Comfort and Joy (5 page)

Four years later, on a night in late July, Ford unlocked his front door and found a curious stillness. At first Ford thought the problem was that he had entered by the front door, when Hammond was accustomed to welcoming himin the kitchen. But Hammond always found him, wherever he was. In the absence of the dog, Ford's spine tingled, and he called quietly, "Hammond. Hammond, fellow."

He searched the house. Finding Hammond stretched out on the floor of the bathroom, flat and motionless, fur stiff, nostrils spilling a little pool of blood onto the white-and-blue checked tile. Behind him, along the bottomedge of the porcelain bathtub, laymost ofHammond's disgorged breakfast.

Ford sat stupidlyand watched the dogfor a longtime. He had no idea what to do or who to call. He had beenawake for nearly two days and wanted rest, but now he could hardly think of anything except Hammond, the fact of Hammond, cooling and stiffening before him. Finally he called the veterinarian who had last given the mutt his shots. Wrapping the hound's corpse in a blanket, Ford drove the necessary blocks in the twilight of Druid Hills.

Hammond had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, the veterinarian concluded, days later. What had caused the hemorrhage? The veterinarian offered only that the skull appeared perfectly intact, that the cause was internal, that there appeared perfectly intact, that the cause was internal, that there was really no way to tell exactly what had happened. The veterinarian charged him a small fee for disposing of the body and a large fee for the autopsythat Ford had required.

The silence of the house first offended and later frightened him. Each night, when he entered the house, he heard the emptiness anew. After a while, not only the silence but the largeness of the house brought Ford disquiet, and he wandered from room to room, restless, through the few hours of off-duty time his schedule afforded him. He understood his reactionto the dog's death to be disproportionate, out of kilter, but he only watched himself as if totally detached, as if happy to note that he was capable ofa reactionthat frightened people.

Frightened, at least, his parents, his mentors on the medical school faculty, to the point that someone suggested psychotherapy, and his parents agreed. Ford had begun to lose weight, his eyes had gone dark-circled, and, though he remained mentally precise in his hospital training, he showed signs that his fatigue might soon affect his thinking. He confirmed everyone's suspicions ofhis instability by breaking up with his girlfriend even more abruptly than he had broken up with his past girlfriends. Ford could feelhimselfslippinginto a fog.

But he already understood his fear quite well. For this reason he could be helpful when the psychotherapist, a friendly woman with wire-screwy hair that wafted in a cloud around her face, offered her hand at their first session, introduced herselfas Shaun Gould, and asked, "Whyare youhere?"

"Mydogdied and now I'mso lonelyit's drivingme crazy." His directness brought her forward in the chair, and she said, "I'm, verysorryyoulost your dog. That must have hurt you."

"Yes."
"Did youknow youwere lonelybefore the dogdied?" "No. But I know now."
"What do you know about it?"Shaun asked, and the question

bore just exactly the right ring of interest, nothing feigned or enacted.

 

enacted.

As she listened to his answer, he studied her comforting body, its thick waist and generous curves lounging in the black leather chair. He told her about breaking up with his current girlfriend, and he told about breaking up with the previous girlfriends. Each time he described one of the girlfriends, he got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, and finally he said, "But that's not what I want to talk about."

"I didn't think it was,"Shaunsaid.

 

"I want to tell you about Allen," Ford said. "And then I want to tellyouabout McKenzie."

He expected to tell the story with detachment, but failed. He stopped talking and waited, shivering. Shaun had listened with occasional changes of expression, small nods, and careful encouragements for him to continue. He told about Hammond and McKenzie, and those months in Chapel Hill when he had been with them both. He trembled, but Shaun sat calmly, hands folded in her lap. When he said, "But he never came back to get the dog, and so I kept him," and then fell silent, Shaun sat motionless. Finallynoddingonce.

"Whydid youtellme that?"she asked.
"To tellyousomethingabout me."
"What are youtellingme?"
"That I must have cared about hima lot."
"That youmust have?"

He thought carefully. "That I did. I cared about him. More thanI cared about anybodyelse that I canthink of."

Ford visited Shaun once a week for a period of several months. While he declined to discuss these sessions with his parents, they were relieved to note he had regained his weight and color. He slept well, after the first few weeks. Returning to the empty house no longer paralyzed him. Abandoning the image of himself floating above himself, he caressed the physical objects around him, the exquisite antiques that had belonged to his Great-grandmother Bondurant, the Waterford vase fullofsilk daisies, the stainless frame ofthe Matisse print over the Victorian sofa.

At the hospital, he proved himselfto be a better prospect as a pediatrician than many would have guessed, moving with authority fromnursing unit to clinic examroom, charismatic, with a knack for getting along with nurses and ancillary staff. Even after thirty-six and forty-eight-hour shifts, Ford remained eventempered and clearheaded, provinghis value repeatedly.

"Why do you want to be a doctor?" Shaun asked, in late September.

 

"I don't know," Ford answered, "I never really thought about it."

"You're working very hard to become something, and you don't know whyyouwant to be that something?"
Ford enjoyed the game of framing his answers in words that Shaun would allow. "I want to be a doctor because my father was a doctor and my grandfather was a doctor. I never really thought about my own reasons. It was enough to think about my father and mygrandfather."
"Don't you think you should do a little thinking about what you want?"
"I guess I already have. Because I'mgoing into pediatrics. My father wasn't too happy about that because pediatricians don't have the same prestige that surgeons do. Don't make as much money. So he wasn't very happy with that, on top of the whole business withHammond."
"Do youthink there's anyconnectionbetweenthe two things?"
"You mean, the fact that I'm going to keep disappointing my father for a good while to come?"
Shaun fingered the plain gold band that she wore on her right hand. "That's one way to look at it. But I think it might be healthier just to think of it as one more step toward honesty with your parents. With both of them. Your mother is involved in all this, too."
this, too."
Honesty. With the white house, the coolrooms, the yard filled with oleander, the Vietnamese gardener moving among the blossoms. Honesty with the cool china, the polished silver, the framed pictures of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, collateral couples, the great paired beings of his past. "I know what you're trying to say, Shaun. But it doesn't matter what I call it, honesty or anything else. My dad's going to hate it. So willmy mom. In my family, in Savannah, you get married. You just do it. No matter what. I'malreadylate."
By early fall, his parents' concern over his matrimonial future became acute. At dinner with his father one evening, the two of them supping in the elegant affiliated men's business club (which remained a men's club even though women occasionally won membership), Dr. McKinney Sr. brought up Ford's old girlfriend, Haviland Barrows, who had recently married Red Fisher, one of Ford's high school acquaintances. "Settled right down in the historic district in a little stoop cottage. Renovated beautifully, right out of a textbook. I don't think that's such a bad way to start out." Father dabbed his lips with the napkin, preparing to engage his almond torte. "Of course, he’ll get the Jones Street house whenhis grandfather dies. Your uncle Hubert drew up that will. God knows what she gets. Some of the Barrows don't have a cent, fromwhat I hear."
"I hope she's happy," Ford said, signaling the waiter to bring more coffee. "She deserves it."
"I never did understand how you let her get away, son," Father said.
"It was easy," Ford answered. "In fact, I wonder if I'm likely to get married at all."
"What are you talking about? Of course you'll marry. Your mother and I wonder whyit's takenyouthis long."
"If it's taken this long,"Ford said, "that has to be because I've wanted it that way."
"Nonsense. First you had to get through medical school. That's what we've always expected."Dr. McKinney adjusted his That's what we've always expected."Dr. McKinney adjusted his collar. Ford spooned his own torte. "But now you're out of medical school, and it's time to think about your future. You're going to be a busy man, and you need someone to take care of youat home."
"Yougot married whenyouwere inmedicalschool."
"That was different. Whenyour mother and I were comingup, people got married when they were younger. These days it's better to wait, the way you have. But you do have to stop waiting sometime." His father laughed, self-consciously, underlining the jovial atmosphere he attempted to create for serious discussions.
"I don't think I'm waiting." Ford spoke with all the finality he could muster. "I've had plenty of chances. I don't think I want to get married."
"Youcan't possiblybe serious."
"I can." Folding his napkin and laying it on the corner of the table.
His father paused, then changed the subject to the politics of Emory University Medical School, the appointment of yet another dean. "This one may be worse than the last one,"Father said. "We don't know if this one can even function with a—" fallingsuddenlysilent.
"Youdon't know ifhe canwhat?"Ford asked.
"Well, anyway, he can't be worse the last one."
"But what about Dean Rouse?" Ford asked. "What are your buddies at the club sayingabout him?"
"Just idle talk,"Father said uncomfortably.
"Did youknow he's a bachelor?"Ford asked, after a moment.
"Why, yes. I did hear that."But his face was set as stone, and Ford watched him carefully. Frost settled over the table, covering their dinnerware and the remains of the dessert. Ford sipped his coffee.
Later theydiscussed his trust funds and other financialmatters.
Later theydiscussed his trust funds and other financialmatters. Ford asked after his mother. Father answered that she was well. The conversation cooled even further, and the two men parted company in the porte cochere as the liveried driver handed Father the keys to his vintage Mercedes. At the last moment, the elder doctor said to the younger, "Don't forget we talked, Ford. You need to think about what you're doing. You've come through a bad time, and I think all that trouble started because youneed somebodyto take care ofyou. Youneed a wife."
"I'mthinkingabout allthat, Father."
The two shook hands, and inhis father's eyes glimmered ghost lights ofrealaffection, soddenand held back.

At about the same time, while awaiting an appointment with his chief of service, Dr. Milliken, Ford chanced to read a memorandumposted inthe Department ofPediatrics office suite. The memorandum, like others layered on top of it on the bulletin board, might have merited little of Ford's attention, being unremarkable—but it was signed by someone in administration named Dan Crell. The signature itched at Ford for a few moments before he remembered the Christmas concert, the eerie voice, and the name onthe concert program.

At the end of September, Ford rotated out of Grady for two months of training at Egleston, another of the teaching hospitals that Emory staffed. By the time he returned to Grady, in December, with the hospital adorned in poinsettias and decorated doors, he had allowed the name to lapse from active memory once again. But one morning early in the month, he became aware of someone watching him from the back of a nearlyemptyelevator.

Since he was ultimately headed for the operating room, Ford wore the green surgical scrubs that are ubiquitous in hospitals; the particular suit Ford had scrounged fit him snugly, the shoulders somewhat narrower than his own. The short sleeves rode high on his shoulders, and apparently the young man at the back of the elevator found the sight of Ford's shoulders irresistible. Nothing new. Ford turned a little and allowed himself to returnthe man's gaze coolly.