Courting Under the Clouds
Chapter 1
Late December 1879
It was late in the day that Nick and Heath Barkley rode into Stockton and hitched their horses to the rail in front of Dr. Merar's office. Neither one was sick – at least they didn't think they were – but they had promised their mother they would check in with the doctor about what looked like might be a hereditary problem among the Barkley men.
A few weeks earlier, Victoria had finally read one of her husband's journals, the last one he kept before he was killed. In it, he wrote that he was having trouble with chest pain and breathing. He had never told Victoria about that, perhaps because he was killed before he could.
What she read disturbed her, but when her oldest son Jarrod confessed that he was having similar symptoms and was seeing a heart specialist in San Francisco for what the doctor diagnosed as heart failure, she was alarmed. Not just for Jarrod – that was bad enough – but for Nick and Heath and even Eugene, the doctor, as well. If this disease was passed down from father to son, they could be affected, too. The possibility that all her sons could fall victim to it was almost more than she could bear.
So, Nick and Heath agreed to see the doctor and get his opinion, even though neither of them was feeling any symptoms yet. When they went into his office, he came out of his examining room and looked at them in surprise.
"Afternoon, Doc," Nick said, holding his hat in his hands.
"Afternoon," Dr. Merar said, looking perplexed. "What brings you boys to me?"
"Nothing urgent, I don't think, but we need to talk to you."
Dr. Merar stepped aside and motioned them to come into the examining room. "Let's talk, then."
Nick and Heath went in and sat down in two chairs there. Dr. Merar followed and closed the door. He stayed standing and leaned back against the examining table, folding his arms in front of him.
Heath said, "We need to talk to you about Jarrod and our father."
Dr. Merar raised an eyebrow. He expected that at some point they'd come to him about Jarrod, but about their father? That surprised him.
Heath went on. "Mother read one of our father's old journals a few weeks back and saw that he had been feeling some chest pains and some breathing problems just before he was killed. Then the other day, when Jarrod was home for a visit, I was with him when he had a real bad attack of chest pain. He told us that he'd been seeing a doctor in San Francisco for heart trouble."
Dr. Merar nodded. "I was aware of Jarrod's problem, but not your father's."
Nick said, "Apparently Father didn't tell anybody about his trouble – never got a chance to. But when Jarrod said he had the same thing, well, Mother got concerned that this was something that was being handed down."
"And you're wondering if you might fall victim to the same thing," Dr. Merar said.
"Neither one of us is having the pain or the breathing trouble or anything like that," Heath said, "but Jarrod – frankly, Doc, he looked pretty bad when he had those chest pains. He took a little pill he had with him and it all cleared up, but it was scary to see."
"Well," Dr. Merar said, "as far as the two of you are concerned, if you're not having symptoms, then there's nothing I could do to see if you were developing heart disease. There's no real test for it, and there's nothing I could do for you until you came up with symptoms anyway. In other words, don't go losing any sleep over it. There's no guarantee that you will get sick, and no guarantee that you won't. Only time will tell."
"And Jarrod?" Nick asked.
"What did he tell you?"
"Just that he had these symptoms and he had these pills that helped the pain, but he had something called heart failure. That meant his heart wasn't working as well as it should, but it didn't mean he was going to die anytime soon."
Heath was more sober. "He is dying from it, though, isn't he?"
Dr. Merar sighed. "It's a gradually debilitating disease, and yes, in the end he will die from it, but only if something else doesn't get him first. He could live just fine for several years before he becomes incapacitated."
Heath still looked concerned. He still remembered Jarrod's words in that alley, when he'd collapsed into Heath's arms. I'm the one who's dying. He knew that Jarrod was afraid, and that made Heath afraid for him too, despite what he might have shown to everyone else.
Dr. Merar saw it but misread it. "Neither of you is guaranteed to get this disease."
"That's not what's troubling me," Heath said. "That attack he had was bad. I'm scared for him, not for me."
Dr. Merar tried his best comforting smile. "He has the best modern medicine to help him with this, and I've traded letters with his doctor in San Francisco. He's doing quite well. These angina attacks are not that frequent, even if they are scary. Is Jarrod still in town?"
"No, he's gone back to San Francisco."
"He still wants to practice law, and he's got a lady friend he's seeing there," Nick said.
Dr. Merar's smile got bigger. "Well, then, I'd say he's handling things very well. What he needs most right now is to do whatever makes him happy."
Heath finally smiled. "He did seem pretty happy."
"Then be happy for him," Dr. Merar said. "Nobody knows how this disease will progess for him. It's different for everybody. Take it one day at a time, and for now – sounds to me like you have a happy and reasonably healthy brother. And now, how is your sister Audra doing?"
Nick could smile now. "Better every day. Mother and Carl are fussing over her, even though she's up and getting around."
"She's still skittish about coming into town alone," Heath said.
"Well, she had a bad scare when that drifter attacked her. Her nerves will settle down – except, of course, they're bound to fly back up as she plans this wedding."
Nick got up, and Heath rose with him. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, she's doing better all the time. Thanks, Doc," Nick said and shook the doctor's hand. "What do we owe you?"
Dr. Merar waved him off and shook hands with Heath. "Nothing. We're just friends talking here. Now, you two just have a very prosperous new year."
"You, too, Doc," Nick said.
Nick and Heath left and stopped on the boardwalk before mounting up to leave. Nick looked at Heath and asked, "How do you feel about all that?"
"A little better," Heath said. "Glad we're okay, and maybe a little more optimistic about Jarrod. How about you?"
"Same I guess," Nick said. "I suppose we'll have to see what Mother thinks."
"If she really lets us know. This has got to be hardest on her."
"Yeah. Well, let's go talk to her. She might not feel wonderful about all this, but maybe she'll feel better."
XXXXXXX
That same evening, Jarrod was walking Maggie home after not having seen her for a week. They walked slowly, arm in arm, happy to be together again. Jarrod told Maggie a bit about his visit home – leaving out the attack on his sister for the time being – and described all the wonderful things like the cookies and Christmas dinner before he told her something he was sure she'd find very important.
"And – I told my family about my illness," he said.
Maggie actually stopped, her mouth open as she gaped at him. "You told them?"
Jarrod nodded. "I didn't have much of a choice, really. I had an angina attack while my brother Heath was around, and he refused to keep it secret."
"Good for him," Maggie said.
They began to walk again, and Jarrod chuckled. Since she witnessed an angina attack in mid-December, Maggie had been telling him that he should not keep his condition from the people who loved him. It was wrong in so many ways, and Maggie had no trouble listing them.
"How did they take it?" Maggie asked.
"Pretty well, while I was with them," Jarrod said. "What they said to each other when I wasn't around, I don't know. But the big surprise was that my father had similar symptoms before he was killed."
"What?"
"My mother never knew until recently when she read his journal. I think she's going to carry the most worry of anyone – not just because she's my mother, but now she's worried about the problem being hereditary and my brothers ending up with the same thing – and knowing my mother, she's privately cursing my father out for not telling her."
"I think I'd like your mother. But you know, there's no guarantee your brothers would be affected, even if it is hereditary," Maggie said.
"They'll talk to the family doctor and see how they are, but neither of them has any symptoms yet."
"That's good. I wouldn't worry if I were you."
"I'm not. They're both younger than I am – Heath by nearly ten years. Chances are if they get it, I won't – " He stopped. He had almost said I won't be around to see it, and he had nearly said it as matter-of-factly as if he were saying my eyes are blue.
Maggie noticed. She squeezed his arm.
"Well," Jarrod said instead. They were reaching the steps of her building, and as they stopped, he said, "I told them something else, too."
They stopped. Maggie turned to face him and said, "Oh?"
"I told them about you," Jarrod said, smiling. "I told them about us."
Maggie was open-mouthed again, but then she just smiled. "I hope they were happy about it."
"They were," Jarrod said. "They can't wait to meet you."
"Oh, that's making me a bit nervous."
"It shouldn't. They're wonderful people, and they'll see how wonderful you are."
Jarrod leaned forward and kissed her. They had dismissed any concern about being seen kissing in front of her door early on in their "courtship," and every day that went by they each considered dismissing other "proprieties," even if they didn't talk to each other about it yet. For now, for this first night back together, Maggie simply said, "I'm glad your visit went well, and I'm glad your family knows about you and about me."
"I promised to come back for a few days by the end of January," Jarrod said. "Please think about coming with me."
Maggie nodded. "I will."
Jarrod kissed her again and said, "Good night. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Til tomorrow," Maggie said, and went up the stairs.