More Than a Dream by Lauraine Snelling Page A

her pen. She followed her mother out the door and gave her a questioning look.
    Annabelle shook her head and continued on to the kitchen, leaving Elizabeth alone in the hall with her call. She picked up the dangling earpiece and spoke into the trumpet-shaped mouthpiece. ‘‘This is Elizabeth.’’
    ‘‘Good. I decided to take advantage of this newfangled instrument and save myself the time of writing a letter.’’
    ‘‘Dr. Morganstein! Oh, how wonderful it is to hear your voice.’’
    ‘‘Ah, you recognize me in spite of all this fuzzy noise on the line. How are you, my dear?’’
    ‘‘Restless. It’s already been a week since graduation, and I’ve received no word yet from the medical school in Minneapolis. I’ve been accepted at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, as I wrote to you.’’
    ‘‘What’s wrong with that school? It has a fine reputation.’’
    ‘‘But not as good as Johns Hopkins or Harvard, and they have both turned me down. As you said last summer, at the men’s schools I would receive better and more complete training, even at the college in Minneapolis, which is so much nearer to home.’’
    ‘‘Time is running out.’’
    ‘‘I am well aware of that. Father thinks I should send a letter of acceptance to Pennsylvania, and then I can cancel if I am accepted elsewhere.’’
    ‘‘Sound advice. A bird in the hand, as the old saw goes.’’
    ‘‘It seems like a settling for, if you ask me.’’ Elizabeth knew she sounded more than a mite cantankerous, so she tried to change the tenor of her voice. ‘‘How are things at your hospital?’’
    ‘‘In dire need of more hands, which is why I resorted to the telephone. Can you possibly come work with us again this summer? I know your parents are dreading your leaving and want to spend every possible moment with you, but, Elizabeth, I need you—desperately. And you know you will receive training far beyond what even your first year in medical school will give you.’’
    Elizabeth closed her eyes, remembering the heat and humidity of Chicago in the summer. It had taken her weeks to catch up on her sleep, and yet never had she felt more alive and useful. If she’d had any doubts as to her calling, her time at the Alfred Morganstein Hospital for Women dispelled them like dew under a hot summer sun.
    ‘‘I . . . I will have to talk with my parents.’’ I know Mother will be disappointed, but she is at the office enough now that she’ll be too busy to realize I am gone . While Elizabeth knew that was an exaggeration, she reminded herself that she had already mentioned that she wanted to return to the hospital for a while this summer.
    And Annabelle had only sighed, not harangued her as in former days.
    ‘‘Call me back tomorrow if you can. Here is the number.’’
    Elizabeth repeated the number to herself as she said good-bye. She hurried to the study to write it down. Having paper and pencil by the telephone would be a good idea, although here in town, all they had to do was ask Miss Odegaard for whomever they wanted.
    Before going to find her mother, she sat down and pulled a sheet of paper from the stack her father kept in the right-hand drawer. Taking her father’s advice, she wrote her acceptance letter, signed it, addressed the envelope, and rummaged for a stamp. None. She folded the letter and inserted it in the envelope, each motion feeling like another nail pounded in the wall, the wall enclosing her with only one door out and that labeled Pennsylvania. She’d mail it after talking with her mother and before catching her father at the office. Sometimes it was better to talk to her parents separately so that she didn’t feel ganged up on. Not that they were always in agreement, but right now she needed all the support she could find, not a list of the negatives.
    ‘‘You do what you must,’’ Annabelle said after some discussion. Sitting under the oak tree with the roses and daisies in glorious