The Doctor's Wife

by Elizabeth Brundage

  He watched his wife across the table, her cheeks ruddy as a cheerleader’s after a game. God, she was pretty, he thought. She had a certain wholesome radiance. It had been a long time since they’d sat down together for a drink. Weeks, months even. It felt awkward sitting here with her now. Something tight about her, something concealed. It was just a hunch, but he had come to know when a woman was hiding something; he’d seen it enough in his practice, a certain withholding, a passive gaze of apology. For what, he did not know.

  He swallowed more wine, wanting to get a little drunk tonight. I’ve been granted mercy, he thought dully, reflecting on the explosion, knowing that you didn’t get mercy without guilt. It was too late for guilt, he realized. Guilt wouldn’t get him out of this alive.

  Annie touched his hand. “What did you say?”

  “Your friend the painter. Haas? His wife came to see me this morning.” He did not mention the fact that Lydia Haas had not given her true name; he intended to call the police with that scrap of information.

  His wife stared at him. “Lydia Haas came to see you at the clinic?”

  “I figured it was because of you.”

  “Because of me?”

  “You know. Because of Haas. The article? I just assumed he recommended me.”

  She was squinting at him fiercely. “What did she come in for?”

  “A general checkup.” He paused. “She hasn’t been to a doctor in ten years.”

  “I wonder why she went to the clinic? Why not your office?”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to wait. There’s a three-week wait for a routine checkup on Hackett Boulevard. At the clinic, you can get in the next day.”

  “Why the big rush?”

  “What?”

  “You just said she hasn’t seen a doctor in ten years. She couldn’t wait another three weeks?”

  Michael shrugged. “Don’t know.”

  “Was she all right?”

  “Sure. Yeah. A little freaked out, but other than that.”

  “Freaked out?”

  “Uptight. She had . . .” He hesitated.

  “Had what?”

  “Scars. On her thighs.”

  “Scars?”

  “I shouldn’t have told you. I just assumed—”

  “Assumed what?”

  “Well, because of him. Anyway, I met her once. Remember? Jack’s party.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember.”

  “When you and her husband were off in the woods together.”

  Now she looked the other way. “We got lost, remember?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I remember.” And he left it at that.

  “Don’t tell me you’re going in,” she said to him the next morning. “How can you possibly go in today?”

  He stood there, tying his tie. “Why shouldn’t I? I have patients. I have rounds. It shouldn’t take me long.”

  She was up, pulling on her robe, yanking the belt into a knot. “Michael, they tried to kill you. They bombed the clinic. Not just to destroy the building, but to destroy you, honey.” She tried to take his hand, but he wouldn’t let her.

  “Annie, it’s what I do, all right? I don’t know how else to explain it to you.”

  “I know it’s what you do, Michael. Believe me. Nobody has to tell me because you know what? You know what? I’ve been right here. I’ve been right here the whole time. So don’t tell me it’s what you do.”

  I don’t need this. “I’ll be at the hospital. Page me if you need me.”

  And he left her there.

  53

  THROUGHOUT THE WEEKEND, Simon stayed in the house, tending his wife. Her condition had not improved. He brought her food on a tray. He changed her sheets and helped her to the toilet. He even showered her, squeezing the soap through her long yellow hair. Stroking her back, feeling the swell of bones underneath. In her dark glittering eyes they silently shared the awful thing she’d done. While she slept, he sat in the den gazing mindlessly at the news, the pervasive coverage of the bombing. He did not rebuke her for it, and he did not call the police.

  Monday morning, at seven o’clock, there came a knock on the door. It was a cop. Simon’s heart rushed to his feet. He opened the door a crack, grateful that the dogs were in the cellar. Sensing an intruder, they began to bark.

  “Hello, Officer,” he said, trying to sound amiable.

  “Mr. Haas, is it?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is your wife at home?”

  Simon felt himself hesitate. “Yes?”

  “I’d like to ask her a couple of questions if I may.”

  “About what?”

  “Sorry, but I need to speak with her.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” he heard himself say.

  The cop’s head tilted and he smirked. “Why’s that?”

  “She’s ill. It’s a”—he coughed into his hand—“a female problem. You know.”

  The cop nodded as if this made perfect sense. “That’s along the lines of what I wanted to talk to her about.”

  “Oh?”

  “She had an appointment Saturday at a clinic downtown. You might have heard about it on the news?”

  “My wife told me all about it. In fact, she was so frightened that her condition seems to have worsened.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “She’s upstairs, in bed.” It was all the truth, he realized. “Would you like to come and have a look?”

  “No,” the cop said carefully, then added, “I believe you, Mr. Haas.”

  “Maybe when she’s feeling better? I could have her call you.”

  The cop stole a look past Simon, briefly rising up on his toes. Simon hoped he hadn’t seen Lydia walking around. A tense moment festered. “I heard about your dogs,” the cop said finally. “Great Danes are they?”

  “Misunderstood animals. It’s their size, you know.”

  “Yeah, well. We’ll stop back later in the week.”

  “Good. That would be very good.”

  Then, as an afterthought, the cop added, “She went as a Jane Doe, in case you’re wondering.”

  Simon tried not to look surprised. “Excuse me?”

  “You being a big shot and all.” The cop cocked his head, but Simon said nothing. “You people always have secrets, don’t you?”

  Better to let that one go, Simon thought.

  The cop walked back to his car, taking his time, then turned and looked up at the windows on the second floor. He hesitated, and Simon feared he’d caught sight of Lydia.

  “You ought to get those gutters cleaned.”

  Simon stepped down off the porch and had a look. “Oh, yes, you’re right.”

  “Full of leaves. Winter’s coming, you’ll have yourself a big problem.”

  “Yes, you’re right, Officer. Thanks for the reminder.”

  The cop patted the hood of Lydia’s car. “Inspection’s out of date.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed. That’s my wife’s car.”

  “Well, she’s a month overdue. That’s a thousand-dollar fine you get caught, did you know that?”

  “Wow, that’s pretty steep. We’ll take care of it.”

  The cop nodded and said nothing more. He got into his cruiser and pulled away.

  Simon stood there for several moments, feeling the sweat run down his back. He didn’t know why, exactly, he was protecting her. And the fact that he had, the fact that he knew and had chosen to keep quiet, meant that he, too, had broken the law, and that, in all likelihood, he would eventually pay for it.

  It was his guilt, he realized. His heart was tangled up in guilt, making it difficult to breathe, and he’d grown used to it, as if it were some sort of incurable medical condition. He had learned to live with it.

  Heady with regret, he went into the house and climbed the stairs quickly, expecting to find Lydia asleep, but he heard the shower running. She was up.

  He went into the bathroom. “Are you feeling better?”

  “Y
es, yes, I’m fine. I’m much better.”

  “A cop was here.”

  “What?”

  “I said a cop was here. Just now.” She turned the shower off. “He wanted to ask you some questions.”

  She stepped out of the shower and for a moment he stood there, struck by her dripping-wet nudity, the heat coming off her body like steam on a city sidewalk. He had known from the beginning, from their first peculiar day together, that she would be his ruin. And now they were standing at the threshold of it, looking into the swollen darkness that would be their future.

  “He wanted some information,” he repeated. “He wanted some answers.”

  Brushing past him, she pulled on her robe and tied the sash tightly around her waist. “About what?”

  “You had an appointment at a clinic Saturday, downtown?”

  “So?” She opened the drawer, looking for a pair of underwear.

  “Did you plant that bomb, Lydia?”

  She stopped moving and she stood very still with her back to him.

  “Let me rephrase that: I know you planted it.”

  Without turning around she answered him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I saw the things in your purse.”

  “What things?”

  “The plastic gloves.”

  Now she turned, her face crimson. She took up an old glass of water and drank it down. Stalling. “You’re right. I went to the doctor. I haven’t been feeling well, all right, so I went.”

  He found himself wanting to believe her. “What’s wrong with you?” She didn’t answer him.

  “What doctor did you see?”

  “I don’t remember.” He grabbed her by the wrist and twisted her arm up behind her back. She winced. “You’re hurting me. Please, Simon. You’re hurting me!”

  “I’ll fucking break your arm if you don’t tell me the truth.” He yanked her arm up another inch and she started to cry. “It was Dr. Knowles, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?”

  When she didn’t admit to it he shoved her hard across the room, harder than was necessary, but he wanted to hurt her. She crumpled to the floor, weeping. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing, Lydia?”

  She groped to her knees, hysterical now. “You don’t love me. You never loved me. You just used me. That’s all you did, Simon. You used me.”

  “Let’s not forget the circumstances of our meeting,” he said evenly. “Let’s not forget poor Daddy.”

  “You bastard!”

  “The day I showed up was the luckiest day of your life.”

  She stood up, grabbing for her clothes, pulling them on. “I have to get out of this house,” she said, hurrying out of the room, down the stairs. He went after her, but she would not be detained. She grabbed the keys off the table, shuffled into her shoes, and ran out to the car. A moment later, she was gone.

  Simon stood there for a moment, feeling his feet pressing into the floor. Where the hell is she going? His keys beckoned him on the hall table. He grabbed them and went to his car. He drove down the long driveway, trying to ascertain which way she might have turned. He went right, down the dirt road toward town. A half mile up the road he saw her car rising up the hill. It was a quarter past eight, the sun indifferent, people on their way to work, driving sluggishly after the weekend. But his wife was a reckless driver, and he was speeding just to keep up with her. They came into town, heading south on Main Street, where the speed limit was strictly enforced. There were three cars in front of him, and then Lydia’s blue Mercedes. He remembered buying her the car secondhand from a dealer in Albany. She’d been thrilled by the gift, he recalled, and they had taken many rides together after that. That was a long time ago; things had changed.

  She stopped at the stop sign and made a right. The cars ahead proceeded, each stopping at the sign and then going on, but he was stymied by the Explorer in front of him, which wanted to turn left against a stream of oncoming cars. Simon waited, frustrated, certain that, by now, he’d lost her. When at last he finally turned, her car was nowhere in sight. Puzzled, he drove down the narrow streets of the village, which were cluttered with turn-of-the-century homes. Everywhere he looked he saw posters for Wally Nash. Wally Nash, with his shiny hair and chalk-white teeth.

  A yellow school bus caught his eye and he followed it down Baker Street, toward the grammar school. Lydia’s car was parked in a driveway across the street. He slowed down, pulled over to the side, and waited. He didn’t know who lived inside the house. It was sunny now, and children were playing in the schoolyard, behind the high metal fence. He turned his attention back to the driveway where his wife had parked and the tidy white clapboard house with yellow shutters. The curtains in the front window drooped awkwardly, wrinkled as a worried face. A spotless white Suburu sat in the driveway, beside Lydia’s car.

  Curious, he got out of the car and walked down the sidewalk toward the house, hearing the shrill whistle of a teacher across the street. The house was surrounded with shrubs, making it easy to duck into the backyard without being noticed. He glanced into a window and saw his wife sitting on a couch, crying. Another woman sat next to her, comforting her, and still another woman brought her a cup of tea. There were a few other women sitting around a living room. Most of them were knitting sweaters, tiny pink and blue sweaters for infants. His wife, evidently sufficiently comforted, took up a ball of yarn and a little pink sweater, and began to knit. He didn’t even know that Lydia knew how to knit. He saw a little child taking cookies off a plate. The girl had a wide strange face and small black eyes.

  Who the hell are these people, he wondered fiercely.

  Having had enough, Simon crept out of the yard and back to the street. He walked around the corner, past other orderly, wretched homes, each with its own wretched story, and retreated into the darkness of a bar. He took a stool and ordered a double shot of Scotch. The bar was dark and empty and he liked the quiet mood of the place, the crackling radio, the skinny dog asleep in the corner, the old bartender with rotten teeth, playing dominoes on the bar. A lugubrious mood swept over him. He had wanted to tell Annie about his wife’s involvement with the anti-abortion group, he had wanted to warn her that her husband was in danger, but he hadn’t and it made him feel monstrous. The risk of losing her had felt too great and now he’d lost her anyway. His Annie, whose battered, unstylish clothes carried the scent of her mothering. She was like a good soup simmering all day. She appealed to the small boy within him, crouching in the dark space of his aching heart. Lamenting the fact that destiny had not brought her to him sooner, that their future was now doomed, he sat there all day, drinking whiskey, until the corners of the room had filled with darkness, and there was no place left to go but home.

  54

  “YOU ARE NOT to leave this house,” Simon ordered her. “If you don’t cooperate, I’ll have to lock you up.” She sat there gazing up at him with her little-girl eyes and when he handed her the pills she took them. He turned on the television, one of the morning talk shows. “Now sit here and don’t move. I expect to find you here when I get home.”