James Easley smiled as he stepped off the train into the station in Philadelphia. He inhaled deeply, his ind taking him back to stories of his grandfather on his mother's side. "They felt a cry for iberty," he muttered to himself as the porter helped him get his bags. "NOw, we are finishing the job we began back then."
It was a couple days after Thanksgiving. His wife had read in Goday's how some women had been pushing for a national holiday of Thanksgiving for decades before Lincoln finally proclaimed it. He imagined thatthe citizens of that great city would be thankful to have the town back to themselves someday. But for now, it was fun for tourists like James to imagine the Founders meeting here in 1775, 1776, 1787, and what they would think if they were alive today.
After James checked his bags into his hotel for the overnight stay, he ventured to the hospital where Dr. Jacob Da Costa worked. He walked past... wait, was that a stroller? He furrowed his brow but walked on to where he'd been directed. He would have to investigate that later.
"Hi, old friend," he said to a soldier, in his late 20s, who had been sitting there staring ahead blankly. The soldier seemed to be snapped out of his trance as James spoke. "I know, it was your father who was very good friends with me. But, I promised I would look after you after he died a couple years ago. How are you?" James asked kindly.
"Okay. I still can't walk on this ting."
"It'll get better," James said. He knew the diagnosis from a letter this man had written to James' friend's widow. "Soldier's heart." Whatever it was that caused that long, faraway stare had to be part of it.
"I saw the President."
James was pleased. "I hope he's in good health. I would love to drop in and try to see him, but I imagine security is very tight after what happened earlier this year."
"He hasn't beefed it up as much as everyone else watches out for him," the soldier said.
His mind now away from the war, he was able to carry on a normal conversation. They laughed about a few things back home, James heard about this greatplayer named Joe Start, his apparent friendship with a black ballplayer, Octavius Catto, and Catto's attempt to get public transportation integrated in the state.
But, something James hadn't noticed had reminded his friend of the war again, and the soldier's voice became much more withdrawn, as if he was drifting away...somewhere. Or somewhen.
Dr. Da Costa came in at that moment, and the men shook hands; James had been here once before to see the soldier. James explained what had happened as they walked into the corridor.
Da Costa sighed. "I know. You haven't seen the nightmares, or his other symptoms. Most of these patients are simply here for non-specified cardiac ailments, but some of them, it's like the brain is affected, too."
"I'll bet you'll be glad when the war is over, and you can go back to seeing regular patients."
"The funny thing is, I've begun."
This seemed like as good a time as any to ask. "Now that you say that, I thought I sw... a child's stroller. Or maybe a bit small, more like for a doll..." He was incredibly confused.
"It is. With the last incursion into Maryland, there has been so much fighting there, a widow brought her girl to me, after months trying to find help elsewhere. She swears there could be some connection with Soldier's Heart."
"How does a small girl get soldier's heart?"
"That's what I wondered, too. My first words when the mother asked me to provide care was, 'I'm a doctor, not Mother Goose.' But you know how women are; especially mothers."
"Oh, yes, my son is sixteen now, and has his sights on a girl his age; pretty young Irish girl, seems to be a good fit, but has the insistence on care and compassion to be a nurse if she doesn't marry and have a dozen or so kids with him."
"These nurses are special; one of them took this mother and her little girl into her home. Anyway, the girl keeps re-creating scenes like from an invasion - I mean like in her mind, they come even if she's focused on something else, just like you saw in your talk with your friend. she's got these other symptoms that seemed... well, I wrote some colleagues back in Europe, and guess what?" Easley didn't know. "THere was a study of a girl 50 years ago with the same sort of thing from Napoleon's invasion of Russia, it appears. I just got a copy of it in the mail the other day."
Easley was intrigued. "So, there's a connection between that and Soldier's Heart."
"I can't say for sure, Jim," DaCosta said shrugging his shoulders slightly. "But science isn't worth much without imagination; finding those connections requires it. I go to my nurse's home and talk to the mom and that girl, and can't help but wonder. I guess if this mother's right, and this lead I'm starting to follow about anxiety, and what talking with these patients and that girl show some of the same things, well, maybe I've discovered some new, alien branch of medicine. But for now, I'm glad to be just a good, country doctor."
(I don't know if my ancestor ever went by Jim, but after I came up with the "I'm a doctor, not a..." quote, I couldn't resist.
Especially because alien has such a perfect ring here in the 1860s, meaning strange, yet also fits the Star Trek vibe.)