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By the time we make it back to Liberty, it’s half past three "Where to?" Hester asks

I shrug "The hospital"

The two-story brick house, Dr Blum’s clinic, sits back from the street on a tree-lined lot, and a woman in a white uniform and a little white hat sits at a desk in the front hall Apparently nurses no longer wear aprons

"We’re here to see Mrs Proudfoot," the vet starts out "I’m Dr Hester, and this is Patience Murphy" The lady looks confused She probably wonders who Dr Hester is, and I try to hide a sotten veterinarians called themselves doctors

The nurse scans a clipboard in front of her She runs her finger up and down a short list "We don’t have a patient named ProudfootThere ed already Is Dr Blue roster?"

"Dr Bluo The hospital’s staffed by nurses and Dr Holden from Delmont, when he can come" She runs her short nails down a separate clipboard "There’s no Proudfoot here" She shakes her head irritably

"It was a fall, ere told Maybe a concussion"

"Are you kin?" the nurse asks

"Just friends," I interject "I’ colored wooes on in the little nurse’s eyes "A Negro woman?" We nod "Well, she wouldn’t cooes hollow

"Co my arm I can see he’s pissed off It’s the way she said "We don’t cater to Negroes," as if this were an ice crea next to the car, Hester looks down at me "Sowhere is she?"

"I don’t know I don’t know I’d heard that Blum didn’t deliver black women at his hospital, but I didn’t think that meant he wouldn’t take care of any colored people ever, even in an eency"