Duby's Doctor (7 page)

Neither Jean nor Mitchell knew Carinne
Averell, but multiple portraits of her hung in their house.

Carinne sat among the blooming grasses near
the bunny hutch and fondled the newest litter of three baby
rabbits. Their fur was as soft as the dandelion puffballs that
swayed in the breeze. She could hold all three of the tiny
creatures in her cupped hands and lift them for nuzzling their
twitchy noses or kissing their pink-lined little ears.

Kyle Averell approached across the lawn from
the mansion, bringing with him the Latin politician for whom the
latest gala had been carefully orchestrated.

Carinne did not hear their steps in the soft
grass. She started when her father’s voice boomed from behind
her.

“His Excellency is leaving, Carinne. I know
you want to pay your respects.”

Carinne gently released the baby bunnies and
took an adult rabbit in her arms. Cradling the warm, trusting
animal, she stood, turned, and extended a polite handshake to the
dignitary.

Averell firmly pressed a hand against her
back, forcing her closer to the other man. Carinne nearly dropped
the bunny, but her precise smile never faltered.

“Don’t be shy, sweetheart,” Averell said, and
his tone was all the hint she needed. Carinne took another step
forward and placed a sweet, quick, kiss on His Excellency’s
cheek.

The man captured her hand in his, clearly
wishing for more of her affection.

“Excellency, I wish you safe journey,”
Carinne said with a demure nod suggestive of an old-fashioned
curtsy.

The Latin man leered into her face, running
his fingers along her chin and down her neck.

“Formality must not stand between us,
mi
vida
, yes? When I return in a few short months, you will be
mine.”

He smiled in a way he probably thought was
charming. He pointed toward the rabbit hutch with his chin. “And if
you like animals, I will have my men build a menagerie just for
you. Birds and monkeys, even a jaguar if you wish.”

Carinne allowed a speck of hope to widen her
smile an eighth of an inch. “Can I have rabbits?”

“But of course. I myself often have rabbits.
The chef makes an especially tasty pie with wine sauce and
scallions. Ah. Heavenly.” He smiled at Averell and missed Carinne’s
split-second of horror.

Before Carinne could spoil the moment, her
father ushered His Excellency away from her and toward Rico,
standing a few feet away.

“Excellency,” said Averell, “your plane is
waiting, and your security chief will be growing anxious. Rico will
see you to the airfield. The sooner you get home, the sooner you
will come back to us, eh?”

“Quite right,” His Excellency replied, and
followed Rico toward the waiting limousine. “
Hasta la vista,
Señor
Averell.” He waved to Carinne, whose careful smile had
been restored. “
Adios, mi amor
.”

Averell moved to place an arm about Carinne’s
shoulders, and together they presented a perfect tableau of
familial love for the departing guest’s benefit. As soon as the
limousine was out of sight, Averell turned on his daughter.

“Really, Carinne, your sense of priorities is
positively astounding! The man announces he is going to make you a
queen, and all you care about is some stupid rabbits!”

“Daddy, he’s going to make me a prisoner,
just another expensive souvenir from the United States. At least if
I can have a pet, something to love—”

“The fool already promised to get you all the
animals you want!”

“He wants to take wild animals and make them
prisoners, too. Can’t you see what he is? Can’t you see how he
thinks?” She stepped close to her father’s chest and put one arm
around his waist.

“I want you to be proud of me, Daddy,” she
said, leaning her head against his lapel. “And I’ve tried to be
nice to him because I know how important he is to your business.
But, Daddy, in the name of mercy, can’t you see I can never marry
that man?” She nearly said, I don’t even remember his name, but she
feared that would reveal the extent of her inattention to past
meetings with the man.

Averell lifted the rabbit from her and placed
his other arm tenderly around her. He lifted the rabbit to eye
level. “Sweetheart, you are no better equipped to face the cruel
world alone than this bunny is. That’s why your daddy tries to take
such good care of you.”

He stepped back from Carinne and stooped,
releasing the rabbit into the grass. The rabbit ran
hell-for-leather toward the farthest fence.

“Lazaro!” Averell shouted to the security
guard patrolling the fence with his dog.

Averell pointed to the rabbit sprinting
across the grass.

Lazaro loosed the dog with a command.

Carinne screamed.

The rabbit was history.

Averell stepped behind Carinne. She had
turned to watch when she heard Lazaro command the dog, and now she
was frozen, unable to turn away from the horror of the dog
dismembering his bloody kill. Averell grasped her shoulders firmly
and forced her to face him.

“You must leave these important decisions to
me, Sweetness. Things like marriage and business and the
establishment of priorities in life. Believe me, Carinne, I know
what’s best for you.”

Carinne discarded any pretense of polite
acquiescence. Anger overcame fear, and it showed in every line of
her body. “Just like you knew what was best for Mother?” she
gritted out.

“Exactly,” said Averell, whose voice was
sweet enough to terrify anyone who knew him well. “But, she didn’t
understand that I knew best. And, she got sick. And, sadly, she’s
no longer with us. You’re very smart, though. You do understand,
don’t you?”

“Yes, I think I do. I finally do.” She
accused him as much as agreed with him, without showing any of the
fear that would overwhelm her later, when she was alone.

“Excellent,” Averell said. He placed an arm
around her shoulders and escorted her with gentle, inescapable
pressure toward the house.

Sister Elizabeth sat at her desk, listening
patiently to her visitor. Through the window behind her, the
preschoolers could be seen at recess on the playground, under the
watchful eye of a junior nun.

“I can’t believe a real daddy would do that,”
her visitor was saying. “Maybe he’s not her real daddy.”

“I’m sorry to say, Jean, that real daddies
and real mommies do it every day,” Sister Elizabeth told him.
“Usually it means that when they were children, somebody did it to
them.”

Jean rose from the visitor chair and paced
the office, frustrated, saying, “But he’s so big, and she’s so
little! Doesn’t he know you don’t hit girls? It’s a rule!”

Sister Elizabeth smiled. “I’m sure he does.
But sometimes life gets to be too complicated. People get angry at
things they can’t control, and they explode.”

To Jean’s literal way of thinking, this was a
terrible shock. “They explode!” He mimed a volcano erupting.

“A figure of speech,” the nun said. “It means
they lose control.”

Jean took this in and nodded his
understanding. He went to stand at the window, looking out at the
playground. Debbie was among the children playing there, and she
wore a clean, white, plaster cast on her right arm.

“Before, it was just bruises,” Jean
reflected. “This is much worse. It’s getting worse. What can we
do?”

“We have reported our suspicions to the
Department of Children and Families, as indeed we are required by
law to do. But, we have no proof, Jean. And, even if we did, if we
called the police, they might take Debbie out of the home, maybe
take her father to jail. That could only make the whole family even
more unhappy. We want Debbie to be safe from her daddy, but I’m
sure Debbie doesn’t want to be separated from her mom.”

“Debbie’s daddy should be punished.”

“How, Jean? Should I make him run laps around
the school or clean the blackboards?” She waited until he shook his
head. “Exactly. So, I – we – shall keep praying that the Lord will
somehow get through to him. Change his heart. Give him more
self-control, less anger.”

“Or someone bigger to hit,” said Jean. “Or
someone to hit back.”

Sister Elizabeth’s look said she probably
would not be praying for that.

Several hours later, darkness had fallen when
Mitchell’s car pulled into the drop-off zone and stopped. No other
cars remained in the lot. Lights glowed inside the building, but no
one came out. She waited a few minutes, then she honked the horn.
When no activity issued from the building, she parked, turned off
the car, and went in.

Mitchell felt no alarm. She often worked long
hours, and on those days Jean was glad to stay longer after school
to help the sisters with maintenance projects. Sometimes he stayed
late to finish a painting, and the sisters phoned Mitchell to ask
that she delay picking him up.

A frisson of something resembling alarm
trickled down Mitchell’s spine, however, when Sister Elizabeth met
her at the door, wiping her hands on a bloody towel.

“He’ll be right out,” the nun said. “He’s all
right. We were just cleaning him up before you ... well, actually,
it looked worse than it is. The bleeding seems to have
stopped—”

“
Bleeding
?”

“—and the paramedics said—”

“
Paramedics
?”

“—they don’t think Mister Kavanaugh’s ribs
are broken, just bruised—”

“Who?”

“—and the police said, since nobody seems to
want to press charges, – ”

“
Police
?”

“—that we can just forget about it. Of
course, Jean had to be punished for hitting—”

“
Hitting
?”

“—so he had to run laps. And that started the
nosebleed again. But everything’s all right now. Here he is.”

Jean limped out of the back room, his
clothing torn, filthy and bloody, leaning on a junior nun for
support and holding a bloodied washcloth against his nose.

Sister Elizabeth sighed. “It’s been an
exciting day.”

Mitchell studied Jean from head to toe,
incredulous. She pointed at his swollen left knee.

“You ran on concrete? And hitting? You were
hitting! The children?”

“Oh, dear, no!” said Sister Elizabeth. “He
was hitting Mister Kavanaugh.”

Mitchell stared at Sister Elizabeth. She
looked at Jean. She looked at Sister Elizabeth.

She looked at Jean, saying, “
You ran on
concrete and you hit Mister Kavanaugh
? Who is Mister
Kavanaugh?”

“Debbie’s father,” answered Sister
Elizabeth.

Mitchell was still looking at Jean. “Excuse
me, Sister, but unless Kavanaugh cut his tongue out, I’d like to
hear Johnny answer something.” She took a deep breath and asked
Jean, “Why did you hit Debbie’s father?”

Jean pulled the washcloth away from his face
long enough to say, “He hits Debbie.”

Mitchell was at a loss. There must be
something she should say to this, but what did she really know
about disciplining a, sort of, child?

Mitchell looked at the two nuns.

The sisters looked at Mitchell.

Mitchell looked at Jean. Quietly she said, “I
told you never to run on the concrete. We need to get home and put
ice on that knee. C’mon. G’night, Sisters.”

“Goodnight, Doctor Oberon,” both nuns said in
unison.

The junior nun yielded Jean’s elbow to
Mitchell, and Mitchell helped him limp out to the car.

Mitchell stopped at the nearest convenience
store and purchased a bag of ice. When she pulled away from the
store, Jean sat in the passenger seat with his left knee and the
ice bag wrapped up together in his ruined shirt.

She kept her eyes on the road ahead. On one
hand she was angry, but on the other hand she didn’t know with whom
to be angry. Also, Jean was sitting half naked next to her, and he
looked like Rocky Balboa after losing the title bout. Frankly, she
feared that if she looked at him, she might start salivating. And
how unprofessional was that?

Tense silence lasted for several minutes.

“I’m sorry I wrecked your knee,” Jean said
softly.

“Oh, thank you. Thanks a lot. That’s like me
setting fire to the Sistine Chapel. ‘Oops. Sorry I burned your
masterpiece, Mister Michelangelo.’”

Silence descended again. Mitchell now
squirmed with guilt for being sarcastic.

“Are you going to explode and hit me?” said
Jean.

Mitchell looked at him: four times her size
and fifty times her strength. “Me hit you? Are you nuts?” She
looked back at the road, renewing her determination to keep her
eyes on the pavement ahead.

Jean seemed to relax in his seat, as if he
had actually believed she might resort to physical punishment.

Mitchell felt that after this evening’s
events, nothing would ever shock or surprise her again. She was
wrong.

“
Michel
,” said Jean, “are you my
mother?”

“What?” She almost took her eyes off the
road, but the image of Rocky Balboa flashed through her mind and
she jerked her head forward after only a quarter turn in his
direction. “Why would you think an absurd thing like that? What are
you learning at this school?”

“When a lady comes to pick up the children at
school, it’s usually their mother.”

“Well, I’m not old enough to be your mother.
Regardless of what you may have heard.”

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty-nine,” she lied.

“How old am I?”

“Uh, twenty-nine,” she guessed.

“When’s my birthday?”

“Why? You want a party at Dave & Buster’s
like the other kids?”

“No, just to know. Other people have
birthdays. When is mine?”

Mitchell thought a moment. “Okay. Okay,
November first. Your birthday is November first. You’re a
Scorpio.”