DOUBLE DUTY: CHAPTER NINE

Kitty wasn't herself. She'd bounced back and forth between the Long Branch and the jail all morning, just eager for it all to be over. She'd planned to find time to write another letter to Matt, but the day was wearing on her. Finally she'd had enough. She told Sam she needed to go home and lay down for a bit and asked him to let Quint or Festus know at closing that she was already home.

"Where's Kitty?" Galen Adams asked Sam when he walked in at day's end.

"Doc, she went home before noon today. Wasn't feeling good at all. Said she wasn't coming back."

"Thanks, Sam. I'll head over and see about having a drink at her house. Maybe she'd like to have some company."

But when Doc got to the house, there was no answer at the door. He muttered a curse to himself for not asking to have a key when Matt left. Matt would have shared that in a heartbeat. He walked back to Quint's shop only because it was closer than the jail. In luck, he found Quint just finishing up under a horse.

"I'm just a little concerned about her Quint," Doc explained. "It's not like her to hide in the house all afternoon."

Quint fished a key out of his pocket. "I'm almost done here, Doc. I was gonna head over to the Long Branch, but I'll just come home, make sure everything's okay. You go on ahead."

Mindful of Kitty's ability to protect herself with her pocket revolver, Doc let himself in the back door carefully.

"Kitty!" He called. "Hey Kitty! It's me! I'm coming in!"

She met him in the parlor, white as a sheet, looking like she'd staggered that far and couldn't have made it much farther.

"Doc, thanks. I'm getting back in bed now. I don't feel . . ."

"Oh for heaven's sake, Kitty, let me help you!"

He took her arm and steadied her as they headed for the bedroom. He made sure she was flat out in bed before he pulled up a chair to talk to her. It was then that he noticed the large pile of bedding on the floor, all rolled up in a ball. Instinctively, he knew. And he knew what to ask.

"Kitty," he said softly, taking her hand. "Tell me what's going on."

She took a deep breath, just looking into her gentle friend's eyes for a few moments. He didn't press, he knew to wait.

"I was sick all morning. I had such cramps, Doc. It was like before a course only so much worse."

Her eyes were filling with unshed tears. Doc rubbed her hand reassuringly, knowing she'd go on when she was ready. Decades of practice prepared him for what she was going to say. There was no need to hurry.

"It got so bad I knew I couldn't walk to your office. I barely got home. I was so hot, so sweaty. I just plopped down on the bed here. And then I felt it just like last time. Blood was coming, Doc. I thought about getting to the water closet but it was too bad, too fast. So much blood."

Her tears were falling now. Unconsciously, she squeezed Doc's hand. He gave her his handkerchief for the other one. She wadded it up, forgetting to use it.

"I couldn't walk anywhere. So I just piled up all the bedding and got on top of it. Doc, I'm so scared that maybe I was pregnant . . ." but her voice trailed off between sobs, and she looked away.

"Do you have pain now?"

"No. It stopped after all the blood."

"Kitty. Listen to me." Doc's voice was barely above a whisper. "I think you were pregnant, too. But you can't bleed like that and still be pregnant, I know you understand that."

"Yes." Her voice was quivering, and she still wouldn't look at him.

"I told Matt I was too old. He didn't believe me. You didn't believe me either. I just can't do this. I'm too old."

Doc released his hand from her grasp and started stroking her arm softly. Both of them were quiet. He knew what had happened. He just had to figure out a way to explain it. She wasn't just another patient. She was his family. He'd spent plenty of time badgering her about grandchildren, all in good nature. Matt had finally come around, after making her wait twelve years. They both wanted a child, and now this. God let her conceive, then God took it away. This was supposed to be the best time of her life, and now this. He knew he had to offer consolation like he'd never offered before. Before he drew a breath to speak, Kitty turned back again to look into his eyes.

"I lost my husband and now I lost our baby."

"Young lady, you have NOT lost your husband! Just don't even start on that! He's alive and well and a couple of days away by train. I'll have him here before the week's out. All it takes is a quick telegram, which I can assure you . . ."

"No, Curly," she interrupted him softly. "That's not what I want. I want him to do this new job without worrying about home for three months. That's what we agreed to. Then he'll come home or I'll go to Laramie. And that's just how it's going to be. Him coming home now isn't going to change what's happened to me. Don't interfere. It's not what I want."

"I'm going to get some hot water and sponge bathe you, Kitty. You know I need to examine you."

"Yes."

"Where is all the clean bedding kept?"

"Yeah, I guess I made a pretty good mess. Upstairs in the far armoire."

"All right. You just rest easy now. You've got me here to take care of you, and I promise you you're going to be fine. I'm not going anywhere tonight. I'll bet you'll even eat my cooking."

He was making every effort to lighten their mutually grim moods. If he could get her cleaned up and into a clean bed, he knew she'd feel better and he could talk with her. He put a big pot of water on the stove to heat, then went up the new stairs to the loft bedroom and found everything he needed. He let his mind wander. Everything about this house was perfect. The big stove that kept it warm all day, the pump in the big cheerful kitchen, the new stairs, the spacious loft upstairs, the huge master bedroom, just everything. And he knew that Kitty would have traded the whole thing for what she'd lost that day.

XOXOXO

The brilliant sunshine coming in the bedroom window woke Kitty the next morning. She was in a fresh, clean bed, dressed in a fresh, clean gown. She rolled over. All the soiled, crumpled-up bedding was gone. Somewhere. Who knows where. Then her mind replayed the day before, and everything was suddenly clear: Galen Adams, M.D., her best friend of all friends.

"You awake?" He shuffled into the bedroom with a big cup of coffee and an even bigger smile.

"Curly, thank you so much!"

"Oh, pshaw! It's just a cup of coffee, don't get all worked up about it!"

"No, you know what I mean. All your help yesterday and last night! You're the most amazing friend I could ever hope to have!"

"The very least I could do for all your hospitality, letting me stay in this beautiful home of yours, eat your food, enjoy your company, why . . ."

"Stop! You're just too much! I know you have work to do. You need to go and get to it."

"Nothing more important than you. Feeling better this morning?"

"So much better. Thank you again."

"I thought we could sit and talk for a little bit while you enjoy that coffee. I don't blabber on if my patient isn't feeling well."

"I'm all up to it. Go ahead and lecture me." She was smiling, definitely a good sign.

"Lecture? Lecture? There's nothing to lecture!"

"I mean, I was supposed to come and see you a few days ago. You said if I was six weeks late you wanted to examine me."

"Kitty," he said seriously. "There's nothing my exam could possibly have done to prevent what happened to you. Nothing. I'm going to get you over this part about blaming yourself and get you on to facing the future. You and I are partners in this."

"I love you, Curly!" She smiled sincerely, looking deep into his eyes.

"And I love you, too. That's why we're going to talk about this. So you just settle back and let me talk to you like a doctor." And he pulled up a chair and began.

"You had a miscarriage yesterday. We were guessing you were probably about six weeks along, and that's what it looked like to me. Let me give you one other idea about that, if you'll just listen to me for a minute. That means you were able to get pregnant. You said you were real late last month, too, and then you had a big course. My best guess is that you were pregnant both times. Not just this time, but last time too. Now stay with me on this. Conception is the first miracle in the process of new life. It means that you, young lady, are quite capable of producing a healthy egg from each ovary. Women who are 'too old' can't do that. And by the way, it means that Matt is fine, too. Sometimes women forget that the man's sperm is just as important in the whole process. Men can have maladies too. But in this case, you and Matt are a perfectly capable team. As your personal physician, that gives me joy. In the middle of this whole mess, we have at least that much joy."

Kitty smiled softly and nodded her head. "I didn't think of that, Doc. Go on."

"Well, think about the rest of it! The man's job is finished when that egg is fertilized. Like it or not, that's how nature works. All the rest of the work falls to the woman. She has to carry that baby for nine long months, go through the pain of childbirth, then provide milk for that baby for a very long time. You'd think the work would have been split a little more evenly, but it's not." His smile was broadening to match hers. "People, horses, cows, dogs, it all works the same way. And that, by thunder, is just not fair!"

They were both chuckling now. Kitty was amazed at Doc's gentle demeanor and his willingness to sit with her and simplify this.

"So what do I think is going on? I think there's a problem in your uterus that isn't allowing the first stages of life to thrive. And if you want blame, you can blame me. Not you, not Matt, but me. And I'm going to tell you why. Somewhere around a dozen years ago I told you to start using Malden to help protect you from getting pregnant. You and Matt had a very special relationship that I knew wasn't likely to change. I wanted both of you to be as happy as you could be, so I did my best. It's a very old herbal, Kitty, goes all the way back to 18th century Scotland. Somehow the Indians got wind of it, added their own compounds, and supposedly enhanced it. Point is, I know what it is, but I don't know a lot about it. We doctors always believed it had no cumulative effect because women who didn't use it right after every relation got pregnant. What we truly don't know is what it does to the uterus if it's used for years like you used it. Maybe I should have been more conservative. So maybe if you want to blame somebody, you should blame your doctor."

"Or Matt," she smiled. "Or Matt because of his beloved tin badge and all the strings."

"Okay. That's fine. He's not here let's blame him. Point is, we've come full circle in this conversation. We can blame somebody or something or we can get on to facing the future. They're doing a procedure in Kansas City now called dilation and curettage. They clean out the bad tissue in the uterus. It's a fresh start for any woman with your problem. They've done over two hundred of them now. It's highly successful. Most of these women go on to have healthy, full-term pregnancies. I don't have another patient who's needed it, but you do. There are no guarantees, but if you and Matt want to have a child, it's your very best chance."

"Why can't you do it?"

"Kitty, I would if I could. I don't have the equipment and I don't have the experience."

"Doc, I'd need to ask Matt if that's okay." Kitty was back to being completely serious. "I'll do that when he gets home."

"Not a good idea, Kitty. You've got some abnormal tissue. A miscarriage, much less two of them, can leave a lot behind. I don't want you to have infection. And this is just going to happen again and again if you ignore it. If you'll agree to this, you need to do it now. I can send that telegram . . ."

"NO! No telegram!" She got control of herself right away and quieted. There was no way she was going to raise her voice to her wonderful friend. Instead, she went on.

"How can I take time off now with all I've got to do? There's the Long Branch and the work at the jail, and reading the mail to Festus, and sending the mail to Matt."

"Kitty, what in tarnation about marrying Matt made you decide to stop managing your own life? Having this done is one week of your life against all the dreams you and Matt share for the future. By thunder, you need to wake up, young lady, and take charge of your life like you always have! Now I'm going to go to see some other patients, and you're going to take today off. Just one day, today. Do you hear me? You lounge around here all day. I'll be back with food from Delmonico's tonight. And when I get here, you'd better give me your decision!"

TBC