Absence of Faith (4 page)

"No," Carson said.

"Don't worry. You're not
alone...many of our doctors make the same mistake. Have a nice
day," she said.

"Thanks," he said.

He took the nearby elevator to the
basement and walked down a long hallway enveloped in white light
from the overhead florescent lights. He pushed on a double set of
wooden doors with black stick-on letters that identified the
lab.

"Are you Doctor Hyll?" Jeffrey
asked pushing his ashen face into Carson's.

"Yeah," Carson said pulling away to
avoid his stale breath and crooked front teeth.

"Well, glad to meet you. I hope you
are feeling better these days. I heard about your accident,"
Jeffrey explained rubbing the hair net covering what little hair
remained on his head. "What can I do for you?"

"Do you have Mrs. Whitehead's
results yet?" Carson asked. "She's developed additional
symptoms."

"Doing it now. I'm going as fast as
I can," Jeffrey said. "These tests aren't simple and they take
time. If you want to wait a few minutes..."

"Do I look like I have a few
minutes?" Carson shot back.

"Cool your jets. You're not the
only doctor that needs results," Jeffrey replied. "I'm doing the
best I can."

Carson backed away and stood near
the double doors. Jeffrey moved to the other side of the room and
pressed his eyes into a microscope that sat on a large black slate
table.

"So how do you like Ocean Village?"
Jeffrey asked after several minutes. "I like it okay, especially
since they gave me more room down here. The only thing is I feel
like a mole working in the basement. I wish this place had windows.
I miss the windows in the old lab, but I guess you can't have
everything.”

"What do you have so far?" Carson
asked.

"So far she's clean as a whistle.
Everything is negative. She's a little anemic and I'm doing the
last one now for HTLV. Give me a few minutes - I'm almost
finished," Jeffrey explained.

Jeffrey took a few drops of blood
from a test tube with her name on it and placed them on a slide.
Then he added a few drops of green dye.

"This dye stains the antibodies so
we can see them," Jeffrey said. "Looks like she's negative on this
one, too. Would you like to take a look?"

Carson moved towards the microscope
and placed his eyes on the eyepiece. He didn't say
anything.

"I'll have the report done in about
an hour," Jeffrey said sheepishly.

"Fine," Carson said and left.
"And…ah…thanks."

"No problem."

He went back to Mrs. Whitehead's
room. Stokes, Nurse Janice Doherty and another doctor were
there.

"Well, what do we have?" Stokes
asked.

"Negative. She's clean. No viruses,
HTLV negative, nothing to explain the symptoms," Carson said
looking down at the sleeping Mrs. Whitehead.

"Could be an allergy or a reaction
to the car accident," Stokes said.

"I don't think so. The same thing
happened to me with the same results," Carson said. "Something
would have to show up in the blood for that kind of
reaction."

"Surely, we would see something
that could cause such a severe symptom," Stokes said. "By the way,
Doctor Hyll, this is Doctor Henry Graber."

"Hello," Carson said extending his
hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you. Dr. Stokes and I
go back a long time. If you need any help with anything just call,"
Graber said taking Carson's hand firmly.

"Thank you. I will."

"She's coming around," Nurse
Doherty said.

The old woman opened her eyes and
looked at Carson. Her eyes were cloudy, red-streaked ovals filled
with tears.

"Oh, it was so terrible. I don't
want to go there again. Where am I? What did I do wrong? I'm so
sorry..." she managed to get out. "Oh, I'm so thirsty...so
thirsty."

"Mrs. Whitehead, Mrs. Whitehead?
You're in the hospital. I'm Doctor Hyll and this is Doctor Stokes
and Doctor Graber. You were in a car accident and you're going to
be okay."

"Yes, you are going to be fine,
Mrs. Whitehead. Nothing to worry about," Stokes added.

"Oh, oh...but the pain. There must
be something wrong. The Lord must be mad at me. I was falling into
a dark tunnel...it was so terrible! Can I have some water
now?"

"It was just a very bad nightmare,
Mrs. Whitehead," Stokes said. "Nurse?"

Nurse Doherty poured water out of
the plastic pitcher into a tiny cup and held it up to woman's lips.
She took meager sips.

"Was there a faint flickering light
at the end of the tunnel?" Carson asked.

"Oh, yes. And then the pain..." the
old woman said. “I've always been afraid of the pain.”

Carson walked away from the bed and
stared out the window at the parked cars below. Stokes approached
him.

"What's the matter? You look like
you've seen a ghost?" Stokes asked.

"She had the same nightmare I had.
It just doesn't make sense," Carson said.

"Guilt. That's all it is. Guilt.
You must being feeling guilty about something you did," Graber said
from the bedside. "The mind works in strange ways and so does the
Lord. Maybe she’s being punished on account of you."

"I don't think so," Carson shot
back. "I don't feel guilty about anything I did in my life past or
present. And how do you explain the blistered, burned skin? They
thought it might be something in the water, but Mrs.
Whitehead...she didn't crash into any river. How do you explain her
symptoms?" Carson walked back to Mrs. Whitehead's bed.

"I think you’re a little out of
line," Stokes added.

"Well, Doctor Graber here thinks
her symptoms are divine intervention!" Carson said staring down
Stokes. "How can you say that, Doctor Graber! If most people
thought like you did, we'd still be in the dark ages!"

Carson stormed out. Stokes started
after him, but stopped and looked at Graber. Nurse Doherty
shrugged.

"I apologize for that outburst,"
Stokes said. "Doctor Hyll is a bit short tempered these days, and
he's still recovering from that awful car accident. This is his
first day back."

"It's okay. I understand, Matt.
He's not a native and he doesn't understand our ways, but I'm sure
he'll come around," Graber said. His thin lips parted into a tiny
smile.

"Yes, our ways..." Stokes replied
staring right through Graber. "Yes, our ways..."

Nurse Doherty shook her head and
left; Graber followed her.

C
arson's
stomach was upset when he finished his shift probably from that
stupid nurse who worked only one day a week. She often forgot the
processes she was supposed to follow, but insisted she had done it
correctly. He could never figure out people who thought absolutely
in black and white and who saw the world with no gray areas. In
addition, he didn't like working Sundays, but people just don't get
mysteriously well on Sundays and then sick again during the week.
When he pulled into the river stone driveway of his 1894 Victorian
home, his wife was just starting to unload grocery bags from the
trunk of her Nisson. Luckily, for both of them they could drive
their cars on Sundays. The use of all vehicles was prohibited on
Sundays in honor of the Sabbath until 1985. The town gates were
chained shut from midnight Saturday until midnight Sunday and no
wheeled vehicles of any sort were used on the town's roads. The
courts ruled that the practice was a conflict between church and
state and the gates had to remain open.

"I need some help," she shouted to
him on her way into the house with several bags in her
arms.

"Be right there!" Carson yelled
back. He was exhausted and didn't feel up to carrying grocery bags
into the house.

He looked down his street as the
last streams of the sun cast a burnt orange glow on some of the
houses. A cool breeze blew off the ocean carrying a briny smell
into the neighborhood. There was a breeze almost all the time
because most of 19th century homes in this tiny coastal town were
built on streets running perpendicular to the coast and high on a
hill. The layout created a funnel that channeled the ocean breezes
westward past the homes and their front porches. Their house was
closest to the edge of the hill and setback from the road several
feet. The next house was set several feet closer to the road. It
looked like the builders made a mistake, but everyone had a view of
the ocean from their porches.

He hurriedly grabbed three bags of
groceries, walked up the steps to the wraparound porch, and opened
one of the antique French doors. He entered the kitchen and placed
the bags on the oval cherry wood table in the breakfast
nook.

"Hi," Linda said kissing him on the
lips and placing her bags next to his.

"Hi," he mumbled.

"What's the matter? You have that
puppy dog face."

"I had an argument with Stokes
today," Carson said dropping his eyes.

"Stokes? Want to tell me about it?"
she asked.

"Yeah...well, I can't believe that
I had an argument not only with Stokes, but with one of the senior
doctors there. How could I be so stupid? I don't understand how
Graber ever got through medical school with his preoccupation with
religion. He tried to explain away Mrs. Whitehead's symptoms as an
act of God and Stokes seemed to agree with him. Could Stokes be a
religious fanatic? This is not what I expected of the man who is a
pillar in the community, the man whom I admired and looked up to
all this time.”

"Maybe, he was having a bad day,
too," Linda suggested. “I take it Mrs. Whitehead was one of your
patients?”

"I'd hate to see one of his good
days. You know I chose Ocean Village because of Stokes. Stokes had
publicly denounced the government in the 1970s when those four
students were gunned down at Kent State for protesting the Vietnam
War. He had kept the younger people of those years from straying
from their roots, from their beliefs, and their religion. He was a
powerful man, a persuasive man, a man who said things that were
important, but now he appears to be a ridiculous religious fanatic.
I wanted to live here because I wanted morals and values in our
lives, and I wanted to pass them down to our children."

"We don't need to live here to pass
them to our children," Linda explained. "We just have to have them
and teach them to our children when the time comes. It doesn’t
matter where we live."

"I guess so."

"Don't worry about it," Linda said
kissing him gently on the cheek. "Stokes will probably forget about
it in the morning. He's got more important things to think
about."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. What's
for dinner?"

"Chicken, fish, or
spaghetti?"

"Chicken."

"Chicken it is. I just got a new
recipe for your favorite from Flora. She lives two houses down.
That's why I went to the supermarket."

“Chicken Cordon Bleu?”

“That's it!”

"Thanks honey."

Linda unpacked one of the bags and
noticed a few items on the floor near the garbage can.

"You know, Carson, I really wish
you would put these paint cans in the basement now that the kitchen
is done. They're just in the way," Linda said.

"Sure. I'll do it now."

Carson picked up the two used cans
of latex paint, and entered the narrow stairwell into the basement.
The aching wooden stairs went straight down, and then made a sharp
left turn, and stopped at a dirt floor. The air had a musty, damp
dirt smell. Carson's hair touched the ceiling as he carried the
paint cans toward the back of the cellar. He had to stoop slightly
to avoid hitting his head on the large oak beams that crossed the
ceiling. The dirt cellar had walls of earth with six by six inch
wooden beams placed strategically throughout the space to hold up
the house. The wall facing the ocean had been cemented to prevent
its collapse during hurricanes if the water rose high enough to
reach the house. However, there were no records that the water ever
rose that high.

Carson pulled a small metal chain
hanging from the ceiling and a single suspended bulb came to life
revealing a tangle of furniture, boxes, and old lamps - objects of
many lifetimes. Carson stared at the potpourri of items wondering
what type of people used them, what were they like, and how they
lived. There were several generations of belongings haphazardly
strewn about. He wrapped his fingers around the brass neck of a
standing parlor lamp trying to imagine the time and the world this
lamp once inhabited.

He took his hand away and worked
his way towards a crude, handmade workbench made of chewed and
paint-stained planks of wood. Small clouds of dust curled around
his shoes as he walked. He placed the paint cans on a shelf above
the bench and turned to leave, but stopped when he spotted an old
steamer trunk tucked away in a far corner. It had leather side
handles now dried and cracked. He had seen many of them at the Red
Bank antique center and he didn't think they were worth much. He
lifted the center hasp, and unlatched the metal side clasps, and
opened the large lid. A fold of white lace curtains that had since
turned yellow lay next to several issues of
National
Geographic
magazine. The dates on the magazines were from
several months in 1960. The forty plus-year-old dust from the trunk
smelled ancient and dry, and made him sneeze.
Someone else's
junk,
he thought. He moved the curtains and saw a large object
under them. He lifted it out and brought it into the light. It was
a hand-cranked coffee bean grinder with a small wooden drawer in
the base for the ground coffee. He knew what it was because his
grandmother had had one. He stood up and held it closer to the
light to get a better look. Suddenly the grinder spun in his hand
and he watched it fall to the floor and split in half.