The Doctor's Wife (5 page)

Ace and Rookie, a German Shepherd who lives on the other end of the road, have Sandy Beach Drive divided up between them. They meet in the center, teeth bared, every now and then. That's what's happening now. Chrissy is with Bob. Bob and Cathy Gunderson, the owner of Rookie, are fighting about who has a better dog.

“He had porcupine quills in his muzzle, and he didn't even complain when my grandma pulled them out,” Bob says.

“Rookie wouldn't be that stupid.”

“Ace is way smarter than Rookie,” says Bob, snorting.

“Prove it.”

“You prove it,” says Chrissy.

The older kids ignore her. Anyway, this is to be a battle of brawn instead of brains. The dogs stare at each other, the fur on their necks bristling. A low growl comes from Ace's throat. Chrissy can feel her own neck hairs rise. Then she hears her mother calling them back for dinner.

When Chrissy and Bob run home, Ace follows.

Ann is seated on the couch with John, holding him as he tries to squirm away.

“There was almost a dog fight,” Chrissy says.

“Set the table,” her mother says.

“Rookie is a bad dog.”

“Forks on the other side.”

Chrissy knows how to set the table and she doesn't like being told. The fork goes on the left side with its partner the napkin and on the right side the knife protects the spoon from the fork. The knife is Ace and the fork is Rookie. They growl at each other.

“Don't put your fingers all over the silverware,” her mother says.

Chrissy is not allowed to do a single thing.

Dinner is to be pork chops, baked potatoes and wilted salad. Chrissy is interested in the preparation of the dish, or rather the difference between the name of the dish and the way that it tastes. Her mother takes hot bacon grease and pours it on the salad with a dash of vinegar.

At dinner Chrissy chops up her pork chop into small pieces. She scoops the white stuff out of the brown potato skin and then takes her fork to mix everything together until it looks like it's already been chewed. She does this for two reasons. One, it tastes good. Two, it drives Ann crazy. Chrissy draws the jumble into her mouth. Nobody notices because John has made a mush of his own food and smeared it all over his face. Ann doesn't think that's gross. She thinks its funny.

“Don't you like the jacket of the potato?” her mother asks. “That's where the vitamins are.”

Chrissy doesn't think this deserves a response. She drinks her milk, watching as Ace curls himself up on the back porch. “We should get another dog.”

“The last thing we need is another dog.”

“Dad, we should get another dog. I think Ace and Gretel are lonely.”

“Hmm,” he says, but Chrissy can tell that he likes the idea. He loves dogs as much as she does.

One day, the Doctor's Wife comes home to find stickers on each phone that read, “No.”

“What are these for?” she asks the Doctor.

“I want you to learn to say no to people.”

The Doctor's Wife doesn't think her husband has any idea how things work.

The Doctor's Wife is distracted. She sits at the kitchen table, smoking. John is finally asleep. His brain is still sharp but his motor skills are regressing. Ann is trying to ask her something.

She stubs out her cigarette. “What?”

“Am I going to get a nurse doll tomorrow?”

It's Christmas Eve and for two months preceding the Doctor's Wife has heard just one thing out of Ann's mouth. “I thought you wanted a wedding doll,” she says.

“No.” Ann shakes her head. “I always only wanted a nurse doll.”

Once the older kids are in bed, the Doctor's Wife undresses the doll. It's about a foot tall. Its face is made of bisque. The doll wears white shoes painted on her feet. Those will do. She holds the wedding dress up and looks at it critically, unsure whether she needs to take it apart at the seams to make a pattern.

The model she has in mind is Clara Barton. She takes down an old sheet from the linen closet then sets up the ironing board in the sewing room, clicking on the iron to heat. She'll starch the sheet stiff and then cut it up to make the uniform and hat. The hat will be tricky. The Doctor's Wife is not what she would call artistic. She has some navy blue wool for the cape and some red satin scraps to line the cape with.

At midnight, the Doctor's Wife looks up to see her husband at the door to the sewing room. “Come to bed. She doesn't need a nurse doll.”

But you do what you can.

“She's very spoiled,” is all the Doctor's Wife can think to say.

Chrissy has to have the bedroom door open and the hallway light on because she's afraid of the dark. “I can't sleep with the light off,” she explains to Ann, who by now should know that this is true and yet is still angrily flouncing around in her bed. “Just put the pillow over your head.”

“I get hot and I can still feel the light on my arm.”

“No you can't.”

“I have a math test tomorrow,” Ann says.

Chrissy can see the justice in this and would like to be generous, but Ann does sleep at night and Chrissy wouldn't sleep at all if the light is turned off. She's tried. Even when the hall light is on she can convince herself that there's a shape in the shadow in the corner. If she fixes her eyes on the shape, it moves, and the movement proves there's something hunched there. Hunched!

Chrissy climbs out of bed, checking the corner where she saw the figure. There's nothing there. She shuts the closet door. It's not clear whether it is better to keep the door open or closed. If it is open you can see inside. If it is closed you can worry about what the door is hiding. Chrissy looks over at Ann. She lies artificially still, her arms rigid against her sides and her eyes screwed shut.

“You're not sleeping,” Chrissy says. She goes over and repeats in Ann's ear, “You're not sleeping.”

Ann leaps up. “You're dead,” she says. Chrissy runs out of the room. Ann isn't violent, but she's mean. She'll say something about the gap between Chrissy's front teeth, she'll make her feel stupid, or she'll chant “Chrissy Wissy, she drinks whiskey.”

“What's going on upstairs?” the Doctor's Wife calls.

“Nothing,” Chrissy yells back down, hoping that Ann won't contradict her. But Ann apparently only meant to chase her out of the room. What is Bob up to? Chrissy sneaks past John's room, keeping her back against the wall like a spy until she can press her eye against the crack in the space between the wall and the edge of the door. Bob has his taxidermy kit out. There are dangerous tools involved—big needles and knives—and Chrissy isn't allowed near the kit. But neither is Bob allowed to have it in his bedroom. It should be down in the basement with the muskrat skins.

“You're not supposed to have that,” she says, strolling into his room. There's no need to be surreptitious when Bob is breaking the law.

“Scat rabbit!”

“I'm going to tell.” She sits herself down on the edge of his bed.

Bob is quick. He doesn't hit, he never hits, but he picks her up, pinning her arms to her side and then throws her on his bed.

Chrissy screams. “I'm going to tell! You have dangerous tools in your bedroom!”

The Doctor's Wife comes upstairs. “Everybody is going to sleep. Right. Now.”

It's only then that Chrissy notices that Ann has heartlessly turned off the hall lights.

“Will you turn the light back on?” Chrissy asks her mother.

Click. Ann sighs. Chrissy looks in the corners again. It isn't a monster she's afraid of.

It's the
something
in the dark that's scary.

Ann and Chrissy wear matching dresses that the Doctor's Wife made, navy blue and white checked cotton, white gloves, white hats, and brand new patent leather shoes. They sit in a pew at the Congregational Church in Everett even though everybody else in the whole world goes to Ebenezer Lutheran in Lake Stevens. Ann is waiting for Chrissy to do something bad to break up the tedium of the service. Chrissy has started to pull at a little string and make a run in her stockings, which is promising.

Bob looks stunned, his hair is slicked back, and his face is kind of pimply. Ann would like to make fun of him, but he looks so uncomfortable stuffed into his new suit, which somehow already appears small in the leg, arm, and trunk. With one hand, the Doctor's Wife tugs at the suit jacket. With her other arm, she holds on to John. Ann is worried that she is going to be adjusted too, so she scoots away from her mother, closer to Chrissy.

Ann's tights are bunched at her knees and she picks at the wrinkle, causing her mother to hiss, “Stop that,” which isn't fair at all since Chrissy has now pulled the run all the way down to her ankle. Finished with her stocking, Chrissy now has her hands folded in front of her chest and she crosses her eyes. She's trying to make Ann laugh, but Ann refuses. The face works on John, who shrieks with delight. The Doctor's Wife gets up abruptly to take him outside. Ann wishes she could go outside too. The minister drones on. It's dark gray outside and over the noise of the sermon Ann can hear rain dumping on the roof. Chrissy tries again, rolling her tongue into a tube shape, quietly humming “Oh What a Beautiful Morning,” through her tongue like a kazoo.

John hangs on to her mother's neck as they ease back into the pew. Ann would like to be held too, so she scoots closer to the Doctor's Wife. John blinks down at her and, without thinking it seems, the Doctor's Wife puts him down on Ann's lap. Ann is going to turn eleven in July. She's ten now, practically a grownup, very unlike Chrissy.

After church they have to go to the country club for the Easter egg hunt. Bob has won the past Easters, so this year he's been barred from entering. Ann preferred it when her parents organized Easter egg hunts at home. The Doctor's Wife would usually write a poem for Ann and the others to read as they searched, the poem giving clues to where the eggs were hidden. For the country club hunt all you have to use is your eyes. The rain has petered out and now the weather is just raw.

The girls take turns carrying John, searching for eggs with him. “I see,” he says, pointing, causing the girls to gallop down the hill toward a stand of pine trees.

“Here,” Ann says, putting his feet on the ground. “You can get it yourself.”

He makes a fat fist around her finger, unsteady on his legs. She lets go of him and he collapses on the muddy ground. He drags himself to a pine tree and tries unsuccessfully to hitch himself up, grunting with the effort.

Dear Petie and JW,

Just a quick note about John. We took him to Seattle last Wednesday, May 25 and spent all morning at a pediatrician's and all afternoon at the neurologist.

Your daughter typed a rough copy of the neurologists reports to the other doctor, which is enclosed. John had about the most complete exam by both of them that you could have imagined. Probing, pinching, blood tests, x-rays, even an electro-encephalographic study.

Their conclusion is that everything is normal and that he just doesn't walk yet. They think everything will be all right. We feel better and are hoping every day now. He gets around in his Taylor Tot much better already and we bought him a scooter. He is just as sweet as ever and cuter as you will see this summer. He has a squint in the left eye, which we are going to take him to an eye specialist about this summer.

We would like you to come anytime. We will be gone for two weeks approximately, to take the kids to California. John will stay at home.

I'm going to fly to Miami June 12 and return June 19 to the AMA convention. Will see my brother and family there.

Write Soon,

RFH

They feel it's important not to deprive the older kids of trips to educational places, so they've left John behind with Hazel Adelsheim while they take the rest of the kids to San Francisco. A lady is still expected to wear white gloves in San Francisco and the Doctor's Wife is also wearing heels, high but not spiky, and a new hat. She's meeting the rest of the family in Union Square after an unsuccessful trip to I. Magnin. It's nearly impossible to find a dress that looks remotely attractive.

While crossing Powell Street, the heel of her right shoe wedges in the trolley track, and down she goes, breaking her fall with her hands.

“I hurt my arm,” the Doctor's Wife tells her husband when she meets up with him and the kids.

He takes a look at it, grunting. “Well, let's go get something to eat.”

“But I hurt my arm.”

“The kids are hungry.”

“Yes, dear,” the Doctor's Wife says ironically.

In a way, the Doctor is right, it'll take a long time to be attended to in the emergency room and the kids will get cranky if they haven't eaten. This is the Doctor's way of thinking: that you have to take care of everybody else's bodily desires before you treat the wounded. Nevertheless, the Doctor's Wife's arm throbs and she feels extremely queasy.

They take a taxi to a restaurant. “This place looks fine,” the Doctor says, running his eyes over the silverware set on the tables. They get a booth. The Doctor's Wife is not hungry even a bit, but she orders broiled Petrale sole. The kids order fish and chips. The Doctor orders the Captain's plate, and when the food comes, nobody eats but the Doctor.

On Sunday afternoons, it's Ann's job to rub John's back. He lies on the couch, his fists closed tight and limbs stiff. John has trouble breathing. He can't talk and he's going blind.

What's it like to go blind? The squint in his right eye is worse. That eye barely opens and the other one doesn't seem to be able to make out when Ann or Chrissy make a funny face.

While Ann rubs, Chrissy puts LPs on the record player, a large piece of furniture that has speakers integrated into the cabinet. Chrissy presses a button and the record drops down, the needle hits.