1864
Three weeks into my recovery at Harewood General Hospital, Eb Wilkes showed up and stood before me, and, just as I expected, he was full of untold glee. “Can I sit?” he said. Then he perched on the edge of my cot just where my leg would have been if I still had one. “We’ve got to measure you up, Russell,” he said. “That’s right.”
“I am suppurating oil,” I said.
“Oil?”
“Fluid.”
“Never mind. I can adjust for the swelling. I’ve seen this before.”
“My plan,” I told him, “is to head home as soon as possible.” I’d had all the time in the world to think this through. I would spend the last two semesters of my medical training in style. Find a commodious apartment in a rooming house, one where they cooked for you. I had all that money tucked into the back of the doll, enough to finish m
