Duties and Dreams by John A. Heldt

Author:John A. Heldt [Heldt, John A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-08T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 44: BILL

Los Angeles, California — Monday, August 26, 1918

Bill stared at the doctor. With weary eyes, he looked at a man who had provided more questions than answers on this sultry morning.

"What's wrong with her then?"

Dr. Jacob Peterson frowned.

"I don't know, Mr. Carpenter. I just know that Beatrice passed every one of her neurological examinations. Though I agree she sleeps far too much for a six-year-old, I can't find anything wrong with her. I just can't."

Bill let out a breath. Sitting with Cassie in one of two chairs that faced the young physician's desk, he pondered his next move. He did not know whether to thank the doctor for delivering good news, interrogate him, or blame him for not doing more. Like his wife, he was tired and frustrated.

"What about medical literature?"

"What about it?"

"Does it reveal anything useful?"

Dr. Peterson shook his head.

"I thought it might. I thought it might tell us a great deal about why your daughter is sleeping fourteen hours a day, but I'm afraid it does not."

Bill touched Cassie's hand, gave her a glance, and then turned again to the best neurologist in Southern California. He was still not convinced that the physician with the boyish face had done everything he could.

Bill asked himself why a highly credentialed specialist could not offer more to two worried parents. Then he remembered what he was.

He was a time traveler. He was a man in 1918, a husband and a father who did not have access to CT scans, MRIs, or even sleep studies.

Like other triumphs of modern medicine, they would not arrive on the scene for several more decades. They were all things out of reach.

If Bill was thankful for one thing, it was that the doctor had not reported anything truly serious. Like Cassie and even Annie, who was already a nervous wreck, he had worried constantly about his daughter's health.

Bea had remained in Hermosa Beach. She had been more interested in playing on the beach with Annie, Millie, and the twins than spending a day with her parents in Los Angeles. She was happiest at home.

Bill was thankful for that. He knew that Bea would spend a lot of time at home in the next few months. She would spend all her time there.

Cassie and Bill had already explained to Bea why she had to stay home for the full semester. Though neither wanted to keep her out of school, neither wanted to jeopardize her health. Both knew that a pandemic that was creeping toward California could put their daughter at risk.

Bill knew more, of course. He knew the Spanish flu would put a lot of people at risk when it returned in October. For that reason and more, he had done what he could when he could to prepare for a calamity.

Now he had a bigger fish to fry. He had to learn why his "healthy" daughter slept too much. He had to unravel a mystery before the mystery turned into something worse. He looked again at the physician.

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