The Ghosts of Aquinnah by Julie Flanders Page B

several bundles covered in brown paper.
    “ Would you like to add the paper to your order? I know Josiah sometimes picks one up for himself.”
    “ I would please.”
    “ Did you see that headline about the doctor there in Boston who killed himself?” Mrs. Luce asked, pointing at the front page of the Globe.
    “ I didn’t, ma’am,” Christopher said. “I’m afraid I can’t read the paper myself.”
    “ Too busy working to go to school, were ya?”
    Christopher smiled. “Something like that.”
    From his brief time visiting the apothecary, Christopher knew that Eliza Luce was in the running for the biggest gossip on the island, and there was nothing she loved more than discussing the latest scandals and rumors on both the Vineyard and the mainland. He could sense her disappointment at his inability to trade notes with her about this apparent scandal in Boston.
    “ Could you tell me what happened though?” he asked. “You said it was something about a doctor taking his own life?”
    “ Aye,” Mrs. Luce said, with an unmistakable gleam in her eye. “Shot himself right in the head and left behind a wife and four children. With a fifth child on the way! No one can make sense of it. The man was well respected in the community and all of his patients loved him. What would cause a man to do such a thing?”
    Christopher shrugged his shoulders. “Impossible to know, I guess.”
    “ Some are saying it was gambling that did him in. Got himself in too much debt and couldn’t dig his way out.”
    “ I guess that could do it. A shame, whatever it was.”
    Mrs. Luce nodded. “That it is.”
    She packed the bundles of medications Josiah had ordered into a large canvas sack and handed it across the counter to Christopher. “Everything Josiah asked for,” she said.
    “ Thank you, ma’am.”
    “ Tell me, is Dr. Winslow feeling okay himself?”
    “ As far as I know, yes. Why do you ask?”
    Mrs. Luce shrugged. “He mentioned needing some pain medication for a problem of his own is all, wondered if he’d injured himself.”
    “ Not as far as I know,” Christopher answered, admittedly intrigued. Perhaps the doctor had been so surly and disagreeable to him because of an ailment of his own. But Christopher doubted that was the case.
    “ Well, must not have been anything too serious then,” Mrs. Luce said. “Do give him and that young wife of his my best. I never can remember that one’s name.”
    “ Stella,” Christopher said.
    “ Ah yes, that’s it. That little wisp of a thing. I don’t know why I can’t remember her. She’s been here more than once with Josiah. I spose I’ve just never gotten used to the loss of Lillian.”
    “ Lillian?”
    “ Josiah’s first wife, may she rest in peace. I never knew a lovelier woman.”
    Christopher nodded, but the shopkeeper continued before he could respond.
    “ We never know why God sees fit to take the good ones, do we?”
    “ No ma’am, we surely don’t.”
    “ You best run along now, Christopher. It’s a long trip back to Chilmark.”
    “ Yes ma’am it is. Good day to you.”
    Christopher walked outside with Josiah’s medications and Stella’s newspaper and placed the purchases in the buggy behind Grover. He untied Grover’s reins and maneuvered the horse back to the road before jumping up in the seat and urging Grover forward.
    He winced as the buggy bumped along the uneven road. He had been going without the sling for a few days now but he regretted not wearing it for today’s journey, in spite of the fact that he was unsure whether he could drive the buggy with one arm. He wished he had at least tried. His arm had been throbbing almost continuously and he longed to get back to the Winslow home and stabilize it with his sling.
    The sun was starting to dip in the sky before Christopher made it back to Chilmark. He was grateful that at least the day was warm for late February. Winter had given the island a break since the blizzard that had left