The Doctor's Wife (35 page)
Authors: Elizabeth Brundage
At breakfast, Annie reviewed her checklist of precautions. The children sat and listened, alert with expectation, of what she was not entirely sure. What pictures did they form in their heads, she wondered, based on her list of warnings? “No talking to anyone you don’t know. Even people you do know. Be careful. Even your teachers. If, for example, they ask you to help them with something outside of school. If a teacher comes up to you on the playground and asks you questions about Daddy and me. You don’t have to answer anything. Do you understand? Or if one of your friends’ parents comes up to you and questions you or wants something from you. It could be someone you know, or it could be a stranger. You need to watch out for each other. Henry? Do you understand? You need to watch out for Rosie on the bus.”
“Yes, Mom,” Henry droned, bored with the subject.
“Rosie?”
“We understand, right, Rosie?” Henry urged.
Rosie said nothing and stared with bewildered concentration at the cereal box.
Rosie did not understand.
32
PATHETIC AS IT WAS to admit, Michael preferred the hospital to his own home. The hospital was predictable, familiar, and these days he took comfort in familiarity, no matter how fucked up it was. The balmy climate of the corridors. The lingering smell of food from the cafeteria. The benign faces of the nursing staff. The diagonal swish of the janitor’s mop on the blue linoleum. But at home, he had no idea where he stood. Lately, Annie seemed habitually forlorn, and more than once he’d caught her staring vaguely into space, the slightest hint of a smile on her lips. On the rare occasion when they had dinner together, she hardly touched her food and their conversation was strained, limited to the activities of the children. After the kids were in bed, she would vanish into the bedroom to read. He would find her hours later, fast asleep, the book lying across her chest, the nightstand light shining in her face.
The stress was beginning to get to him.
When he entered the office that morning, Miranda, the receptionist, cornered him in the hallway. “Celina James is in your office.”
“What?”
“I wouldn’t let Finney see her. He’ll probably call security or something.”
“Maybe she wants to discuss a case. Bring in the first patient, I’ll only be a minute.”
For safety reasons, Michael and Celina had agreed that seeing each other outside of the clinic was, for the most part, not a good idea. He hurried down the hall to his office. Celina was sitting in the swivel chair behind his desk.
“Nice place,” she told him. “Swank. You guys must have a hell of an overhead.”
“Celina, we’ve been over this. You shouldn’t be here.”
“I was in the neighborhood, I couldn’t resist.”
“I’ve got a waiting room full of patients.”
“I needed to see you.” She hesitated a moment, as if she were going to say something, but changed her mind. Then she added, “I wanted to see your office, where you work.”
“It’s not terribly exciting.”
“On the contrary.” In no particular hurry, she walked around the room, studying the photographs he’d taken when he and Annie had traveled overseas after medical school. They were large, framed prints and he was immeasurably proud of them. “Where’s this?” she asked, pointing to one of his favorite photographs of a group of young Guatemalan girls.
“Guatemala. They’re some orphans we met.” When he had taken the picture, he’d been considering pediatrics and the children on the streets had enchanted him with their uncanny strength and mystery. Another photograph showed a boy wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt. The boy had no shoes, and his feet were riddled with cuts. Michael had been pleased with the picture’s inherent irony. “An interesting place,” he said.
“I’ll show you interesting,” she scoffed at him. “I got kids like this right down the street. You don’t need to take an airplane to get shots like these.”
“No, I’m sure I don’t. Now, if you’re through patronizing me, I’d like to get back to my patients.”
She looked at him and he saw that her lips were trembling.
“What’s the matter? What is it?”
“These came just in time.” She opened a large canvas duffel bag and took out a bulletproof vest. “Here, you’d better put it on. You’re going to need it.”
“What?”
“We’re on their list.”
“What list?”
“Their hit list. I checked out their Web site. They’ve got a hit list and we’re on it.”
“What, are you kidding?”
“No joke. Here, I printed it out.” She took a piece of paper out of her bag and unfolded it. “I wanted you to see it.”
Holding the paper in his hands he began to shake. It was an involuntary response, and there was nothing he could do to control it. There were two photographs positioned next to each other, one of him and one of her. Each had a caption underneath that gave their names and home addresses. Under his name were the names of his wife and children. At the bottom of the page, in big bold letters, were the words SHOOT TO KILL.
His legs felt weak suddenly and he sat down. “You’d better go, Celina.”
“I know.” She buttoned her coat.
“Be careful.” He could feel himself shutting her out. He picked up the phone.
“Who are you calling?” she asked.
“I’m calling my wife,” he said with surprising animosity. “Her name is on that list, too.”
First he dialed Annie’s office, but he got her machine. He tried her cell phone, but she hadn’t turned it on. Infuriated, he called the house, but for some inexplicable reason it just kept on ringing and he sat there like that for several minutes listening to the repetitive sound, wondering why he never seemed to be able to get through.
33
PULLING ONTO CAMPUS, winding up the circular driveway toward the South Cottage, Simon began to feel a familiar mixture of fear and excitement. The acerbic tonic of love, he thought, that he could no longer do without. Annie was waiting for him on the curb, wrapped up in her long camel coat with the wind like a child’s scribble across her face. One day he would paint her this way, he thought. He would paint the wind in a fury of brushstrokes, her face blurred and apprehensive. He parked and got out to open the door for her. She conceded to these old-fashioned gestures, he knew, because it gave a certain formality to their meetings, as if their courtship could lead to something other than misery. It would not be long, he knew, before this smart woman came to her senses.
He was taking her to the Whitney to see his painting, one of his earliest works. The Taconic was empty, and he tried to focus on the beauty of the scenery and the fact that his lover was sitting beside him, but in truth the excursion made him nervous. They spoke little on the drive, and when they arrived at the museum it was raining. He dropped her off in front, then circled the block numerous times before he found a space. He sat in the car for a moment with the rain beating down and wept.
He found Annie on the third floor, standing in front of the painting, which he had titled
Her Father’s House.
In the painting, Lydia stood in the doorway of her father’s crummy house in Vanderkill with the old man in the shadows behind her. He remembered trying to paint the word
lurk,
because that’s how she’d described her father, that he was always
lurking
over her shoulder, even though the man couldn’t get out of bed. Looking at it now, he was critical of some of his brushwork, the colors he’d used. The dirty white clapboards, the gray windows, the torn yellow shades, the mangled brown grass in the foreground. In the lower right corner, entering the canvas with prurient insinuation, was a rusty red mailbox.
Her Father’s House.
In the painting, Lydia stood in the doorway of her father’s crummy house in Vanderkill with the old man in the shadows behind her. He remembered trying to paint the word
lurk,
because that’s how she’d described her father, that he was always
lurking
over her shoulder, even though the man couldn’t get out of bed. Looking at it now, he was critical of some of his brushwork, the colors he’d used. The dirty white clapboards, the gray windows, the torn yellow shades, the mangled brown grass in the foreground. In the lower right corner, entering the canvas with prurient insinuation, was a rusty red mailbox.
The gallery was not crowded, and the space glowed nicely and hummed with the circulating heat. He observed Annie, who stood at the painting, tilting her head this way and that way, her shoulders slightly raised with emotion or ambiguity, he knew not which. He could not imagine what she was thinking. Regretting their visit now, embarrassed by it, he sat down on the bench behind her. Somehow, he felt lost. Melancholy whirled up inside him and he was struck with the distant memory of his father taking him to a museum, the Met. It had been one of their few outings together, their first visit to a museum. He remembered his father yanking him by the sleeve up the steps. Once inside all the sounds of the world faded. It was like being inside a cloud. The galleries with their glorious paintings. Massive canvases exploding with colors. His father rushed him through all the galleries, his face glowing with feverish sweat, until he found the painting he was searching for, a small Corot. His father sat him down hard on the wooden bench in front of it and handed him a sketchbook and pencil. “Draw that.”
Simon was happy to be allowed to draw again, and thought, perhaps, that his father had decided to approve of him. When they got home he was given a small canvas, the exact dimension of the Corot they’d seen at the museum, and a box of oil paints and brushes. His father put out the drawing he’d done at the museum. “See if you can paint that. Do it perfect. You want to be in this family, you earn your fucking keep.”
A week later, his father sold the painting to a man who peddled reproductions at a flea market in Brooklyn. His mother cooked pork chops and his father drank whiskey. Simon was nine years old.
“You okay?” Annie joined him on the bench. “You look gloomy all of a sudden.”
“I’m fine,” he lied.
“Is it hard? The painting, I mean. Seeing your wife.”
“I stole her,” he whispered. “You know how those people in tribes don’t want their pictures taken because they claim it steals their soul? Well, that’s what I did to her. I put her up on the canvas. I stole her soul.”
Annie said nothing. Her eyes looked watery and sad.
“She was this kid and I showed up and I fucking stole her. And nobody tried to stop me. I just walked in and took her life and I never gave it back. I never gave her anything.”
“I can’t believe that’s true,” she said softly.
“I’m a despicable man. I’m going to hell for it.”
They toured the museum together, then went down to the café for lunch. Annie picked at her food, glanced at her watch. She shifted on her chair as if she were sitting on a thumbtack. “I need to get home. I’m worried about the kids.”
“Worried? Why, Annie?”
“We’re being harassed,” she told him, and went on to explain how an anti-abortion group had been threatening her family. “It’s starting to really get to me.”
“I didn’t know your husband did abortions.”
“At a clinic in Albany,” she said. She seemed to be searching his face, attempting to discern a moral hue, which he did not supply.
Simon knew the group she was speaking of and suspected that his wife was a member of it. He’d seen their literature around the house. He knew Lydia participated in those rallies. She had mentioned them to him once. He had discovered her down in the basement, making signs. The floor had been cluttered with pictures of dead babies. When he’d questioned her, her face had glowed with excitement, like a teenager proud of a school project.
“I didn’t know,” he said again, wondering with horror if Lydia was at all involved in the threats.
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