The Doctor Takes a Wife (22 page)

“No. Take me home.”

“Home” was the cozy bungalow the Brady
’
s had built in the twenties, shortly after their marriage. It would never make the pages of a slick magazine as a decorator
’
s item, but the chintz-covered couch and chairs, the bookshelves and potted begonias, were charming.

Min brought a tray of food to the living room; the night air was chilly and she touched a match to the laid fire; and curled up on the hearth rug. Phil sat in her father
’
s armchair and savored the good coffee, rich and hot
—
neither the um-stuff of the hospital nor the pallid, lukewarm liquid which Page developed.

Min was wearing the bright red jersey slacks and the red and white striped T-shirt in which she
’
d been working. She had on some of those red ballet slippers—girls were using them for everything. On Min, they looked cute. She looked cute.

Phil drank a second cup of coffee, and ate two thick, moist sandwiches, then filled his pipe—and talked. He talked to her about his work. Min asked if he felt—after six months—that he
’
d done right to come back to Berilo. “So right, that I knew I was wise to leave for a while.
”
She hugged her knees with her arms, and looked up at him questioningly. The firelight put twin flames into her brown eyes and haloed the smoothness of her dark hair.

“I had to learn there was a difference between having an ideal and an idea, Min,
”
he told her. “You need both to do research—but I had to go to St. Louis to learn that.”

“I see. Don
’
t you need both here?”

‘
I have both here. An ideal for the sort of surgery I will do, and ideas about how to do it. For instance
...”
For an hour he talked specifically of those ideas, and Min listened, now and then putting in a word or two, but mostly just listening and comprehending.

He spoke of the “Korean thing.” Most of the second
-
war years had been spent in training for Phil; he
’
d had less than a year of active duty. He was wondering whether he still did not owe some service to the country. It was the sort of wonder all young doctors indulged in during that summer. Phil had talked of it to me, and to Page. Min brought more understanding to the matter than Page had done.

Page had just said, briskly, that to her mind obstetrics would seem to put him beyond the range of military need.

“Did the Government pay for your medical training?” Min asked.

“No. But I was exempt while I did my internships.
”

“And then you spent a year in a military hospital?
”

“Yes.”

“That means the Government knows where to find you if you
’
re needed.”

“Mhmmmn.”

She grinned. “I think they can be trusted to find you. They do all right along that line, usually.”

He told her what Page had said.

“That should be a clincher,” laughed Min. “Or did you do o.b. work in the army?”

“It was the navy, and I did not do that sort of work. I might have
—
I knew an orthopedist who did nothing but snatch enlisted men
’
s babies.”

“That
’
s our Government!” chuckled Min.

Phil settled down more deeply into the chair cushions. “I guess I
’
ll relax my patriotism,” he decided, “and do what I can to assure there being a new generation for the next war.”

“That
’
s the idea! Cynical, perhaps, but realistic.”

He told her then—for another hour—about his ideal for pre-natal clinics out in the mountains. One up at McCord, one down the desert fifty miles, one at the new dam—he
’
d set up a nurse in each of those localities, and visit the clinics on his free days. In the winter, he
’
d have to go by plane, and it would save a world of time to travel so in the summer. In fact, the lumber company had offered, him their plane.

“That sounds awfully good, Phil.”

“I still would advise the women to come in for their deliveries, but it seems worth while to take care of them while they are at home.”

“Cooking and toting water for their men
...
” Min interpreted.

That was exactly it. The lumber company, and the construction foremen, knew they had small chance of keeping men on the job if they felt their wives were beyond medical care
—
Min grasped the point immediately.

“But that
’
s marvelous, Phil! No wonder you
’
re so absorbed in your work.”

He looked at her oddly. How well she understood! He had thought he could expect Page to—but Page could not seem to understand any of the psychosomatic elements in doctoring. Hers was still the scientific approach rather than the sensitive, personal one. Phil was grateful to be able to talk about his work with a woman who so warmly grasped his ideas for the mountain people.

He told some
f
unn
y
stories; Min knew the people were rough, and some of them ignorant, and she laughed hard in a way flattering to his narrative skill. And when Phil realized that it was two o
’
clock, and began a hurried departure, he took both of Min
’
s hands into his own and told her sincerely how much he
’
d enjoyed the evening.

“You
’
re swell, Min. You always have been swell.” He drew her toward him—not by force!—and kissed her. “Thank you,” he said softly—and kissed her again, that time warmly, lingeringly. He dropped her hands, and strode out of the house.

And Min just stood there before the ashes of their fire, her palms pressed against her hot cheeks, and remembered that kiss, remembered the feel of it, the roughness of Phil
’
s cheek against hers, the hardness of his chest as he held her close, the warmth
...
Finally, she went to her room, and crawled into bed—and was miserable for what was left of that night.

The next time I saw Min, I knew at once that something had happened—and could guess what—and I was really worried.

I was sure that Min was tempted to move in, to make a real play for Phil, and if she decided to do that, I was just as sure that the dumb smart girl he
’
d married wouldn
’
t have a chance in the world.

I won
’
t claim to being so psychic that I knew to the minute when Min decided against making that ruthless snatch. I stuck around pretty stubbornly, and I was relieved when I saw a certain change in her appearance and manner; there was less tension, as if gradually she had stopped being afraid of what she might do. Min was a really fine person, honest and straight-forward; and ruthlessness for any purpose would not be her choice of behavior.

So, as she explained later, she was actually taking the easiest way out, for her, when she decided to go to Page and talk bluntly to the girl. I
’
d like to stage the scene that must have been.

Min got through at the newspaper about four; it was one of the few really hot days we have in our summers, but the verandah of the Scoles
’
big, turreted frame house was as cool as a cave. Min twanged the old-fashioned bell, and after a few minutes Page opened the walnut and plate-glass front door, her fingers nervously attempting to fasten the last button of her pink cotton dress.

“Oh!” she said in surprise. “Hello, Min—”

Min too was in pink, crisp, tailored, cool-looking,
—
whether those dresses are cool, or not. But Page
’
s dress! There was a little ruffle up close to her throat and buttons down the front. The skirt was gathered—the Duchess of Windsor would look frumpy in that sort of dress!—and Page looked decidedly frumpy. She
’
d let her hair grow, and it was long enough to pull back from a center part into a knot at the back of her neck
—
She looked like her own mother!

“May I come in?” asked Min.

Page laughed a little, and stepped back. “Oh, certainly
—
I
’
d be glad if you would.”

She led the way to a room at the right side of the dark hall. She called it the library, and there were any number of books behind the glass doors of high book cases. The furniture was massive, leather cushioned, with one or two items in green velour to lighten the place. The woodwork either was mahogany, or had been stained that bloody color—glittering green tiles surrounded the black iron front of the fireplace, a mirror towered above the mantel shelf on which a glass-domed gilt clock and a vase of red and yellow roses only seemed to make matters worse.

Min shivered elaborately. “How in the dickens did you folks ever get into such an owl
’
s nest?” she asked her hostess.

“Well,” answered Page uncertainly, looking around the room as if seeing it for the first time, “it was available, and seemed to have everything we
’
d need—”

“Is it all like this?”

“It
’
s not
modern
, if that
’
s what you mean.”

“It
’
s what I mean. Didn
’
t you care? I mean, you couldn
’
t
like
living in a mortuary.”

“I wouldn
’
t have chosen this,” Page admitted, “but I let Phil make the decisions.”

“And he didn
’
t. I see.”

They
’
d seated themselves by then, Min on the couch, and Page in a cavernous leather chair, one foot curled up under her. “Phil didn
’
t what?” she asked, bewildered.

“Care, you sap,
care
!”
cried Min, angry at a lot of things all at once. “Oh, I
’
m sorry, Page...”

Sunlight came through the tall windows of the bay, making a pattern of the lace curtain flicker across Page
’
s face. Min studied this effect for a second. “I came to talk to you about Red,” she blurted at last. “But I don
’
t know if I can make you understand even why I came—let alone what I
’
m going to say.”

Page leaned her head back against the chair.
“I
’
ll
try to understand,” she promised.

Min fiddled with the pocket of her skirt, and shifted uncomfortably. “Sometimes brains are a handicap to a girl...” she suggested.

“I know that better than you do
!
” said Page crisply, then gasped a little at what she had implied.

But Min laughed, and that relaxed them both. “I
’
m still going to say it,” she announced, “because I think it
’
s only fair.”

Page said nothing, and Min cast about for words, then decided to use any that mig
h
t be at hand. “I imagine that you know that I
’
ve always been crazy about Red Scoles. You know—school-girl
cru
sh, movie-star swoon—that sort of thing?” She glanced at Phil
’
s wife, and leaned forward, her brown hands clasped on her knee. I—oh, you know
—
my toes curl up, my knees quiver like jelly
—
I have hot and cold passions at all hours of the day and night—”

“You mean, you
’
re in love with him.” It was an aloof statement of a truth deduced from testimony.

Min chewed the
corner
of her lip. “I mean just that, Honey. I mean just that. It
’
s a feeling. If it could be expressed, I guess it would be the most wonderful feeling in the world. It could move those mountains out here, and stop Snake River dead in its tracks.”

“Yes,” whispered Page.

“But,” Min went on, looking down at the green carpet, “for me it
’
s just plain hell, because, of course, I have to bottle up all that strength; the force of it can never be expended. For Philip Scoles happens to be the one man in the world I know I can
’
t ever have
!”

Page sat up in her chair—exactly as if some fuzzy growth on a Petri dish full of goo had reacted in an unexpected way. “Why not?” she asked, in a tone of simple, uncomplicated inquiry.

Min stared at her for a long minute, then she remembered that brain-business. “Because,” she explained, her tone gently patient, “Red is your husband.” There came no light of comprehension. Just those inquiring gray eyes above that unbecoming, gathered neck of her picnic-pink dress. “And because,” Min went on, even more patiently, “I happen to know exactly how much and what you did for Red—and for me, Page—when you didn
’
t let him perform an illegal operation on me, back there in St. Louis.

“If he
’
d done a thing like that, Red wouldn
’
t be worth ten cents as a doctor—and that means he wouldn
’
t have been worth much as a man. I came to him, expecting him to do that—and I think he would have done it, too. But your coolness and common sense saved us all. And so—” She looked at Page, her brown eyes pleading with the girl to understand, to save them any more of this painful talking on the subject.