Isabelle and Alexander, Rebecca Anderson [nonfiction book recommendations .TXT] 📗

tried it out in her mind. Alec. She thought she rather liked it. She wondered if she’d ever feel comfortable calling him by such a familiar name. After the many times over the past few days that she’d spoken his name and he remained unresponsive, it was still strange to think she’d never even addressed him as Alexander when he was awake.

After requesting tea, Isabelle took a seat on the chair next to Alexander’s feet. This way, she could glance over and see his face. But when the doctor sat in the chair near Alexander’s head, she saw that he’d made the more intimate choice. His hand immediately came to rest on Alexander’s hair, cupping his head in a gesture so gentle, so familiar, that it brought a tear to Isabelle’s eye.

“You love him,” she heard herself say.

“That I do, that I do.” The doctor stretched his legs in front of him, settling himself in. He readjusted his shoulders in his chair, making himself comfortable enough to stay as long as Isabelle chose to keep him there. “As I loved his father, rest his soul. Thomas Osgood was a decent, hardworking man, and if Alec has told you he was a hard man, he’d not have told you all.”

Once again, Isabelle squirmed under the assumption that Alexander had told her anything of his past, of his family. Isabelle had never even known Alexander’s father’s name had been Thomas.

If Doctor Kelley noticed her discomfort, he chose to speak over it. “Had a difficult journey of it, did Thomas. He owned a smithy in the village, a very successful one. He made a name for himself far and wide in a few years.”

The doctor’s gaze softened as though he were seeing Mr. Osgood’s smithy in his memory. “Men traveled a fair distance to receive services from Thomas Osgood, and he managed to save a good deal of money by the time our Alec came along.”

Doctor Kelley leaned toward Isabelle to emphasize his words. “Always wanted something different, something better for his boy. Sent Alec away to school, hoping an education would help him rise a bit further in the world.” The doctor looked sideways at Isabelle and cocked his eyebrow. “Bit revolutionary, that,” he said with a conspiratorial grin.

Isabelle nodded, well aware from her own father’s experience that a few decades ago, it would have been difficult to imagine anyone becoming more than he was born to.

The doctor continued. “When Thomas’s wife took ill, he cared for her as well as he could, working as much as possible while she rested. Near wore him down. Alexander was shielded from the hardest parts of his mother’s illness while he was at school, but Thomas had very little left of the nurture and compassion he gave to his wife to share with his son. Poor lad was raised without much of gentleness and motherly care.”

The doctor let his hand trail along Alexander’s hair for a moment. “And at the loss of his dear wife, Thomas turned to his work to bury his pain.” He looked at an indistinct something on the wall, lost in a memory. When he seemed to recollect himself, he sat up straighter and slapped his hands against his knees. “Well, and all of that to say that sometimes a man who appears cold or distant often has reason to seem so. Even if it’s not his true nature.”

Isabelle understood that Doctor Kelley was speaking of Alexander’s father but recognized reflections of her husband’s character in his words. It was possible that keeping himself so busy at the mill was a way to protect himself from something. Possibly, she allowed, even to protect her.

“Did you know,” the doctor continued, “that upon finishing his schooling, our Alexander became the pride of the whole valley here when he purchased that ramshackle mill works up north? And nobody was more delighted than his old dad, though it was difficult for him to show it.”

With the doctor’s easy conversation, Isabelle relaxed for the first time in days. He continued to tell her stories he must have assumed she’d heard, about Alexander’s fortuitous purchase of the old mill that had been abandoned by its owners when modern equipment and facilities became more commonly available. She listened to stories of Alexander’s childhood exploits that left him with bone fractures and bruises enough to keep Doctor Kelley busy. She only realized she was nodding off when her head fell forward enough to jerk her awake.

Humiliated and horrified, she fluttered to set down her teacup and rise from her seat. Although the good doctor looked far from censure, she felt desperate to apologize. “Oh, Doctor Kelley. I’m so sorry. Please don’t consider my impolite response to your delightful stories as anything other than what I am beginning to realize is a deep fatigue.”

“My dear Mrs. Osgood, if I may be so bold as to address you as such,” he said, rising from his chair. “If I have done anything to ease your mind, your heart, or your limbs today, I will feel it a day doubly well spent.”

He touched Alexander’s forehead again, nodding. “I believe he’s still warmer than we’d like him. Allow me to administer another cooling salve, and then I shall let the two of you rest. With your permission, I’ll check back in this evening after dinner, but I guarantee you I’ll not overstay my professional welcome.” The wink with which he delivered his promise assured Isabelle that he was unoffended by her show of exhaustion.

As she showed him out of the parlor and to the door, the good doctor placed a paternal hand on her shoulder. “Of all the good fortunes our Alec has received, earned or unearned, you might turn out to be the greatest of them all. We shan’t let him overlook it, shall we?”

Isabelle was startled at the love that welled up inside her for this sweet man. Her gratitude for his time, his attention, and his hope ran deep within her.

He