Authors: Elizabeth Brundage
The Doctor's Wife (5 page)
4
THE DRIVE IS LONGER than she remembers it and there’s snow on the Northway. Over the county line Lydia Haas stops at a vacant lookout and gets out of the car. For a moment, she feels a deep sense of peace, having accomplished a godly act. But it doesn’t last. She studies the afternoon sky the way one studies a painting, the distant mountains like velvet, the branches of the trees tinkling with ice.
The doctor moans and twists on the backseat. She opens the door and lifts him up to a sitting position and loosens the blanket. She is relieved that his hands are tied, but this also terrifies her, the very idea of it, this bound man in the back of her car. As if sensing her alarm, his beeper goes off and she grasps it off his belt. The device hums in her cold hand like an insect. She studies the number: the hospital page operator. It makes her wonder if they’ve found the doctor’s car. It’s likely, she reasons, that somebody saw the smoke. She’d started quite a fire down there, after all. With a rush of anticipation, she closes the car door and walks to the edge of the lookout and hurls the little black box into the air.
The long road winds through the wastelands of upstate New York, the sky whipped bleak from the storm. She takes the Amsterdam exit and drives the back roads up to Vanderkill, the town where she was born. There are landmarks, reminders of her childhood. The desolate filling station that has always been desolate. A pumpkin field. The crumbling glove factory where her father worked. When she was little and he took her with him, she’d run through its wide corridors, the big windows bright with sunlight, the deep smell of leather and dye, the chatter of sewing machines,
Tosca
on the radio in the background. The women with their gold teeth and dark eyes. Her father bringing home boxes of gloves, gentlemen’s gloves of fine black leather that he’d yank over his suffering hands.
But I will not think about that right now,
she tells herself, concentrating on the winding roads, like the worn verses of childhood songs. Like the prayers she sang in school over and over until her throat went raw.
Tosca
on the radio in the background. The women with their gold teeth and dark eyes. Her father bringing home boxes of gloves, gentlemen’s gloves of fine black leather that he’d yank over his suffering hands.
But I will not think about that right now,
she tells herself, concentrating on the winding roads, like the worn verses of childhood songs. Like the prayers she sang in school over and over until her throat went raw.
She turns down the dirt lane that leads to her father’s house. The house is set back, shrouded by trees, and when she sees it her heart slows and pounds. It’s been ten years. All this time, Simon has paid the taxes without complaint. Once she begged him to sell it, but he refused.
To remind you,
he said.
So you don’t forget who you are.
To remind you,
he said.
So you don’t forget who you are.
The house looms and beckons under the black clouds. When she was little she tried to imagine that it was pretty, but now she sees that it was always just a poor man’s house, with crooked shutters, a vicious slant to the front porch. She parks in the frozen grass and gets out and walks up to the house with her throat feeling tight and a weight in her chest like a dead squirrel. Looking up at the worn clapboards, the rusted gutters, she feels very small. The old house, like a forgotten relative, waits for an explanation. She wonders if the house is smiling. She does not know; she does not think it is smiling. She imagines her mama upstairs at the window, pulling aside the curtain. Her mama with her long silver hair, full of dead moths.
It’s me, Mama,
she thinks.
I’m home.
It’s me, Mama,
she thinks.
I’m home.
The car rocks and shimmies as she drives over the bumpy field to the back of the house. She parks alongside the metal doors of the cellar, gets out of the car, and sweeps the snow off with her bare hands. A long time ago, her father had painted the cellar doors red, but now the paint has chipped and there are weeds all around them, brittle stalks poking through the snow. She unlocks the padlock and opens the doors. A cold mist rises up as if out of a tomb. She hurries down the stairs and brings out two planks of wood and leans them against the steps, creating a ramp. With that done, she returns to the car and opens the door and notices for the first time the awful wounds on the doctor’s face. The beating had been a hateful, awful ordeal and she is sorry, now, that she’d been part of it. She is sorry for so many things. But there is no time for regret. Now she must keep moving, she must get the doctor inside, where he will be safe. He won’t see it that way, she realizes. He will want to escape, and he is smart, smarter than her, and she will have to be careful.
She sprints across the white field, takes the steps of the old porch two at a time. The key is around her neck, on an old shoelace, and she uses it now to open the door. A smell hits her as she enters the house, of dust and mold, and a draft swirls around her feet. She stands perfectly still for a moment, listening to the house—it was something she had done years before, when her father was sick, when she was waiting for him to die. With some trepidation she opens the hall closet, confronting dark wool coats like hanged men, a broken umbrella, various pairs of forgotten shoes, and the keen white handles of the wheelchair. They’d needed it at the end, her father so weak he could hardly get out of bed. She used to take him for long walks. She used to push him up the back hill to watch the sun rise over the cold field.
Pulling out the chair she feels a strange confidence.
I’ve done this before,
she thinks, pushing it across the scuffed floors, clumps of dust skittering like young mice. Outside, the sky has turned an ominous shade of yellow. A small fox slinks across her father’s field, its red back rising and falling through the brown stalks that push up out of the snow. Her hands sweat on the cold metal, the plastic handles. She pushes the chair across the snow to the car. The field is empty, there’s no one around. No one but Jesus.
I’ve done this before,
she thinks, pushing it across the scuffed floors, clumps of dust skittering like young mice. Outside, the sky has turned an ominous shade of yellow. A small fox slinks across her father’s field, its red back rising and falling through the brown stalks that push up out of the snow. Her hands sweat on the cold metal, the plastic handles. She pushes the chair across the snow to the car. The field is empty, there’s no one around. No one but Jesus.
Her father’s ghost whispers over her shoulder. She can almost see him sitting there, the bony blades in his back. The car waits expectantly. High in the black branches of the trees the crows jeer savagely. The doctor stirs in the weak sunlight. “I have a gun,” she warns him. “I will not hesitate to use it. I will bury you in this field and no one will ever know about any of this. Do you understand me, Dr. Knowles?”
He doesn’t move.
“You’re dead, Michael, they killed you. There’s no going back.” Gently pressing the barrel to his forehead, she cocks off the safety. “Now, I’ll ask you again. Do you understand?”
He nods his head.
“Good. Now, will you please try to get into this chair?”
“I’ll try.” He grimaces, tears streaming down his cheeks, but she can tell he isn’t really trying and he makes little progress. “I can’t,” he spits.
“You
can,
” she says, pushing the gun into his skin. “You can and you will.”
can,
” she says, pushing the gun into his skin. “You can and you will.”
“My ribs,” he gasps in pain.
“Don’t be such a baby.”
“They broke my ribs.” Now he is crying. “My hand, too. I can’t move.”
“Why don’t I shoot you and put you out of your misery.” This shuts him up. She shoves the gun into her waistband and gets down real close to his ear. Even so close, she can see that he’s millions of miles away from her. The rims of his contacts catch the light, floating discs over dilated pupils. She hadn’t known about the contacts. They will have to come out. “Now, we’re going to get you into that chair, understand? It may hurt for a moment, but then we’ll be on our way.”
He shakes his head again, fat tears falling out. “I can’t. Please.”
She wraps her arms around him. “Ready? One, two . . .”
An anguished howl curls out of him as she pulls him into the chair. He mutters obscenities, which she chooses to ignore. “There. See? That wasn’t so bad.” Pushing the wheelchair through the snow is hard work, all the way to the cellar doors. Her body runs with sweat yet she feels chilled to the bone. “You don’t seem to realize the favor I’ve done you,” she manages to tell him. “You don’t seem to
get
that I saved your life.”
get
that I saved your life.”
He doesn’t say anything now, but she can see that his face is all wet and a sound rises from his throat, more animal than human. At the cellar steps, she turns the chair around where he can see the bleak, snow-covered horizon, the watchful, indifferent trees. “Say good-bye to the outside world, Dr. Knowles—you won’t be seeing it for a very long time.” With the utmost care, she guides the chair backward down the makeshift ramp into the damp mystery of the cellar, a place where she would hide as a young girl, among the bulging sacks of potatoes and jars of canned peppers that her mama had made years before. They’re still here, covered with dust like specimens in a laboratory.
“You’ll be safe here,” she reminds him. “No one will know, no one will suspect.”
“They will,” he mutters. “They will.”
“Never!” she insists. “They’ll never find you. You just do what I tell you and you’ll be all right, because I may just lose my patience with you and if that happens it’s not going to be pretty. You got that, huh? You got that?”
He shows her no response, just droops in the chair. She wheels him over to the mattress, then dumps out the contents of her bag. Canisters of pills fall out like hail. She opens the canisters and makes a little pile in the palm of her hand. “I want you to take these pills, an antibiotic and something to make you sleep. I have a friend in the ICU. I can get anything you need. You just tell me what you want. You just tell me what to get. Here, come on, take these. It’s just some Keflex, and some painkillers—it’s good stuff, I’m told, four bucks a pill on the street.” He shakes his head wildly like a singing blind man, tears running down his face. “Here, Michael, look, I’m not trying to poison you.” She directs his face to hers and for a moment their eyes lock and he lets her feed him the pills and she watches them sink down his throat. Next she maneuvers him out of the chair, onto the mattress. Again he whines in pain. “There.” She fluffs his pillow. “Are you comfortable? Is the pillow all right?”
He doesn’t answer her.
“I’ll need your contacts now.” Without waiting for his response, she pinches out the warm discs and feels his tears on her fingertips.
“I can’t see very well without them.”
“I’m sorry” is all she says.
“You’re not,” he whispers. “You’re not sorry for any of this.”
“You’re wrong,” she says. “And I’ll find you some glasses, I promise.” She covers him with several wool blankets. “I know it’s damp. I’ll turn the heat up a little, but you’ll have to be strong. We can’t take any chances. I don’t want the oil company showing up unannounced. My husband pays the bills on this house; just enough heat so the pipes don’t burst. If I turn up the heat, he’ll know, see. He’s smart, he’ll figure it out. These blankets should do for now. Don’t fight the drugs, Michael. You need them now. Promise me. In a few days you’ll feel better, stronger. I know what I’m doing,” she says, her voice gaining confidence.
I know what I’m doing.
“I worked in a nursing home once, they taught me certain skills. I took care of my father when he was sick. For months I did it, in this very house. I’m at St. Vincent’s all the time; I’m a volunteer. I watch the nurses, I see what they do. I’m not stupid. I learn fast. I’m here to help you. You have to believe that. You have to trust me.”
I know what I’m doing.
“I worked in a nursing home once, they taught me certain skills. I took care of my father when he was sick. For months I did it, in this very house. I’m at St. Vincent’s all the time; I’m a volunteer. I watch the nurses, I see what they do. I’m not stupid. I learn fast. I’m here to help you. You have to believe that. You have to trust me.”
Soon the pills take hold of him and his eyelids flutter with sleep. Using scissors, she cuts him free of the wretched clothes. She fills a bucket with water and takes up the soap and a washcloth in her hands. Gliding the soap across his limbs reminds her of her father, in the very last days of his life, and she recalls with tenderness how very close they were at the end, when it was just the two of them. When you walk somebody up to the great white gates you are their angel and there is no one else. This was what she’d done for her father. And she is willing to do it now for the doctor, if that is necessary, but she hopes it isn’t. The doctor is going to live, and they are going to get through this awful thing together, and she is going to help him, and he is going to help her.
Tending to him she feels a sweltering intimacy. The cloth wanders down his chest, onto the concave plain of his belly, lingers just above the waistband of his undershorts. Gently, she tends to his cuts with alcohol preps and ointment, then dresses him as best she can in some of her father’s old clothes. An hour passes as she sits by his side, watching him sleep, whispering prayers. A calm falls over her, consumes her, as though she has swallowed a strange and wonderful pill, the effects of which she cannot predict.
Driving north, winding through humble rural towns, she finds a supermarket. The long yellow aisles are drafty, smirking with the stink of boiled ham. Music drones overhead, distracting her from her thoughts. Randomly, she tosses items into her cart: canned meat, tins of sardines, canned salmon, crackers, shortbread cookies, cashews, chocolate. The cashier hardly looks at her, preoccupied with bagging the items, and she finds herself discreetly touching her wig to make sure it’s on all right.
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