Willa opened the door wider, and Leroy went to Papa’s bedside.
“I’ve been giving him the Miracle Elixir regularly, but I don’t know that it’s helping.” Speaking her fear out loud somehow made it more real, and she almost wished she’d held her tongue.
Leroy glanced at her a moment before returning his attention to Papa. “Has the doctor been by?”
“Earlier today.” Why hadn’t he addressed her concerns about the elixir? Willa’s heart beat faster. All the doubts that had arisen within the past few days poked at her mind, eager to escape. Why couldn’t she leave well enough alone right now? Papa was sick, and that was all she should worry on.
And yet, the nagging doubts wouldn’t go away.
Maybe it was Papa calling Mama by the wrong name, or maybe it was the way that Leroy hadn’t acknowledged her fear about the elixir, but suddenly Willa wanted to know more. More about everything—Papa, the elixir, the show. If she knew, maybe she could finally put all these worries to bed and keep her attention on her father’s well-being.
She perched on the end of Papa’s bed. “Leroy, earlier, when he was calling out for my mother, he called her Petra Rogers.”
Leroy looked at her now, his forehead wrinkling. “Perhaps that was her name before she married?”
“It wasn’t. She was Miss Bailey then, I know for certain.”
“Must be the fever, making him confused.” Leroy stepped away to draw up the chair from the desk. “It does that to folks sometimes.”
“But why would he make up a name like that?” she pressed.
Leroy shrugged his shoulders as he sat. “You ought to ask the doctor. He may know.”
Whatever the reason was, Leroy didn’t seem to know the answer to that question. Willa moved on. “Dr. Gatewood went to the medical college in Cincinnati. Papa never told me where he trained to be a doctor, and I always wondered. Did he ever mention it to you?”
Leroy tilted her head. “Your pa didn’t learn in school. He trained himself.”
“But how is that possible? I thought doctors had to go to a medical school or at least apprentice under another physician.” Willa made herself speak the words, suddenly unsure that she wanted the answer.
“Not your pa. He read books, and talked to another fellow who ran a medicine show back in Missouri, he told me.”
“But how does that make him a doctor?” she asked in a quiet voice, as she looked at Papa, asleep and unaware of their conversation.
“Well, now . . .” Leroy leaned back in the chair, tilting it onto two legs. “I suppose some folks might not consider him one.”
Willa’s throat seemed to swell in size, as if she were the one who was ill. “He isn’t a doctor.”
“Oh, he is. Just not by some people’s standards, I suppose. Look at all those people he’s helped. They’d all call him a doctor.” Leroy set the chair down on all four legs, and she could feel his eyes on her. “Willa, don’t let something like that bother you. It ain’t important.”
But it was. All these years, she’d assumed Papa’d had the proper training. That he was adoctor. But he wasn’t, and the knowledge churned into a deep sadness inside Willa.
Her father looked different to her now. An old man fighting a fever beneath the bedcovers. A salesman. A showman. Not a doctor.
Why didn’t you tell me?She took his hand and held on to it. She wouldn’t have minded at all, if he’d just told her the truth.
But if Papa wasn’t a doctor, then what was in the elixir?
Willa drew in a deep breath. Papa did want to help people, she knew that for certain. And maybe as Leroy said, he didn’t need formal training to do that. He read and he learned, and he had a way with medicines. And she’dseenhow he’d helped people. They came back to the shows and thanked him. And beyond the medicine itself, he gave them the hope they so desperately needed.
“Your father helps people,” Leroy said, as if reading her mind. “Don’t you ever doubt that.”
“I don’t.” Willa held tight to her father’s hand. “I know he does.”
She didn’t need to know what was in the elixir. Papa and Leroy made it themselves. It worked, and how was she to know it wasn’t helping Papa right now, just more slowly than it had cured the others?
But trust was a fragile thing, and Willa held on to it with all her might. Without it, she wouldn’t know whoshewas, much less her father.
