Post by StoryGirl83 on Oct 4, 2008 22:03:31 GMT -5
Chapter Thirty – Leo’s Reason
Saturday, July 24, 1937
“You’ll pay for that Leo Wyatt,” Sophie Adams yelled across the yard. “Da says we’re not supposed to be wasting water.”
Leo Wyatt just grinned at the drenched girl, the now empty bucket hanging loose from his hand. “Oh, yeah? Well, my father said the price of a little water is well worth the fun it can provide.”
Sophie glared at him. “I suppose your dad can afford that, but I can’t go to Mrs. McGuffey’s looking like this.” To demonstrate she pulled at the sides of her wet blouse. “I have work to do.”
Thirteen-year-old Leo frowned. “Oh, fine. Come inside. I imagine Lydia has something you can borrow.”
“Again,” Sophie mumbled, “and I’ll stay right here.”
“Do you want something or not?” Leo asked, a little impatient. “You said you had to get to Mrs. McGuffey’s.”
Sophie nodded reluctantly. “After last time, she might not be so willing to let me use her clothes.”
“I already apologized,” Leo protested, “to both of you. It was an accident. I promise it won’t happen, again.”
“Not on purpose,” Sophie gave him a look, “but really, Leo, you have more than your share of accidents.”
“I know I’m not supposed to run inside,” Leo admitted before protesting, “but Penny Johnson scrapped her knee and she wanted her mother. How was I supposed to know you’d be coming around the corner right then?”
Sophie scowled. “Just go and see if Lydia will lend me a dress. I’ll wait right here.”
Leo started toward the door when he was stopped by the sound of his name.
“Leo Wyatt.”
Leo turned around, his frown turning to a smile at the sight of Mrs. Johnson. “Hello, Mrs. Johnson.” To a thirteen-year-old boy she was ancient at all of forty, but he thought she was kind of pretty, for an old lady. “How’s Penny doing?”
Mrs. Johnson smiled back, any mention of her seven-year-old sure to do that. “She’s doing fine. Would you deliver a message for me, Leo?”
Leo nodded. “Yes, Ma’am. What is it and for whom?”
“Just tell your mom that my cousin, Phoebe, agreed to do the photo session for her,” Mrs. Johnson instructed.
Leo frowned. “Who?”
Mrs. Johnson laughed. “She’ll know.”
Leo shrugged. “I’ll tell her.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Johnson told him before heading back away from the house.
Deciding that getting a dress for Sophie was the more immediate concern, especially since it was his fault she was drenched, he headed upstairs to the room his older sister used while they were in San Francisco with their grandparents. He reached the door to Lydia’s door and knocked. “Lydia, it’s Leo.”
When there was no response he knocked, again. “Lydia, I know you’re in there.” There still was no response, so he tried knocking harder. That only succeeded in hurting his knuckles. He stared at the door for several seconds. Finally, he turned the knob, just to make sure. She could have been ignoring him.
Present Day – 2005
“And that’s when I found her,” Leo informed Wyatt. Though he spoke to Wyatt standing only a few feet away, he didn’t really see him. Neither did he see Chris, standing in the doorway, or Paige holding both of his sons little versions in her lap. “She’d had a heart attack. The doctor said if I hadn’t found her when I did a few more minutes might have cost her life.”
Leo looked up, still not seeing them. “As it was she died four years later in childbirth, more than a year before I did. It was her heart. The doctor’s said she would have survived just fine if someone with medical training would have gotten to her sooner after her heart attack.”
Tears shimmered in Leo’s eyes as he finally saw those around him. “She wanted that baby and the doctors assured her husband afterward that while giving birth might have sped things up, she would have been dead within a year anyway. I decided as I stood by her grave during her funeral that if medical training sooner would have saved her, I was going to learn medicine, so that the next time I would be able to save someone else the heartache I was feeling. I decided then and there that I was going to become a doctor. That is why I decided to become a doctor.”