The Doctor's Wife (4 page)
Authors: Elizabeth Brundage
After clever negotiation—expensive bribery—she succeeds in getting the children into the car in various stages of dress. Henry, in Michael’s old Grateful Dead T-shirt and yesterday’s jeans, bargains relentlessly for a new set of Kinex, while Rosie argues that she never gets anything new: “It’s
my
turn to get a new toy, he always gets
everything!
” Her blond head resembles a flattened dandelion and her black high-top sneakers are on the wrong feet; nonetheless, they are presentable, their lunches are made, their homework is done, and they are in the car, going to school; the day has begun. They stare out at the dreary landscape with melancholy tenderness, the snow like powdered sugar over the dirty world.
my
turn to get a new toy, he always gets
everything!
” Her blond head resembles a flattened dandelion and her black high-top sneakers are on the wrong feet; nonetheless, they are presentable, their lunches are made, their homework is done, and they are in the car, going to school; the day has begun. They stare out at the dreary landscape with melancholy tenderness, the snow like powdered sugar over the dirty world.
St. Catherine’s is a Catholic women’s college just north of town, situated in a Gothic compound that was once a monastery and features ornate steeples and turrets and long drafty breezeways. Although Annie has been teaching at the school for less than a year, she already enjoys a fierce popularity. On the first day of registration, her class Images in Popular Culture had filled within ten minutes, due, in part, to the fact that she is the only female professor on the faculty who refuses to wear plaid. Unlike her female colleagues, who favor dowdy kilts or madras slacks, Annie prefers loose, gauzy skirts and sheer blouses that boldly announce her breasts. She wears long, dangling earrings and clunky turquoise rings and when her thick brown hair gets in her way she twists it into a precarious bun with a number two pencil. The students are attracted to Annie Knowles because she is young and clever and a little dangerous. She is a journalist by training, and like any good journalist she relies on her instincts, even in the classroom. It is oddly thrilling for her to be addressed as Professor; it suits her ego, sharpens her intellect. It has, in a small way, turned her into somebody else.
Her students are gathered around the long wood table on fussy, ladder-back chairs. The room is warm, close, and smells of hair conditioner and perfume. The table is cluttered with pages torn from fashion magazines that have elicited a variety of heated responses. There is a photograph of a young model in a black bustier, writhing on the floor, her eyes glittering with something almost evil. There is a wan girl draped in gold lamé, wearing an expression of sour disinterest. Countless others promote a lifestyle of deviant abundance. The students seem both transfixed and disturbed by the images. Mary, a hefty redhead, holds up the photograph of the model in the gold lamé. “Look at her face,” she tells the class. “She looks dead, you know. She looks like one of those police photographs.”
“It’s just fashion,” Clarice defends. “Shock value. They’re just trying to sell clothes. I think we’re reading too much into it.”
“But they make us look weak,” Mary argues. “Look at this one. She’s so thin she can’t even get off the floor.”
Anorexic Sara Downy clears her throat. “I happen to think they look very beautiful.”
“You would,” Mary says. “You’re about to vanish into thin air.”
Sara looks as if she may burst into tears. Annie decides to interrupt. “It’s easy to sit here and make judgments, but out there in the world, where our behavior matters, it’s tough.” Then she poses a question: “Is it natural for women to want to be weaker, smaller? Do we want to be dominated or protected by men? Are these photographs encouraging us to behave in a certain way or are they confusing us?” Annie wanders the room, glancing thoughtfully out the windows. “Are these images a sort of propaganda, or are they simply interpretations of who we really are?”
A few hands go up. Annie shakes her head. “I want you to think about these questions and write an essay on the subject, due next Wednesday before the break. That’s all for today.”
The girls meander out, arguing among themselves, and Annie turns toward the windows, where the sun has suddenly made an appearance. The yellow light warms her face, the tops of her hands. Laughter rises up from the quad, where a group of girls play on a snowbank, making a fort, hurling snowballs at one another. And then she sees something strange. Charlotte Manning, the English Department secretary, is walking toward the building with a police officer. Annie hesitates at the window, trying to process what has brought an officer onto campus, and why, moments later, Charlotte and the man are standing in her classroom doorway, wearing the sort of guileless expressions one saves for inexplicable tragedies. Annie understands that something has happened, something terrible.
“It’s Michael” is all Charlotte says.
The cop begins to explain, but Annie has trouble understanding him, as if he is speaking from a place high above her, a great distance away. “They found the car on Valley Road, down in the ravine. One of the neighbors saw the smoke. The car caught fire and was completely destroyed. Your husband was badly burned.” The cop hesitates. “We need you to make a formal identification.”
“Oh,” she says softly, suddenly unable to stand. She drops into a chair.
He didn’t return my page,
she thinks. They stand there, watching her. “You mean he’s . . . ?” She looks up at the cop, tears streaming down her face.
He didn’t return my page,
she thinks. They stand there, watching her. “You mean he’s . . . ?” She looks up at the cop, tears streaming down her face.
“Afraid so, ma’am,” the cop says.
St. Vincent’s is a bulky fortress that had been built in the forties out of pale yellow bricks. The hospital is renowned for its center courtyard, a sobering addition by the architect, which contains imposing marble statues of Christian saints. The cop parks haphazardly in the Emergency lot. Inside, the hospital is jammed. They wade through reckless corridors where doctors and nurses rush by, wearing the strain of their profession on their faces. Annie can almost feel Michael’s presence among them and she searches in vain for his face. They take the elevator down to the basement level, where the heat is on full blast, wafting noisily out of the vents. Her heart thumps wildly in anticipation as they pass through the clouded glass doors of the morgue, the domain of the county medical examiner, Dr. Singh.
Dr. Singh is expecting them. She recognizes him from some of the hospital functions, a short, stocky man with skin the color of red pears and eyes that swim with longing. He takes her hand and tells her in his melodic accent that he is sorry for her loss. His assistant lurks in the corner, an amphibious young man with long sideburns and wet lips, stroking his chin with deep curiosity. Another man enters the room, stirring up their attention. “Ah, Detective Bascombe,” Singh says. “This is Mrs. Knowles.”
“Mrs. Knowles.” The detective shakes her hand. He is middle-aged, wearing blue jeans and a flannel shirt, black clogs. A man who has lived hard and seen too much, she decides. His eyes are watery and suspicious. “I’m with the sheriff’s office in High Meadow. We’re all sorry about your husband. I’m told he was a good man.”
You are not above suspicion,
his eyes say.
You are not above suspicion,
his eyes say.
“Where is he?” she says. “I want to see him.”
Bascombe and Singh exchange a look.
“I don’t recommend it, Mrs. Knowles,” Singh says. “You will not recognize him.”
She swallows hard, her eyes brimming with tears. “I want to see my husband.”
“All right. Mrs. Knowles, if you insist.” Singh nods to the assistant, who pulls the body out. Michael is covered with an orange sheet and his feet stick out. They strike her as odd, their waxy yellow color. A white tag around his ankle says KNOWLES in big black letters. Annie grabs hold of a chair, afraid that she might fall down or throw up or both, and the detective takes her arm and holds her up. It is amazing to her, surreal, that her husband, the man she has loved for over a decade, is under that sheet. It feels like some bizarre elaborate magic trick, only it’s no trick, it’s real.
Michael,
she whispers to him in her head.
Forgive me.
she whispers to him in her head.
Forgive me.
“We will take a look, then?” Singh says, but it is not really a question and without waiting for her reply he jerks back the sheet. And then the shock: Michael’s face burned beyond recognition, completely featureless, his limbs charred black, like a tree, she thinks, like a dead tree. She jumps back as if she too has been burned, her eyes tearing from the smell. Bascombe hands her a handkerchief as her tears flow out.
“I know this is difficult for you, Mrs. Knowles,” Dr. Singh states. He takes her arm, leads her away from the body, because that is all it is, no longer her husband, and she sits down in one of the metal chairs. “It is a most unpleasant experience.”
She nods her head, trying not to cry. Trying not to come apart.
“We believe your husband was on drugs at the time of the accident. In fact, it may be what killed him. We’re waiting on the blood work to confirm our suspicion of a morphine overdose.”
“Morphine?”
“When a person dies under these kinds of circumstances, we are required to do an autopsy.”
“Of course,” she whispers. “Of course I want an autopsy.”
“Generally, in cases like these, suicide may prove to be the ultimate goal.”
“No,” she says. “No, he wouldn’t do that.” But the memory of their last night together floats up like something ghastly. The cold look on his face as he went into the study and shut the door. Still, she can’t believe Michael would end his own life. “This was
not
a suicide,” she says quietly.
not
a suicide,” she says quietly.
The doctor shrugs. “We have seen cases where doctors indulge in drugs because they can, and it often gets the better of them.”
“Not in this case,” she spits. “My husband didn’t do drugs. He was on his way to the hospital to save someone. There was an emergency and he got called in. He wasn’t even on call but he went in anyway because that’s who he was. Do you understand me? That’s who he was.”
Bascombe and Singh exchange a look. “There was no emergency, Mrs. Knowles,” the detective tells her.
“We’ve looked at the log,” Singh confirms. “There was no OB emergency last night.”
The room begins to float. The bright lights. The vicious metal instruments. They are talking to her as if through a long tunnel, their voices muffled, undetectable. She shakes her head, gasping for air. “I’m sorry, I’m not feeling very well.” The detective grips her under the arm and rushes her upstairs and out into the courtyard, where she sits on a cold stone bench among the looming statues. She brings the air into her lungs, tasting the new snow, the promise of winter.
“You all right, Mrs. Knowles? You want a cigarette?”
Annie shakes her head. “He didn’t kill himself,” she says. “And he didn’t do drugs.”
“Are you sure?” He looks at her so hard she has to look away. “Tell me, Mrs. Knowles. You and your husband. Were you close?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your marriage. Was it a good marriage?”
Was it a good marriage?
She wants to ask the detective what her marriage has to do with her husband’s death. She wants to scream that he has no business asking her personal questions. But she says none of these things because she isn’t sure, she doesn’t know. “I’m sorry, Detective, I can’t answer that right now.”
She wants to ask the detective what her marriage has to do with her husband’s death. She wants to scream that he has no business asking her personal questions. But she says none of these things because she isn’t sure, she doesn’t know. “I’m sorry, Detective, I can’t answer that right now.”
He studies her face. His eyes soften a little. She can tell he is trying to estimate the depth of her intelligence, the hues of her emotions. “I’ll leave you alone,” he says finally and hands her his card. “You want to talk, call.”
Annie sits there for a long time in the company of the saints, who glance down at her with pity as she cries her heart out. The gray sky opens and the clouds separate, allowing the sun. Someone’s hand drops onto her shoulder and she turns, startled, to see a man in silhouette. The sun is bright, and she squints up at his face. “Mrs. Knowles, let me help you.” He offers her a Kleenex, and she takes it from him. It’s not that she wants it, but he seems a kind man, she does not want to insult him.
“I’m all right,” she manages.
“But you’re not all right,” he says, his eyes ornate with sympathy. “We both know that.”
She looks at him dully; he is vaguely familiar. He pauses for a moment, thoughtfully, and sits down beside her on the small bench. “I’m Reverend Tim. I’m one of the chaplains here at St. Vincent’s.” He looks down at his hands, which are open in his lap like a book. “I know about loss, I’ve suffered with it all my life. If you need to talk to somebody, I’m a good listener.” They sit there for a moment in silence, and then he stands up. He pats her on the shoulder and leaves her alone. He has a crooked gait. The good leg does most of the work while the shorter one shuffles to keep up, twisting awkwardly from the hip. Her heart swells with compassion for the man, and she feels an almost pitiable envy, for she is a woman in excellent physical condition who at the moment is utterly paralyzed.
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