Deep in the Darkness (5 page)

Christine said, "You know, at first I got the impression that he was aiming to have you look at his wife."

I agreed, and even though I really wasn't in the mood to discuss the matter, I told Christine what'd happened upstairs with Rosy Deighton, and how I thought Phillip may have purposely misled me.

"I'm sure that if he really wanted you to see his wife, he would have come right out and asked you. He doesn't strike me as the type to play games. It was probably an accident, or maybe you just didn't hear him correctly."

"No, he definitely said to make a left at the top of the stairs."

"Maybe the bathroom off the hall was broken, or dirty. Could be any number of explainable reasons why he didn't want you to use it."

I shrugged my shoulders. Perhaps I was over analyzing the situation. Being presumptuous, as Christine had said earlier. Then, I thought of something else. "Remember that he said his wife had cancer?"

"I heard that. Terrible..."

"What I saw on Rosy Deighton wasn't caused by cancer. I thought so at first, but when I saw her entire body...without question she was mauled by some kind of vicious animal. A dog probably, and more than just one if you want my professional opinion."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

"Kind of scary, considering what happened to Farris."

"Exactly."

Christine downed the rest of her wine. There was a bit of silence that seemed to end the troubling topic of conversation. "That's it for me," she said. "I'm bed-bound. You coming?"

"No...I think I'm going to poke around in the office for a bit. Haven't stepped foot in there yet."

"Michael, it'll be there tomorrow..."

"I'm too wound up, plus I'm real curious to see what kind of equipment the widow left behind. I'll only be a few."

"She said she was going to leave everything."

"Yeah...I'm anxious to see what
everything
is."

"Please, don't be too long. First night in the new house. I'm bound to be spooked by all the creaks and noises."

"Don't worry, you'll be asleep in no time," I said, and kissed her goodnight.

I
felt like a cat exploring a deep long closet for the very first time, eyes wide and searching for the light-switch in the hallway leading into my new, still unexplored office. Finally I located it on the wall to the right. An exposed bulb in the center of the ceiling, weakened by a layering of dust, emitted a pallid glare across fading green walls. The hallway (that's all it was: a five-foot hallway connecting the house to the examination room and medical office like a big vein) was as bare as a prison cell with chipped plaster walls and a steel institutional-like door complete with the tandem security of a deadbolt and chain. I thought it strange that Farris chose to install the sort of door you would normally use to partition a garage—the impassable type that keeps the burglars and bugs out. I made a mental note to have it changed to match the rest of the paneled doors and closets in the house.

I opened the steel door. It led into the waiting room where my patients would sign in and fidget away their time before seeing me. Two small plaid sofas hugged the walls, and were separated by another door, this one leading out to the side of the house where the patients would enter. Opposite this door was a small cut-out partition. Looking through it I could see a small desk that was built into the short wall. Here's where my wife would do her job, greet the patients with her pleasant smile and enter all their personal information into the computer I was hoping to have set up within the next few days.

Just to the right behind the partition was another doorway, this one leading into the examining room. It was painted the same odd green color as the hallway, and I made a second note to put a fresh coat of cool sterile white over the queasy clinical decor. In the eight-by-eight room was an eye-chart on the wall alongside a 3-D diagram of the human nervous system. On the opposing wall sat a stainless steel examining table, which still had half a roll of sanitary paper rolled beneath it. This paper always reminds me of the wrappings they use when you buy a hero, er, submarine sandwich at the deli.

I closed my eyes for a moment and fantasized about meeting my first day's worth of patients. They would be much different than the breed of people haunting Dr Scully's Practice in Manhattan. There I'd served a Medicaid population with general family healthcare, poor people whose green cards still had wet ink on them. Teenage pregnancies and flu-like symptoms that were a result of either painkiller withdrawals or the beginnings of hepatitis. A real treat. Here in Ashborough I'd end up spending my time crawling through annual check-ups, treating the occasional flu or trifling with the sniffles and broken limbs of schoolchildren. In six months time I would end up crossing paths with most of the town's population—at last count hovering around twelve-hundred—and I say most because there's always your small percentage of individuals who refuse to see a doctor for one of two reasons, either they feel invincible to nature's harmful ways, or that they're too scared to face God's music. These are the same people that come crawling to me for a miracle cure a day late and a dollar short. Sorry Charlie, God I ain't.

There was another door two steps into the entrance of the examining room, this one also, oddly, made of steel.
Note three: change this door.
It led into my future sanctuary. The library. I've made my hesitations quite apparent regarding moving my family from the city to the country; but this room, well, let's just say that its presence made it much easier for me to look beyond my reservations. Upon walking through the door you are faced with an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, and we're talking lofty here, vaulted ceilings that start at twelve feet and point skyward to an apex of nearly eighteen feet high. Being in this room made me feel as though I was in a church, with cathedral ceilings and arched doorways purposefully constructed to further inspire a reflection of the heavens—to induce a mysterious quiet apprehension that a divine presence is in visitation. Spooky, yet breathtaking. A room with a view, and so much more. Yeah.

This room was sanctuary. Here, I felt
protected
.

Apparently Emily Farris felt it necessary to not only leave her husband's medical supplies behind, as evident to the immediate right where two large oak armoires stood; inside were all the materials I would need to patch and mend and record and administer and perform all my doctorly duties: a fresh and wealthy inventory of medicinal furnishings and instruments. Really, I could go to work tomorrow if I had to. The widow, in an apparent struggle to vanquish all memories of her husband's career, left the entire room untouched. And I'm not just talking filing cabinets stuffed with medical records or cases of promotional pharmaceuticals, I'm talking furniture that included the aforementioned armoires, a huge cherry desk facing out the windows, plus custom bookshelves lining two entire walls stuffed with every medical encyclopedia under the moon
(after all, it was night)
. There was a coat rack by the door, original paintings on the back wall. And don't let me forget the fireplace, set with harvest-gold brick that went up the entire wall through the peaked ceiling. She even left behind a set of brass hearth tools. Magnificent.

I peeked over the books, then sat in the leather-bound chair before the desk. I pulled at the drawers but they were all locked; someplace, I would need to locate the key. There was a small cabinet to the right of the desk, near the fireplace. I stood up, walked over to it and although there was a keyhole in the facing, the door was unlocked. Inside was an assortment of liquors, plus three shot-sized glass tumblers. I chose the brandy, sat back down at my desk, and poured myself a drink. As I sipped the alcohol, I stared beyond the glass panes of the floor-to-ceiling windows, and for the first time relished in the flavor of my new country home, all the while thinking of my past fantasy of gazing out the windows at the dark expanse of woods in the backyard, courting the fireflies on a hot summer night.
 

I smiled as the warm spirits softened the anxieties of the day. Perhaps I wouldn't miss the city after all.

Ten minutes passed, I sipped the last drop of brandy in the glass and decided that now would be a good time to retire to bed. I placed the glass on the table, looked out into the darkness, and saw, in the distance of the woods, a brief and single flash of gold light. I walked to the window, cupped my hands around my face and peered out. It did not come again. Perhaps one of my fireflies had paid me a visit?

When I turned around I saw a small icebox in the furthest corner of the room. I didn't notice it until now, as it hugged the corner between the bookshelf and armoire. I went to it, pulled at the door but it was locked. Rifling through the desk earlier I noticed a few small keys of which I'd assumed went to the liquor cabinet. I retrieved them, then fitted the first one into the lock on the icebox. It opened with a small
click
.

Inside was an assortment of blood samples, each one labeled with a patient's name. I found it odd that Farris had presumably collected the blood of his patients, which wasn't necessarily out of the ordinary if he'd planned to send them out for testing. However, there was quite a collection here. Then, I discovered something amazing.

The man had samples of disease-infected blood. They were labeled as such:
Hantavirus, HIV +, Malaria, Bubonic Plague.
I wondered where he'd gotten them from, for what purpose they could be used. Was it possible that he'd had some patients who'd come down with these diseases? HIV, yes. Hantavirus, possible.
But malaria? Bubonic Plague?
I locked the cabinet back up and made a point to try and research Farris's files for a conclusive rationale as to why he'd had those samples on hand.

Back in the house, all was quiet. I peeked in on Jessica, who along with Page appeared not to have moved since I last checked in almost two hours ago. I felt a true powerful sense of love for my daughter, a feeling so deep it scared me. Perhaps it was the unfamiliar surroundings, seeing her here for the very first time, sleeping so peacefully, the simple act appearing oddly precarious in nature, as though she'd settled down in the first comfortable place she could find after a day wandering as a lost runaway.

In my new bedroom, I undressed and crawled into my half of the bed that for the time being was a stark metal frame holding up two twin boxsprings and the king mattress; the rest of the wood bed was disassembled on Christine's side, towering against the wall like phantom trees. I lay there for ten minutes feeling the pressures of the day waning, and all the while I listened to Christine's shallow breaths and the occasional grind of her teeth. Still, sleep seemed as far away as my life in Manhattan, and I propped myself up on my elbows and peered out the window facing the woods in the backyard. In the full moon's light, I could see the birdbath, the shed at the perimeter of the woods, and then the woods themselves that pitched up slightly and disappeared in the distance, even at this height.

All was quiet. Too quiet.

Deep in the darkness of the woods, I saw a second brief flash of golden light. And then, like the first, it was gone.

A half hour later, while I still lie awake in bed, I thought,
Fireflies don't come out until July.

T
he next three weeks were an anticipated transitional period for us, but proved to be busier than we ever expected. I ended up opening my practice to the public one week after moving in. It was a choice by default. I hadn't planned on ramping things up so quickly, but as soon as the phones were hooked up they began an eternal serenade of tolls and in twenty-four hours I had a tapeful of messages from Dr. Farris's old patients (my
new
patients) seeking checkups and appointments, all for non life-threatening issues. Through my perusal of their records, and the general lighthearted conversations that took place during their stopovers, I realized that these people simply wanted to be the first ones to initiate some chatter with new doctor in town. It was all part of the small-town directive. She who plants the grapevine grows the most acquaintances. And while I played mayor, Christine assumed command of the household.

Jessica was having a grand old time exploring the nooks and crannies of the house, and even helped Christine choring about with an enthusiasm that'd remained previously dormant. She'd do the job that was asked of her as long as it incorporated a conversation pertaining to all the fun activities she'd soon encounter in kindergarten, plus, as Christine so duly illustrated, how she'd be the smartest kid in class because all her roots were planted in city soil. I frowned upon this type of work-load bribery despite the fact that it served its purpose quite well, and hoped that Christine's ego-boosting commendation would fade from Jessica's mind before September arrived.

I'd had lunch with Phillip a couple more times, and soon enough I was formally introduced to Rosy Deighton. As it turned out, she didn't remember our encounter in the bedroom, although I still had my suspicions as to whether there might have been some ulterior motive that day on the part of her husband. Looking at her was still unsympathetic on the stomach (she even joined us for lunch one afternoon—I'll spare the details), but she seemed a rather pleasant lady who did her best to keep up a good attitude despite the fact that the golden years of her life had been pretty much wiped out.