"Good evening," the doctor said, offering a shallow bow to Corrie, Hannah, and Jack. "I'm Doctor Howard."
Corrie introduced herself, "I'm Corrie Walker, Christina's sister. How is she? Have you any news?"
The doctor had just returned from examining Christina in the small bedroom they'd set aside for her. Much like Dr. Benjamin, the Howards had their medical practice attached to their brick home. Corrie, Hannah, and Jack had anxiously awaited news of their charge while the two doctors examined her. Dr. Howard, a man of average height with dark hair, adjusted the glasses on his narrow nose. While his wife was petite and plump, he was gawky and prim.
"May I speak with you in private, Miss Walker?" he asked, gesturing to a private room nearby.
Corrie felt her heart sink to her toes as she wordlessly followed the man into the office. Dr. Benjamin came after her and closed the door behind them. Corrie squeezed her hands together, fingernails digging into her palms. Both doctors faced her, and Corrie risked a glance at Dr. Benjamin. While Dr. Howard merely appeared grave and serious, Dr. Benjamin looked worried and his hair was ruffled from raking his hands through it too many times. Corrie felt a dark flutter of anxiety.
"What's going on?" she asked, her voice wavering.
"Alexander was right to bring her to me," Dr. Howard started. "While the fever, coughing, and throat congestion are of concern, I'm more worried about her growing weakness. I fear she's succumbing to the disease." Corrie fought a wave of dizziness that came with his words. "To be honest with you, Miss Walker, I'm amazed she has survived this long and that you and your family have not been infected. I strongly suggest to both you and Alexander that you undertake stricter sanitization methods. Pneumonia is both infectious and potentially fatal," he added, and Corrie watched Dr. Benjamin cowher under his critique.
"Is there anything we can do?" Corrie asked, straightening her back. "Is there hope?"
Dr. Howard sighed. "The fact that she's made it this long gives me hope if nothing else. Her leg has healed though I'm afraid she might not be able to use it again. At this point, there's not much else you can do. Salt air might help with the problems in her breathing, so you could take her to the ocean, but that's not going to cure her."
Corrie pressed her hand to her mouth and summoned her composure. "There's nothing we can do?"
Dr. Howard traded a glance with Dr. Benjamin. "There is an experimental procedure that has proven to support patients' immune systems so they can fight against the disease. It's an antiserum given to the patient via a transfusion which can be quite risky. It's not yet proven, but it does seem to reduce fatalities from pneumonia. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, it's experimental, and thus I can't promise the results. It's also quite costly, and-"
"We have to try," Corrie exclaimed, grasping the hope he offered fervently. "If there's a chance it could save her life. I'll call my parents and get the money somehow."
Again the two doctors traded a glance and Corrie fought her impatience. Why are they standing about instead of treating her?
"Miss Walker, there is no promise that the antiserum treatment will save her life. I have to stress that it's untested; it could make her worse instead of better," Dr. Howard said, his expression inscrutable.
Both doctors looked at her, and Corrie wondered how the weight of such an important decision had come to rest on her shoulders. Corrie was only four years older than her sister, and yet she was the one deciding her fate.
"Are there...what is the success rate in the past?" Corrie asked, her voice low.
"It's hard to tell. Most patients showed a little improvement, but new treatments always come with risks," Dr. Howard explained.
"Could you do it? Could you administer the treatment?" Corrie asked, looking beseechingly at the doctor.
He hesitated. "I could. I know where to get it, but Miss Walker, it's nearly 50 dollars."
Corrie felt her eyes widen at the amount. Fifty dollars was more than she was paid in half a year as a typist, and she had nowhere near that amount in her meager savings account. Her only hope was to convince her parents to find the money.
"May I...may I have until tomorrow to think about it?" Corrie asked.
"Of course. Is there...are you the one making decisions for your sister's health?"
"Yes," she answered. If only by default.
Perhaps if her parents spent more time worrying about her sister's health rather than about whether or not she would be married in the next year, her illness wouldn't have escalated so far. Corrie sighed; it wasn't fair to blame this on her parents. It was an untreatable illness. It struck with no warning, and they were lucky that Christina was even alive.
Corrie followed the two doctors out of the room, her head in a haze. There was no right answer to the dilemma before her. To refuse the treatment could be to surrender her sister to imminent death, but to accept it may be just as risky. Corrie closed her eyes, but the haze only seemed to grow until she could barely organize her thoughts.
"Corrie? What's going on?" Jack and Hannah cried, speaking over each other.
"I, uh...I need a moment. I need to think," Corrie said, brushing past her friend and aunt and exiting the Howards' home . The rain had slowed to a mere trickle, and Corrie watched as muddy streams raised down the street.
Corrie heard footsteps approaching and the gentle closing of the door behind her. Dr. Benjamin's kind voice interrupted her swirling labyrinth of thoughts.
"Miss Walker?"
Corrie didn't turn around but brushed a strand of hair that was damp from the misty rain behind her ear and wrapped her arms around herself. Of all people, he was the least desirable to come to her aid right now when she was vulnerable and in need of support. But of all people, he was the one who most acutely recognized her need.
He stood beside her, resting his elbows on the balcony and leaning forward. "I don't envy you the decision placed on your shoulders." He sighed. "Some decisions aren't black and white; there is no right or wrong. I wish I could promise you that Christina will be alright either way, but there's no way for us to tell. Sometimes you have to make a choice, come what may, and hope for the best."
Corrie turned to him suddenly, searching his eyes for a hint of understanding. "Have you ever faced a choice like this?"
The doctor glanced at her briefly, and then his eyes searched the heavens. "I've faced many choices where no answer was better than the other, but I can't--never one where my sister's life was in peril. Not like this."
Corrie watched as emotion overtook his expression. His normally smiling eyes frowned and Corrie saw the weight he carried. While Corrie often felt as if she and Christina were alone in the world, they still had parents who loved them or at least tried to; Dr. Benjamin and Hannah had no one, and Dr. Benjamin had been forced to be both brother and parent to his younger sister when he was but a child himself. Corrie slid her hand across the banister towards his but stopped it a few inches away.
"What would you do?" she whispered, craving advice in her hour of need.
His eyes remained on the trickling raindrops in front of them. "No one can make that choice for you, Miss Walker. I wish your parents or...or someone else were here to provide you the counsel you seek."
Corrie pled with him, "Please. As a doctor and a brother, can you give me any advice?"
Doctor Benjamin turned to face her, his eyes still bearing a weary, world-worn expression. "Miss Walker, all I can say is this: If I had the chance to save my parents when I was twelve years old and they died of pneumonia, I would have. I would have done anything to save them."
"They..." Corrie struggled for words, her voice a mere whisper. "They died of pneumonia?"
He held her gaze, his eyes oceans of pain. "They did."
Corrie now understood why he was so invested in saving her sister's life and why her failing health so troubled him. He had no control over his parents' death, but he had the chance to save Christina.
"Do you think Dr. Howard's treatment could work?" Corrie murmured, eyes still on his.
"I think it could."
"Then I want to try it."
SIlently, Corrie added, your parents couldn't be saved, but perhaps Christina still can be.
~~~~~
I hope you enjoyed the tiny bit of Dr. Benjamin backstory in this chapter! Do you think Corrie should approve the treatment or is it too dangerous?
Thanks for reading as always!
~ Hannah