Free Of Flesh and Blood by Daniel Kalla

was proving worthwhile. “Ouch. Awkward.”
    “Awkward,
indeed
, darling.” Dot raised a bony finger. “Now if you’ve ever seen erotica of the period, you would realize that behind closed doors those randy old Victorians—in all likelihood my grandfather among them—wereup to sexual exploits that would make an X-rated-film star blush. But in public, prudishness and naïveté reigned supreme. Marshall didn’t appreciate the
appearance
of a deepening relationship between his daughter and her married surgeon.”
    “No.” Lorna sputtered a laugh. “I suppose he wouldn’t.”
    “Marshall was
so
outraged that he found Olivia a new doctor and banned Evan from his house.”
    “I’m guessing that didn’t keep them apart, though.”
    “Olivia secretly went to work for Evan.”
    “
Secretly?
” Lorna frowned. “How do you secretly work at a doctor’s office?”
    “I imagine you don’t, darling. Olivia came to work for Evan at his own home. To help his wife, Virginia.”
    Lorna shook her head and sighed. “Okay, now you’ve lost me.”
    “At that time, Virginia McGrath was a shut-in.
Utterly
disabled. Out of gratitude to Evan, Olivia came to his house to help out. A companion. The kind of horrid care aide thing my nieces and nephews want to impose on me now.” Dot rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Could you imagine?”
    The poor care aide
, Lorna thought, but she shook her head sympathetically and smiled. “What was wrong with Virginia?”
    Dot swept a hand from her knees to her hips. “The ‘creeping paralysis’ is what they used to call it.”

    The partnership between Alfredson and McGrath sprang almost spontaneously from their first meeting. In Evan, Marshall recognized a visionary. And in Marshall, Evan found a champion.
    —
The Alfredson: The First Hundred Years
by Gerald Fenton Naylor
    Evan and Virginia McGrath lived in a four-bedroom home of the newly popular four-square style. Identical houses had begun to pop up all over Seattle in subdivisions that sprouted around the new cable car lines like barnacles on a dock. Having little interest in architecture or social appearances, Evan had chosen the house because of its proximity to the city’s only hospital (a modest two-story structure on Fifth Avenue, run by the Sisters of Providence) and its setting on a flat, easily accessible street that would allow wheelchair entry.
    Outside of his work, Evan’s sole focus for the last few years had been the care of his ailing wife. But in the past three months a new distraction had crept into his life.
    Sitting in the dining room across the oak table from Evan, Olivia Alfredson wore a blue high-waist jacket and matching skirt with her long red hair piled and pinned above her head. Her pink cheeks were scattered with light freckles, and Evan noticed how agreeably they had filled out in the weeks since her surgery. She had shed some of her shyness and, despite her well-mannered deportment, a spark of mischief danced in those jade eyes.
    The McGraths’ regular housekeeper, Mrs. Shirley, was at home tending to her ailing son. Her cousin, Miss Adele, was coming twice a day to perform light housekeeping and prepare meals, neither of which she did nearly as well as her cousin. But Evan considered Olivia a godsend. Without her, he would have had to leave Virginia alone during stretches in the daytime.
    Olivia reached for the pot of tea she had steeped and poured it into two waiting cups. Leaving the third one empty, she put the pot down and covered it with a colorfully embroidered cozy. “Will Mrs. McGrath nap for long?” she asked.
    Evan rubbed his eyes wearily. “Perhaps. As you know, these days, Virginia is so fatigued.”
    “Is that because of her multiple scler . . .” Olivia struggled to finish the term.
    “Multiple sclerosis,” Evan said.
    “I had not heard of this disease before,” she said sheepishly.
    “Most people have not,” Evan said. “Many still know it as ‘creeping paralysis.’ Dr.