. And she was in such misery before.”
“Does Mr. RJ have a boil in his eye, Mama Sythia?” Robbie clasped his arms around his mother’s skirts.
“No, I don’t have a boil in my eye.” RJ’s irritation spiked, and he slammed his hat onto the rack by the door.
“But the mineral salts in these waters can have so many healing properties.” Del followed him. “Adam says he’s been researching his medical journals about it, and people soak in the water for rheumatism, consumption, all sorts of things.”
“Of which I have none.” He knew his tone sliced, but he couldn’t help it. He turned to face them all. “No miracle mud plaster is going to bring back my eye, and I don’t wish to be a subject for experimentation.”
Silence hung. Sofie whimpered. Del lowered her gaze, her thumbs rubbing the sides of the little crock.
Adam reached down and picked up his little girl. “No one is going to force anything on you, RJ.” His voice was even. “Merely see it as an option, should you choose to try it.”
“Right now I just need to try to find more workers for the boardinghouse. I had to fire one today for showing up drunk.” RJ turned toward the staircase. “Let me know if you hear any word of response to Mr. Young’s advertisement. I’m going to bed. Good night.”
He stomped up the stairs, pain flashing in his head with each step.
In his room, RJ threw himself on the bed and flung his arm across his face. What a louse he was, speaking that way to the people who had taken him into their home. It would serve him right if they kicked him out onto the dirt streets of Salton.
An unexpected lump of homesickness rose in his throat. The Brownsvilles and Nielsens had been kindness itself, but he missed his family, missed Esmay and Emmaline, Jemmy and Jehosephat, and especially his parents. He’d written home, and Esmay wrote often, but it wasn’t the same. He even missed Francine—or not her exactly, now that he saw more of who she was, but what he’d had with her, who he thought she’d been.
What was he doing out here, bumbling about on the Nebraska frontier, supervising a building project as if he knew what he was doing? Not that he didn’t—he had the training and the expertise, but it wasn’t like he’d imagined. Maybe the rest of the population of Salton was building a new life, but not him. He was just a sham, forcing his way through each day until he could take another pill from the opium bottle and forget everything in sleep for a few hours.
Moisture leaked from his good eye, trickling down toward his ear. He swiped at the tears with the back of his hand. At least no one was here to see his foolishness. Misery squirmed in his gut at the memory of the look in Del’s eyes a few moments ago. Why was he always at his worst around her?
“Lord God, I’m a mess.”
The words caught in his throat. There was no answer save the breeze at the curtains, the cooling dusk as light faded from the room.
At a tap at the door, he sighed and sat up. “Come in.” No doubt it was Adam, either to remonstrate or to attempt to convince him to try the treatment.
But Forsythia slipped into the room, hesitated, then sat on the end of the bed.
“I want to apologize, RJ. I expect we rather overwhelmed you down there.”
He rubbed his forehead. “No, it was me. Forgive me. This eye of mine—it makes me half-crazy at times.”
“That’s why we want so much to find something to help you. But not if you don’t want it.”
Silence rested over them for a moment, a comfortable one this time.
Forsythia gazed at the fluttering curtains of the window, face thoughtful, her golden hair silvery in the fading light. She reminded RJ of Del, if less discomfiting. Forsythia didn’t have Del’s eyes, though—those striking eyes that seemed to change color with what she wore, sometimes gray, sometimes blue. When he was around her, he seemed always aware of those lovely eyes.
RJ shook himself. What was Forsythia saying?
“. . . wanted to explain a little more about Mrs. Jorgensen. When we all first arrived here a year ago, before Adam and I were married, he rented rooms next to the Jorgensens’ store. But Mrs. Jorgensen would have nothing to do with him. The previous doctor in town was a charlatan, a terrible man by the sound of it. He dosed people with poisons or quack remedies and made several sick. But the worst of it was, when the Jorgensens’ daughter was struggling in childbirth, he clumsily attempted a dangerous procedure. I’ll spare you the details.” Forsythia drew a long breath. “Both mother and baby died. The husband gave up and went back east—we actually took on his abandoned homestead. Mrs. Jorgensen didn’t trust any doctor after that.”