by Brian Hart
Afterward Jacob told Mrs. Clark that he couldn’t have done anything differently for Mrs. Stevens, her daughter. I don’t know what he could’ve done or not done. Maybe Miss Eakins could’ve helped. She usually managed the childbirths, more than Jacob. Mrs. Clark called him a butcher, her skin as mottled as a gull egg and stray hairs on her lip as long as a man’s. She yelled it in the street as she was running us off. When I looked back, the husband, Mr. Stevens, stood in the doorway, weeping. Duncan’s feet weren’t touching the ground, his hands clamped in ours, I worried we’d injure his shoulders. Mrs. Clark’s grandchild might live, but her daughter was dead.
“How can this pain feel so new again?” Jacob said as we were going up the stairs to the apartment. “What else has man been doing forever save dying? We should be used to it.” He went inside and grabbed the bottle he’d been keeping on the windowsill and went back out the door, to find his awful brother, I’m sure of it. As if it could be worse. Duncan looked at me as if I’d done something to make his father leave, or at least it seemed that way until he smiled. I had to remind myself that he didn’t think like that, no child did.
That night someone threw a burning can of kerosene through the office window downstairs. We could’ve been killed, but Jacob was down there drinking with Matius when it happened and they amazingly had the sense to throw it back outside before it could catch. I’m afraid to go into the streets.
The low coward, my brother-in-law Matius, has finally departed, but Jacob remains full of nonsense. I pressed him for information because I knew that something had happened, but he just grinned at me in his torporific way and told me nothing. I’d allowed him to be a drunk and distant and come home stinking because I knew it would end, soon as his brother was gone it’d be done. Apparently I was wrong.
He brought Duncan carved wooden toys from Mr. Kozmin, the inebriate, his current fellow, his pal, and somehow got it into his head he could make them too but didn’t get very far before I was helping him stitch up his hand after he’d slipped the blade. Not so good when the surgeon cuts himself, particularly after what happened with Mrs. Stevens. He didn’t put up any kind of fuss when I threw his sorry figurines into the stove.
Mrs. Sheasby, our neighbor the next door over, let slip the news. He’d bought property, her husband’s and others, on Matius’s advice of course, and now he was stuck with it until he could sell it. The bastard brother had stayed at Pinter’s Hotel all summer long because I wouldn’t let him stay with us. By the grace of God I saw him only once, in the street from the window, and my blood went hot to the roots of my hair and I wanted to be sick. Jacob hadn’t said a word or attempted to discuss anything with me; he’d just done it. I questioned him on it again and again until he confessed. How the two drunken idiots had accomplished so much was beyond me.
Jacob tried to sell Sheasby’s place—the one building I knew he wanted to keep because he disliked Sheasby so much—but nobody wanted it for what he was asking. After that he tried to sell the other two properties but met with much the same result. He was suspicious and he told me that there were men colluding against him. The office and the apartment are all that we need.
The new doctor that moved to town, a man named Haslett, came by to visit. He reminded me of someone. Hadn’t skipped any meals. We had coffee in the apartment and then he and Jacob went downstairs to see his office, but something happened, I could hear them yelling. When Jacob returned he wouldn’t speak of it.
Jacob left, he said to go check on a man he’d been seeing about an ulcer, and didn’t return. He took his extra coat. We said good-bye to each other and he kissed me on the cheek. He picked up Duncan and kissed him too, which wasn’t his regular behavior at all. He said he would be home in the evening.
Two days and he still hadn’t returned. In a panic I caught Mr. Tartan outside the hotel where he stays. I asked him to please look for my husband at the saloons and public houses because this had unfortunately happened before and I wanted to find him before he got himself into trouble. When Mr. Tartan called for me at home later, I met him on the walk. He had liquor on his breath and no news. He touched my arm and everyone could see, and I let him.
I went to see Mr. Hayes at the bank, and he told me that the last Jacob had been in was on Monday.
“How much did he take out when he was here last?”
“I can’t tell you that, Mrs. Ellstrom. That’s between the bank and your husband.”
“Did he take it all? Can you tell me that? It could be three dollars or three thousand, I wouldn’t know.”
“He owes the bank, ma’am. Not the other way around.”
“You’re saying you wouldn’t give him money if he asked.”
“He didn’t ask.”
“So why was he here?”
“To discuss the extent of his debts.” Mr. Hayes opened the drawer of his desk and produced a box of cigars. He took his sweet time trimming and lighting one. He smiled at me through the smoke. “Have you seen the new post office since it’s been finished?”
I didn’t care about the post office. “What would the response be if I asked for a loan against my husband’s holdings?”
Mr. Hayes began to cough and couldn’t control it and had to set down his cigar on the ashtray. He opened the top left drawer of his desk and produced a bottle of Dr. D. Jaynes Expectorant and unscrewed the cap and took a drink. In a moment he was back at his cigar. “They’re not your holdings, Mrs. Ellstrom, so you can’t borrow against them. Is there something I should know? Has Dr. Ellstrom gone somewhere?”
“Of course not. He’s at home as we speak. Good day.” I took Duncan’s hand and fairly dragged him outside.
Going back to the apartment, the drone of Boyerton’s mill gave me a headache. The mud gave me a headache. Duncan gave me a headache. When I shut the door behind us I was relieved, but I didn’t know what we would do if Jacob stayed away too long.
I stood at the window and watched the masts of the ships pass over the low rooftop of the shingle mill, like portable gallows.
That night I let Duncan sleep in my bed, but I didn’t sleep a wink. He kicks like a mule and snores, conditions he inherited from his father, whom I hated and hated and hated the whole night through.
The next day I sat Duncan at the lunch counter at Heath’s store and we shared a sandwich. When he brought the check, Mr. Heath passed me a small wooden toy, a carved cat, finely rendered, for Duncan.
“The hermit Kozmin paid for his dinner with this. Thought the boy might like it.”
“Look at that,” I said, smiling. But I wanted to crush it or burn it or cram it down Jacob’s throat. “It’s beautiful. Say thank you, Duncan.”
“Thank you.” He held the toy like it was alive in his hands.
I paid for our lunch and asked if it’d be all right if I had another cup of coffee and sat for a while.
“I’d be thrilled if you did, Mrs. Ellstrom.” Mr. Heath is a large man with narrow shoulders and small mouselike ears that stick straight out from his bald head.
When he returned with the coffee, he asked how “the good doctor” was faring.
“Fine. He’s fine.” He knew about Mrs. Stevens, everyone did. He knew there was little to be trusted about Jacob and that the tide of the town was turning against him.
“He usually comes in to visit on Tuesdays for the pot roast, but he wasn’t here so I thought he might be home sick.”
“No, he’s fine. Just busy, you know.”
“I hear he’s got big plans.” He motioned toward the street.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“My wife says that too, but she knows more than I do about most things, me included.” Mr. Heath made an awkward wave to Duncan and went back to his shelves.
We stayed there until the lunch hour passed and the store emptied. I sipped my coffee until it went cold and then let Heath take it away.
He wiped the counter, and when he leaned in I could smell the pipe smoke in his clothes. “Stay as long as you
want, Mrs. Ellstrom. If people walk by and see you in the window, they’re sure to come in.” He blushed, and I could see the sweat beaded along the edges of his eyebrows and on his upper lip. “I mean to say they won’t turn and run like when they see me.”
“Thank you, Mr. Heath.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I brushed the crumbs from Duncan’s jacket and straightened his hair. He knew something was amiss and was behaving. I knew that he was too small to understand, to be worried about me, but he seemed to be aware. I thanked him for being so good. Thank you for being patient. He had the toy, and that contented him.
Mr. Heath was in the back where the kitchen was and I could hear him talking to his wife. The story was that she’d come from Buenos Aires bound for Alaska with her husband, but he’d died at sea a week into their journey and when the ship came into the harbor seeking refuge from a storm she’d come ashore and found Heath alone stocking shelves and with hand gestures discovered he was unmarried. A year later they had a daughter, delivered by Jacob, born blind.
By the time I mustered the courage to leave, Duncan was asleep in his chair, his chin stained green from candy. I felt for a moment like a failed governess and then much worse as a failed mother. I couldn’t walk through the streets unattached, unclaimed.
The new doctor, Dr. Haslett, wasn’t home, so we waited on the porch. The day was nearly gone. I would’ve liked to be on my way before nightfall. He had a sign hanging from a post in the yard stating his qualifications. Jacob had no such sign. A rain-soaked bench sat between the trees, a rusted bucket sat atop the bench. The doctor’s garden plot was neglected and lumpy and clogged with weeds. The house needed paint. I didn’t remember who’d owned it last, but they hadn’t done much for upkeep. A mongrel dog came from the neighbor’s yard and slinked into the garden and used it for a privy. When Duncan caught sight of the mangy animal he tried to go down the stairs to catch it but I snatched him up and pinched him tight between my knees so he couldn’t get away. I told myself ten more minutes and then I’d go. I play games of patience, particularly in moments I find overly miserable. Ten-penny nail and a bucket of wax. Sink into it.
The doctor noticed us on his way up the walk and his face brightened and he hurried like the bowlegged fat man he is up his steps.
“Well, hello, Mrs. Ellstrom. What is it that I can do for you?” He unlocked the door and held it open.
“Duncan, take off your shoes.”
“Leave them,” the doctor said.
Duncan held my eyes, waiting for my instruction, muddy almost to his knees. “Go on. Off with them.”
“He’s fine.”
“I’m telling you, he’ll bring in the whole street with those shoes. You’ll be sorry.”
“Never.” Haslett put his keys away and rubbed his hands together, smiled down at Duncan. “William Pitt professed that necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom.”
“I’d say children are the infringement he was referring to. Duncan. Shoes.”
The doctor smiled at me, and I could see the blue streaks in his teeth, the cracked skin on his lips. “I insist, Mrs. Ellstrom; it’s of no consequence. Let’s get us all inside. I don’t do the cleaning anyhow.”
“I won’t have you apologizing for me to whoever it is that does.” I knelt down and took off his little boots and cleaned my own as best I could on the mat. The doctor gave me his handkerchief for my hands.
I thanked him and ushered Duncan inside, into a mildewed blanket of old cigar smoke.
“It’s unavoidable,” he said, motioning to my feet, “all this mess. They’re trying to clean it up by planking the streets, but we’ll never escape it. The patterns of the weather, you know, they’re different all over the country. Here we have rain. Sometimes it feels like we have all the rain in the world.”
I smiled as best I could and watched the doctor’s face change as I filled his thoughts, all of him; I knew this trick. Then I said something to him about necessity being hastened and shaped always by the weather, make hay while the sun shines, and all that nonsense.
He cleared his throat, touched his stomach. “‘Necessity is the argument of tyrants, the creed of slaves.’”
I again studied his face, his eyes, looked into them one and then the other, green with flecks of gold, yellow where they should be white. “Which are we, Dr. Haslett?”
“We’re both, my dear. Operating on several planes, all of us. Come in and sit down. No more lollygagging.” He feigned a kick at Duncan’s backside, and my boy ran squealing weirdly down the hall. The running legs of children are a miracle to behold. If he chose, I believe Duncan could kick himself in the nose while he stood.
We passed by a dozen or so framed pictures in the entryway, strange men with dogs, stranger women without, and into the warmth of the living room. The doctor motioned to a chair near the fire. I sat Duncan on the ottoman and sat myself in the chair but he wouldn’t stay put so I held him in my lap like a squirming piglet. He had a scratch on his cheek and was making bulldog faces.
“I’ll make tea. Stay right here.”
When the doctor was gone, Duncan moaned and squirmed and kicked me in the thigh.
“Stop it right now.”
“Rot rot rot,” he said. “Crummy rot.”
“Please, Duncan. Quiet now.” There’s no shame in this, I was thinking. I don’t have anyone else to talk to. Not a soul. I’m not here for—I wasn’t sure why I was there and why I wasn’t. I’d been betrayed, is why, abandoned. I felt sick, so I came to the doctor. My usual one was indisposed.
Out of his coat and dried off, the smartly dressed, slightly gray and waddling doctor returned with a silver tea service and milk for Duncan.
“Well, here we are,” he said.
“Here we are.”
“And to what do I owe the pleasure of your company, Mrs. Ellstrom?”
“Just a visit, really, because I’m fine, you know—my husband sees to my health. I’m in good health. And Duncan’s well, hale enough to run me ragged. I believe I liked him better when he only crawled.”
Dr. Haslett sat patiently with his back an inch or so off his chair. I couldn’t bring myself to say what I’d come to say. “Take your time, Mrs. Ellstrom. I have nothing on the schedule that can’t be put off until tomorrow.” He smiled a close-lipped smile and then took one quick drink from his cup and then another twice as long. I watched his throat work beneath the fatty layers of his prickly neck. The color came into his face and he took a deep breath. He struck me as being two men: a narrow and average man and a fat man that had engulfed the smaller one. Knuckled was a word that I thought fit Jacob well, and ensconced was a word that fit Dr. Haslett. Just men, as they are.
The doctor was about to say something else, and I quickly gathered my courage and spoke right over the top of him: “It seems my husband has disappeared.”
“What’s this?”
“On Monday. He left and never returned.”
“I’m sure he’s fine. He’s probably been detained somehow, is all. I wouldn’t worry.” By the look on his face, I could tell he was pleased at my misfortune but didn’t want to show it.
“I had Mr. Tartan look for him in the places I wouldn’t go. Where men usually go when they don’t want to come home.”
“I see. Would you like me to try and find him? I could ask around.”
“People trust you, like they once trusted my husband. People are mostly honest with doctors, don’t you think?”
“Honestly, I don’t think anyone’s particularly honest with anyone.”
“That’s a dark view.”
“Perhaps.”
I let Duncan down, and he crawled across the room and busied himself pulling on the drapes.
“Duncan.”
“He’s fine. Leave him.”
“The real trouble is”—my voice was barely above a whisper now, and the doctor leaned in to hear—“I spoke with Mr. Hayes, and it seems Jacob, Dr. Ellstrom, is deeply in debt
—I don’t know what we’ll do.” I did my best to fight back the tears, but they were there, hot on my cheeks, smeared onto the back of my hand. I hadn’t gone there to cry. Duncan was watching me with a look of terror on his face, so I smiled through my tears and he half-smiled back.
Dr. Haslett stood up and came over to me. “He’ll turn up. You stay here. Make yourself comfortable. I mean it, pretend that this is your home, sleep in the beds, eat all the food, break the dishes—I don’t care one bit. We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise you.”
“Thank you, Dr. Haslett. I didn’t know who else to talk to.”
“You’ll be fine. Wait here.” He spoke to Duncan. “I believe Miss Falvey, my housekeeper, left some cookies in the cupboard. Better go and see if you’re tall enough to reach them.”
I thanked him again.
“You’ll be fine. I won’t be gone more than an hour.”
He got his coat and left. Duncan and I stayed in the living room for a few minutes after the door shut, and then we went into the kitchen and I heated him some milk and fed him cookies like you’d feed carrots to an old and well-loved horse.
Dr. Milo Haslett
His coat was still damp. Something about putting on warm and wet clothing bothered him immensely more than cold and wet. It wasn’t simply uncomfortable and impractical; it was disgusting. He stood in the entryway for a moment, wondering where to start. He thought: I’m weary of this whole business. No wonder that swindler Ellstrom had disappeared. He understood. Hippocraticly speaking, Dr. Haslett would just as soon first do nothing than do no harm. Not that he believed that; he believed he was doing good, and without that belief he would be lost, nothing, a vessel filled with smoke. A lustful but mostly empty vessel. Women and God are the two rocks on which man must anchor or be wrecked. And Mrs. Ellstrom came for my help. This pleased him. Not so old and bloated and worthless as you felt this morning. Not quite.