Free Shift (ChronoShift Trilogy) by Zack Mason Page B

with even mix of black and gray, and he wore a white coat as a uniform.  He paused his conversation with the woman long enough to greet Mark warmly.  His smile implied he would be the kind of man who would be popular around town.
    Mark took a stool at the counter and ordered a soda, listening carefully to the different conversations around the store.  Before long, the youngsters left and two middle-aged women came in chatting about everybody and their dog’s business.  He’d only been here for a few minutes and already Mark was learning a good bit about social life of Lawrenceville in the 1910's.
    Then, a lone mother in her early forties entered.  Her face bore a look of desperation that seemed all too familiar with its lines, wrinkles that were as yet still faint, but surely weathered deeper each year by some great burden life had heaped upon her shoulders.
    She asked the pharmacist for more of her son’s pills — she’d run out.  He retrieved a bottle from the shelf behind his head, and, with an air of panic in her movements, she paid and rushed out the door.
    After she’d left, Mark inquired about her.  In this age, the concept of privacy in medicine was non-existent and the pharmacist was more than happy to share his concerns for the poor woman and her family.
    Her name was Lucy Henderson, the wife of one of Lawrenceville’s most prominent and wealthy businessmen, Thomas Henderson.  Their son Jeffrey had suffered from a lung disease since he was a young child, and it only seemed to get worse every year.  They had tried all kinds of medicines and remedies, but nothing seemed to work.  Young Jeffrey just kept getting worse.
                It was worth looking into.  Mark bought a few random glass medicine bottles from the pharmacist, paid for his soda, tipped his hat, and left.
     
    ***
     
    “May I help you?” 
    Her beauty was not flirtatious, nor glaring, but a regal beauty as one would expect from the wife of a prominent businessman.  Her auburn hair was swept into a bun, a couple of streaks of gray in it the only sign of her real age.  If she used cosmetics, she used them modestly.
    “Yes, ma’am.  I heard that your son Jeffrey has some difficulty with his lungs.  I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but I think I may be able to help him.”
    She was taken off guard, which was understandable.
    “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t understand.  Are you a doctor?  I don’t know you.”
    “Of sorts.  Please, I heard about your predicament.  I am not sure if I can help, but if you will let me examine him, I may.”
    She was not sure what to do.  She sized him up for several seconds. 
    “Wait here,” she finally breathed.  “Thomas!”  She receded into the house.  After a minute, she returned.  “Please come in.  My husband is waiting for you in the study.”
    He was a solid, sturdy looking man.  As he and Mark shook hands, his no nonsense grip communicated an honesty one could respect.
    “I’m Thomas Henderson,” he introduced himself.
    “Mark Carpen.”
    “Lucy says you’re offering to help my son.  What do you know about him?”
    “Just that he’s sick with a lung disease and no medicine has worked for him so far.”
    “And why you think you can help?”
    “I won’t know if I can until I examine him, but I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t think it were possible.”
    “What are your qualifications?  Have you been to medical school?”
    “My qualifications aren’t important.  I have some medicines that may help him.  What do you have to lose?”
    “Well, it occurs to me that you may be a quack out to make a quick buck preying on desperate families, sir.”
    “I won’t ask you to pay me until you’ve seen the medicines work.”
    “What if these “medicines” hurt Jeffrey?”
    Mark shrugged.  Henderson stared him in the eye for a full minute weighing the man and his offer.  In the end, he either decided to trust Mark or desperation just won out.