The Town Physician

A test...and an offer

The small town of Millford had one doctor, and everyone knew Dr. Griffin Reed. At 68, he still made house calls, delivered babies at three in the morning, and never sent a bill to families who couldn’t pay. His office was a converted parlor in the old Victorian on Maple Street, the same house where he’d grown up, where his father had practiced before him. The waiting room smelled of antiseptic, and patients left with a handshake and a word of encouragement.

Lately, though, Dr. Griffin had been slowing down. His hands trembled when he wrote prescriptions, and he sometimes paused mid-sentence, searching for a name or a symptom. He told no one. The town needed him; the nearest hospital was 40 miles away over winding roads. Retirement wasn’t an option, not yet.

One October morning, a new patient arrived, a young woman named Eileen Voss, 34, thin with dark circles under her eyes. She carried a thick folder of medical records from three cities.

“I’ve seen specialists,” she said. “None of them can tell me what’s wrong. I just… fade. Every day a little more.”

Griffin listened as she described the fatigue, the unexplained weight loss, the fevers that came and went. He examined her carefully, ordered blood work, and scheduled follow-ups. Over weeks, he pored over results late into the night, consulting textbooks he hadn’t opened in years. The tests pointed to a rare autoimmune disorder. It was treatable, but aggressive if caught late. He started her on medication, adjusted doses, watched her improve little by little.

Eileen began to smile again. She brought him homemade bread, sat longer in the waiting room chatting with other patients. Griffin felt a quiet pride he hadn’t known in years. This was why he stayed.

Then came the day she arrived early, folder in hand, looking stronger but anxious.

“Dr. Reed,” she said, “I need to tell you something.”

He gestured to the chair across from his desk.

“I’ve been lying to you.”

She opened the folder and slid out a photograph of herself, younger, standing beside an older man in a white coat. The man was Griffin, thirty years earlier, at a medical conference.

“My real name is Eileen Carter. I was your patient when I was nine. You diagnosed my leukemia. You fought the insurance company to get me experimental treatment. You saved my life.”

Griffin stared at the photo. His memory flickered and he pictured a scared little girl with braids, her mother crying in the hallway.

“I moved away after remission,” Eileen said. “But I never forgot. When the symptoms started again last year, I knew where to go. I didn’t want pity or special treatment. I wanted to know if the doctor who once believed in me still believed in medicine enough to fight for a stranger.”

She reached across the desk and placed an envelope in his hand. Inside was a letter from a renowned research hospital offering Griffin a fellowship. It included teaching, consulting, no night calls, no house visits.

“They’ve been watching your work quietly for years. They want you. And they’ll take me as your first case study if you accept.”

Griffin looked at the trembling in his own hands, then at the woman who had walked back into his life disguised as a mystery.

“You didn’t need to trick me,” he said.

“I needed to know you hadn’t given up,” she replied. “And I needed to give you a way out before the town lost you the hard way.”

Dr. Griffin closed the folder, stood, and offered his hand, not as doctor to patient, but as one survivor to another.

“While the offer is commendable,” he said. “Sadly, I’ll have to turn it down. This town needs me, and quite frankly, I need it. I’d be out of my element there anyhow, though I do appreciate the offer. I practice medicine; it’s what I do.”

Eileen smiled, the same smile from 30 years ago, brighter now with a few age lines.

She knew he’d turn it down, but she had to ask.