Matters of Faith (16 page)

“Is this what you wanted to say to me?” I asked, leaning forward, keeping my voice as low as hers had been. “That you wish it had been worse so you could punish them more?”

“No,” she said. “No, I wanted to tell you about Bobby. I wanted to . . . I just wanted to tell you. But I get caught up, still.” She cleared her throat and took a sip of coffee. I hadn't touched mine.

“So say what you have to say,” I said. “Because I'd like to get back upstairs, and I don't want you to feel any need to come see me, or my daughter, again. So I suggest you get it all out now.”

She nodded. “Fair enough. Bobby was a Down syndrome child. I was forty-three when we had him. Our families were horrified,” she said, smiling slightly. “Jim, my husband . . . his mother was angry. She thought we were selfish to have a baby at our ages. And when he was born, well, I think she felt vindicated. She wasn't a bad woman, she was just from another time.”

She stopped as if waiting for me to respond, to empathize, or sympathize, or otherwise encourage her to continue. But I remained silent. She'd have to push forward without help from me. Which she did once the pause grew too long for her.

“I had a hard time being around her, but of course it wasn't fair to Jim or to Bobby to cut her out of our lives, and she often babysat when both Jim and I were working. She was pretty good about it all, once she got the hang of his needs. But he was a picky eater, and it drove her crazy. It bothered her that he was heavier than other kids, and she felt it was up to her to make sure he was eating nutritiously. It was even sweet, in a way, like this was how she chose to bond, to show that she cared about him.

“Anyway, he had a thing, with his food, he didn't like certain textures. And she was always trying to fix things a different way to get him to eat them. We tried him on peanut butter once, when he was two. He hated it, and he had an allergic reaction, but it was mild. It was just part of his medical needs to us. We were both doctors, okay, he has a peanut allergy, in addition to everything else.”

She stopped talking for a moment, her eyes locked on her coffee, before she raised her gaze to me and continued softly: “She wasn't trying to hurt him. She always followed our instructions. And we trusted her, we both did. But she also thought we were too protective. She thought some of his medical issues were due to our strict regimens, she thought we were doctors instead of parents. She thought . . . that she knew better.

“Peanut butter on saltines. Just a little. His stomach was upset, and she didn't know what to do. She gave him peanut butter on saltines and ginger ale. He only had a little bit. He was gone before she knew what was happening. He didn't even have a chance.”

Her eyes didn't fill with tears and her voice didn't shake, and I found myself staring at her in fascinated horror. How did any mother tell the story of her child's death and not fall apart? Cal worried that he wouldn't survive Meghan's death.

I was terrified that I would.

Because I would have to say it for the rest of my life. And I would not be calm like this woman, this doctor, who had, perhaps, seen too much death.

“She never got over it.
We
never got over it.”

“You seem all right.”

She smiled. “I am not. It has been seventeen years and I still blame myself. And I blame her, and I blame my husband. And my husband blamed himself, and her, and me. My mother-in-law moved to Arizona. She died about five years ago, but we hadn't spoken for a long time before that.

“Jim and I tried to stay together. We found something in common: alcohol. He lost his medical license, and I almost lost mine. We were divorced within two years. I don't know where he is now.”

“That is a horrible, horrible story,” I agreed. “Is this what you wanted? To make me thankful? That she's alive, that Cal and I aren't alcoholics yet, that the object of blame is gone? I'm sorry, but you're greatly misguided. Now I have to get back upstairs. I like to be there for shift change.”

She reached across the table and grasped my forearm, holding me to the table, her grip strong. I struggled against it and pulled away, furious at her presumption in touching me. I didn't want to be touched, especially by her.

“When your daughter came in I wasn't in Emergency. I haven't practiced emergency medicine in fifteen years. I heard about it and went down because I felt compelled. I had to save her, and Mrs. Tobias, I did. I did save your daughter. And when I heard what happened, how it happened, I knew what you would go through. You will all be able to get on with your lives much faster because of what I did.”

“Your logic escapes me, Dr. Kimball.”

“You need to focus. You and your husband need to, together, focus on your daughter's care. Knowing that the people responsible for this situation are being held accountable for it will allow you to do so, even though it's your son, especially since it's your son. Now
you
won't feel the need to punish him, or each other, for the rest of your lives.”

I stood, making sure to avoid her grasping hands, leaving my untouched coffee on the table. “Thank you for saving my daughter's life. I will always be grateful for that,” I said carefully. “But you know nothing about me, or my family, and what you did will not now, nor ever, make anything easier. Please don't approach me again, and please stay away from Meghan's room.”

She looked up at me sadly. “It's the law too, you know. At the very least it's aggravated child abuse, and I am obligated by law to report that. If asked to testify, I will.”

“Stay away from me,” I whispered and finally escaped. I was shaking as I hurried down the hall. I wondered if the woman was still drinking, or if the power of her position had overcome her sense, or perhaps she was just insane.

I couldn't imagine riding up the elevator and having to walk in and see Cal right then. I couldn't possibly relate this exchange without becoming furious with him for allowing her near me. I ducked into the chapel, which was still empty. I was sure that one day I would walk in, see someone sitting there, and feel usurped, but for now I sank down into my usual pew and gazed at the white dove and tried to regulate my breathing.

I finally pulled my cell phone from my purse, waited for a signal, and called home. I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to say, but I felt the need to hear Marshall's voice, to tell him that no matter what happened, I did love him, and things were going to be okay. He didn't answer, and I tried his cell phone. It went immediately to voice mail, which meant he must have turned it off.

I envisioned him curled up in bed, perhaps crying himself to sleep, or praying, or whatever it was that Marshall did when he was devastated and scared. I left a short message on his cell, letting him know that I would call him the next afternoon to find out what had happened at the lawyer's, and then I turned the phone off and returned to Meghan's room.

Where nothing had changed.

They reached his grandmother's town on the edge of Okeechobee by three in the morning, and then spent over an hour wandering back roads, lost. Massive oaks canopied over the roads, blocking out the sky for miles at a time, and raccoons and armadillos scurried in front of the car on a regular basis, making Ada gasp and Marshall slam on the brakes.

When they finally found the lane leading to her house, Marshall turned off the headlights and coasted into a dirt courtyard. He cut the engine and they sat in the dark, staring at the little brick house his father had grown up in. An old blue and white Chevy pickup truck was parked in the carport, and something skittered out from underneath it and raced past Marshall's window too quickly for him to decipher what it was.

The surrounding woods and scrub encroached on the sides of the house, as if it might swallow it and just keep on growing. Palm fronds rustled dryly in the breeze, and in the break in the trees over the courtyard the sky spangled with stars. They both craned over the dashboard, looking up into that vast blackness, and smiled softly at each other.

“Let's try to get some sleep,” Marshall said, then leaned over the center console to kiss Ada, a certain kiss. She nodded and they maneuvered their seat backs as far down as they would go, then prayed, and fell asleep holding hands.

 
 
IT wasn't quite full light yet when Marshall woke, his eyes gritty and head pounding. His right arm was asleep and he untangled his fingers from Ada's and rubbed some tingling feeling back into it as he cranked his seat up. Ada sniffed and turned over toward the door. He stared at her back, so slender that he thought his hand could span it.

The house looked dingier in the soft pink and gold of sunrise. The visible blooms of rust on the Chevy spread as the rays of the sun did, and he could see where the beams of a front porch had been torn from the house. The only part left of it was a wide concrete slab with rotting remnants of board screwed into its perimeter.

He touched Ada gently on her shoulder and she groaned as she turned back over. She opened her eyes at him and smiled, and then, as she started to stretch, she shrieked in pain and clutched at her knee.

“Oh shit,” she moaned. “Remind me not to do that again.”

“Are you okay?” he asked. He hadn't given her knees much thought beyond the fact that they would need to keep an eye on the stitches and would likely have to remove them themselves.

She puffed a breath out to get her bangs out of her eyes and smiled ruefully at him. “Yeah, I'm okay. Just need to get centered.” She looked out the windshield at the house, then back at him with troubled eyes, her brows drawn together. “So what do you think?”

He looked at the front door of flat, unpainted wood, and for the first time since he'd put this plan into action, felt a flutter of uncertainty.

“I really have to pee,” Ada said, eyeing the woods around them.

“I—Hey, did you see that?” He pointed to the house. “I just saw someone at that window.”

Ada straightened up and ran her fingers through her hair. “Oh, God, Marshall, what are we going to say? Are you sure she won't already know? How do I look?”

He looked over at her, her cheeks in high color, biting her lip in her nervousness, and murmured, “You look beautiful,” just as the front door swung open and a woman, tall and rangy, wearing a blue quilted housecoat that zipped up the front, strode onto the porch.

She shielded her eyes from the sun and yelled at them. “What do you want? I don't need any of what you're sellin', and if you're them Jehovah's Witnesses again you can just go on and ease on down the road. I been saved already, don't need your help with it.”

Ada inhaled and then laughed as she looked at Marshall in a mixture of fear, despair, and amusement. “Oh shit.”

“We'd better go before she pulls out a shotgun,” he said. “Come on.” He opened the door and stood from behind the safety of it and let his grandmother get a good look at him. He knew he looked like his father. Everyone commented on it, and he could see it himself whenever he caught a surprise glance in a mirror. “It's Marshall, it's me,” he called, and slowly stepped out from behind the door.

She looked closer, making her way across the concrete slab, and then he saw recognition dawn. “Well, my Lord,” she said. “Get up here, boy, let me get ahold of you.”

He moved toward her slowly, taking in the ways his father looked like her, the ways he didn't, the stains on the housecoat, how hard she looked, like she'd been plowing fields for most of her life. He stepped up on the porch and she did, indeed, grab ahold of him. She was nearly as tall as he was and she was strong, but her crushing embrace was mercifully quick. She let him go and stepped back to take a good, long look at him.

“My Lord, you look like your daddy. Nearly took my breath away seeing you get out of that car.”

He heard the passenger door open and turned around to motion Ada up to the porch.

“Oooh, and you brought someone. Well, come on, girl, bring it on up here. This girl's too old for Meghan?” she asked, glancing quickly at Marshall. He nodded and helped steady Ada as she used her crutches to step up onto the porch.

“This is Ada, Grandmother Tobias.”

“Little thing, aren't you?” she asked, clearly not expecting an answer, but pulling her to her for another brief, hard hug.

“Well, I imagine there's a reason you're both here. Let's get off the porch before the dogs get a whiff of you.” At this she turned without further explanation and preceded them into the gloom of the house.

Marshall took a quick look around for dogs and then pulled Ada with him and entered his grandmother's house, following the lights she turned on for them. He was relieved to see the inside of the house. Though it was aged and worn, it was spotless and smelled fresh. They followed her down a long hallway, and, just like in his own house, the walls were lined with faded family photos. He was dying to stop at each one and examine it; he could pick out his father in them, and the other boy was obviously his uncle, Randy, and of course there was his grandfather, the minister, a gaunt man in black trousers and a white shirt in most of them.

But his grandmother didn't slow down, and they caught up to her in a surprisingly large main room, a combination of living room and dining room, with a cool terrazzo floor, corduroy-covered recliners, and a long dining table with enough chairs for ten people. Windows lined the wall behind the dining table and looked out onto the yard behind the carport.

Unlike the courtyard, the backyard was a lush garden, where tomato plants hung heavy with fruit on tall wire forms, orange trees bordered the yard on one side, and masses of giant sunflowers seemed to hold back the wilderness on the other. Ada immediately gravitated to the windows while Grandmother Tobias banged some pans onto a stovetop in the kitchen.