All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright Mary Faderan and Colin Firth
There was a bad storm brewing when Mike Oates
finally decided to call it a day that night. He had been
working ten-hour days for weeks since he last saw his mother.
He was beat, and he knew it. It was the only way to serve his
time so he could get done quicker. He was looking at ten
months of working in the Appalachians as a community
doctor. It was already April. He had a little over eight months
to go.
Jonathan said that if things went well for the first six
months, he might be able to persuade Harald to let him come
back to work as a full-time doctor somewhere else.
Mike slept fitfully that night and then got up again to
start the day. The skies were blue that morning, and birds
chirped outside his window. His house was modest and
offered a bedroom and living room and a bathroom. There
was a small kitchen area, but it was not something he enjoyed
being in. He loved to have good food, but his meals were
spare and tasteless. He had lost a few pounds, and it made his
clothes sag around his legs.
Mike would sit at night to watch the news and then fall
into a stupor from the exhaustion he felt almost every day. His
work was good, and he kept up with the medical news. His
patients were pitifully poor, and most of them were very
grateful for his help and ministering. Some of the women
found him very attractive and tried to win him over. But he
only had his thoughts for someone in Columbus. He dreamed
of the day when he would come back to her and hold her in
his arms.
That morning, his office had a very calamitous
breakdown of the heating system. Everyone was chilled to the
bone as they administered to the patients. His nurse and the
secretary were clad in winter coats, and yet they seemed not
to care. “Dr. Mike, we really appreciate how you have come to
help us with our work,” chimed the secretary, Mrs. Dilby.
They knew little of his past, and he didn’t mention his
problems to anybody.
“No problem, Mrs. Dilby. It seemed to make sense at
the time to help out.”
“Well, ain’t nobody been here for a while, and we’re
happy you came just in time.”
Amy Tobin, the nurse, overheard them talking and
smiled happily at him. “Dr. Mike, you have your next patient
waiting.”
“Thank you.”
The morning became less pleasant and the chill of the
office became unbearable. Mike decided that the heater
needed to be repaired as soon as possible. “Mrs. Dilby, when
did they say they would come and fix the heater?”
“Oh, sometime later today, I reckon.”
“OK. Why don’t we all take a long lunch hour starting
now and come back later at three?”
“Fine with me!” Mrs. Dilby said.
“What are we to tell the patients?” asked Amy.
“Just tell them they can come back either this afternoon
or tomorrow. Or better yet, if they need more care, they can
take priority later today. How’s that?”
“Fine with me!” Amy said with a grateful look.
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