Poison to Purge Melancholy (13 page)

Here at the Lees, they talked shop. Not that the discussion wasn’t impassioned, at least, as far as Acey was concerned. “Physicians who do nothing but reach for their prescription pads are lazy,” she maintained. “Patients do better—”

“Doctors of
Medicine
,” Rich said, cutting his food into square bites, “are called that for a reason. Patients want prescriptions. They come in saying, ‘Doctor, can you give me something for my indigestion?’ Sure, I suggest they give up fatty, spicy food, but that’s not what they want to hear, so I prescribe a GERD treatment and they go away happy.”

Pretty much what I’d done with Dr. Weisel. Asked for the cheapest birth control. Got it. Went away happy.

“Until their condition worsens,” Acey argued. “Masking the symptoms instead of finding what—”

“I allow them to feel better until they’re ready to make a lifestyle change,” Rich countered.

The exchange went back and forth while we all ate, with Glad taking advantage of each little pause to ask if anyone wanted more cabbage or turkey or whatever. Rich and Acey ignored her, the rest of us politely declined.

“Horse,” Rich said, enlisting reinforcements, “you see cases like that all the time—ballplayers who come in with the same injury to the same joint. You can’t stop them from going right back out and doing it again. Until they’re ready to stop playing the sport—”

“But Horse doesn’t simply give out drugs,” Acey said. “He’ll prescribe a brace, or physical therapy, or—”

“Pain killers,” Horse put in. “I can’t stand to see people wince.”

His sister gave him such a black look—a genuine
malorchi
—I knew where Beth Ann had inherited hers.

“My point is,” Acey said, “that medication should be indicated only if it improves a condition, and only after bloodwork’s done and alternative therapies are—”

“Voodoo,” Rich said, his top lip curling.

“Of course you’d say that. Something like osteopathic manipulation doesn’t come with a pharmaceutical sales rep who’ll take you to dinner and give you gifts.” Acey pointed at Rich’s gym bag, still on the floor inside the doorway.

“And you never accept giveaways?” Rich asked. “What about the wall charts in your examining rooms?”

“I don’t own the practice, so I can’t control what goes on the walls, or which pens our nurses use, or—”

“Your prescription pads?”

“They’re not from a sales rep—”

“They have pharmaceutical ads on them and you get them free. Same thing.”

Acey’s face was turning as red as Miss Maggie’s sweatshirt. “After my school loans are paid off, I’ll be able to have my own printed.”

I wondered how, with med school loans, she could afford a vacation to New Mexico. Unless her last beau brought her?

Glad stood, smoothing out her skirt, saying cheerfully, “Well, then, I suppose we’re ready for the dessert course. If you’ll all go back to the parlor for a few minutes . . .”

* * *

“Kicking the guests out of the dining room between courses,” Miss Maggie explained, “was perfectly acceptable in the eighteenth century—they called it “the remove.” Guests got to socialize and let their food settle while the table was reset with another harmonious, eye-dazzling layout. Like intermissions between the acts of a play.”

We were on the sofa in the parlor: Miss Maggie, Hugh, and me, in that order. My arm was entwined around his—I’d clutched his hand for the procession across the war zone. The result: no bogeymen, just the bare boards creaking beneath our feet. But I couldn’t hang on Hugh all weekend. I pictured how I must look, clingy and pathetic. Plus, Beth Ann had gone from evil eye to feigned indifference. Always a bad sign in a teenager.

She was curled up in an armchair, Acey and Horse standing on either side of her as they continued their shop talk with Rich. Foot was leaning against the left wall, listening. Dr. Weisel, I noticed as we left the dining room, had climbed the stairs, all the while pressing his hand to his sternum like he needed to burp something awful. Served him right for making a pig of himself over that rich oyster pie.

“I warned you Ma’s Christmas meals were unique,” Hugh said.

“If you ask me, that first course was pretty amazing,” I said. “You’re right, Miss Maggie—like an act of a play. Performance art.” And, I thought to myself, Hugh and his siblings sat through it like a rude audience.

“She hasn’t always done it this way.” Hugh sounded wistful. “We had
normal
holiday dinners when I was a kid.”

“And Gladys barely had time for that,” Miss Maggie said, “with five children and a husband to look after. Wasn’t until her divorce—Rich was in med school, Foot in college, you and Horse in high school, and only Acey still young—that Gladys could indulge in a hobby.”

Hugh rolled his eyes. “Cross-stitch is a hobby.”

I shrugged. “
My
hobby’s cooking, and you don’t seem to mind. And I noticed you didn’t leave anything on your plate during the first course.”

“It isn’t
what
she cooks,” Hugh argued. “In fact, until this year, she always made the same things. It’s the big production she makes out of her dinners. Just because colonial America did it that way.”

“I think it’s interesting.”

Miss Maggie agreed. “Living history you can eat. The best of both worlds.”

“Hugh,” Horse butt in, “you ought to be in on this.” He looked grave, which was when I realized that their conversation had switched from medicine.

“When are we going to talk to Mom?” Foot asked.

Hugh squirmed—either the topic made him uncomfortable or he was getting ready to stand up. I didn’t let go, though, so he stayed seated. “What did you all decide last weekend?”

As I put it together from their ensuing conversation, Rich, Foot, Acey, and Horse had convened last weekend at Rich’s shore house to discuss Glad’s selling of her house and moving in with Evelyn. Hugh couldn’t go because our post office had Saturday hours in December to handle the rush.

Rich wanted to make sure his mother had the money from the house sale invested wisely. Horse agreed, and thought maybe she could be persuaded to move into a cozy, maintenance-free condo.

Foot didn’t think Glad should live on her own. “Or invest her own money. She’s no longer making sound decisions.”

“Oh, come on,” Acey said. “She’s not senile.”

“Impaired judgment can be a warning sign of several geriatric diseases. She ought to have a full physical and neurological exam. And I think she ought to move in with Rich.”

“Me?” Rich asked. “You’ve got more room, with only two of you in that Taj Mahal you live in.”

“Yes, but I’m up in Hanover County. You’re closest.”

“I can’t. I’d have to discuss it with Delia first.” His tone conveyed the impossibility of that, though he didn’t say why. “Besides, having Mom central to all of us is best for her.”

“Hanover County isn’t central—”

“Foot’s afraid he’d have to spend some of his money,” Horse said. “You can’t take it with you, bro.”

“He’s
not
taking it with him,” Acey put in. “He’s willing most of it to cancer research, as he’s reminded us a megazillion times. The boy’s a saint. Just ’cause none of his dear siblings will ever see a penny—even though an interest-free loan to pay off our med school debts might be brotherly of him—”

“I paid off my own,” Foot said. “So did Rich. So can both of you. And that’s not why I can’t take Mom in—”

“If you want my opinion—” Miss Maggie stood, speaking in a voice she must have honed at school board meetings. The Lees all shut up and turned to her, though none looked deferential.

“You’re all too young,” Miss Maggie said, “and most of you too male, to know what’s best for an older woman.”

“We’re physicians,” Rich replied, his tone capitalizing the P. “Seventy percent of my practice is elderly and at least half of them are women.”

“And I’ve worked with Alzheimer’s cases,” Foot put in.

“I think Miss Maggie’s point,” Acey said, “is that Mom needs to be independent. All women do, even though men prefer us helpless.” Her eyes shifted toward me, a LAG this time, as if trying to make sense of conflicting data.

I wanted to assure her that I was as liberated as they came, but sitting here, stuck to her brother like a leech, I sure didn’t feel independent.

“Which is why,” Acey went on in a lowered voice, “we should find out more about Evelyn and how Mom feels about him.”

“Feels about him?” Foot looked incredulous. “She doesn’t feel anything. She had to latch onto a CW employee to get into this house, and he was the gullible one that won.”

Rich agreed. “She’s talked about wanting to live here all her life. Too much of a coincidence to believe she fell in love with someone who just happened to be moving in.”

“So you’re saying Mom’s using sex to get what she wants.”

“Acey!” Rich, red-faced and indignant, stole a prudent peek at the doorway to make sure his mother hadn’t heard.

She hadn’t, but Doc Weisel had. He was leaning against the doorjamb, smirking, unaware that a small spot of whitish goo (toothpaste?) clung to his nose, making him look clownlike.

“I expect cynicism from Foot,” Acey said, “who brings home a new wife every time he remodels, but not—”

“Dee-sser-hert!” Glad sang from the other room.

The siblings exchanged glances. Rich said, “We’ll talk to her after dinner,” to which they all nodded.

“Just before two of the Clock in the morning,
my house was assaulted by sum Nightwalkers . . .
I cannot see why it was much better than Burglary.”

—John Birge, on wassailing and mummery, 1794

December 24, 1783—Captain Underwood’s in the Market Square

The first floor of
Underwood’s house was indeed lit up brightly, hearths and sconces within, and candles at the windows, adding their glow to the lanterns upon the front steps. The steps were of stone, and wide enough for a gentleman and lady to mount them abreast, even though she wear a gown bolstered at the hip in the fashion of the French court.

Underwood’s footman, Ezra Lynch, stood before the door, dressed in fine black livery. His shoulders were tense beneath it, from standing long in the cold air. We all knew him—he too had served in our company, a sullen man who’d kept to himself except when bowing and scraping to do Underwood’s bidding. He’d risen to sergeant for it, though mercifully, we’d not been in his direct charge.

When we came even with the house, Sam fired off his musket into the air and I ceased my playing. He waited for the echo of the shot to fade, then called out in a voice high and nasal, rolling his R’s comically, “Room, room, a gallant room, I say!” As rehearsed, we all bowed low, except Alex, who curtsied with decorum, as if he performed the act daily.

“Ye’ll have no room here tonight,” Lynch grumbled. “Be off!” The command burst from his lips in a puff of white vapor.

Nonetheless, Sam mounted the steps and with an even grander bow, exclaimed, “Room, a gallant room; pray, give us room to ride, for we’ve come to show activity this merry Christmastide!”

“I said, ‘Be off!’” In the lantern’s glow, Lynch’s face grew purple.

Sam brought out his flask from his pocket. “First, good sir, will you toast us and the season?”

Lynch’s eye settled upon the offered refreshment and his tongue skimmed his bottom lip. He cast a glance through the window, then took the flask. “I could do with a nip. Cold night.”

“It is, sir, though your master no doubt brings you in at interval, to warm yourself?”

Lynch’s scowl, which told that Underwood had not done so, could not be hidden behind his rather drawn-out nip.

Sam saved him the need to respond. “Have you a Christmas box, sir?”

Lynch smiled, baring the three gaps in his teeth. “I do.” He returned Sam’s flask, which he might not have done had he not expected the next offer to be coin.

Sam pocketed the flask. “Blessed as you are with an eminent gentleman for a master, who attracts the most prosperous men of Williamsburg beneath his roof, why, your box must already be full up.”

Lynch scowled anew. “I expect the captain’s stipend will come at New Year. As for the rest, well, they’ll have their own servants to see to.”

Sam wagged his head in sympathy. “Yes, they’ll all have us believe times are hard.” He swept his free arm to include Jim, Will, and the rest. “We all have our boxes as well and our families to feed. And we all have our employers, none generous. Yet, we’re all equals now, are we not? We’ve fought a war to be. And you and I being equal, sir, you deserve a portion of our take, on allowing us entry.”

Lynch ran his tongue again over his lips, this time in consideration. “A half dollar for each you collect.”

“Half is not equal, sir. We’ll give you, let me see—seven portions would come to a shilling on the dollar.” It came to more and Sam knew it. He presumed that the footman had no head for numbers.

“I take more than half the risk,” Lynch said. “The captain’ll go into a proper rage if I let you by.”

“And you’ll say we held our guns close on you. A shilling and two, sir.”