Baby Doctors

by Janice Macdonald

  Still, it was good talking to Sarah. Except, knowing her daughter, she was pretty sure Lucy did not want to spend a day climbing over rocks. George moved in his sleep, reached back and patted her thigh. She smiled against his back. It felt good to hold someone again.

  ON THE MORNING of the beach trip, Matthew woke before the alarm clock, which he’d set half an hour earlier than he usually got up. Sarah had left a message the night before.

  “I just checked the tide tables,” she’d said. “Low tide is at ten-fifteen and, if I remember correctly, it’s a couple of hours’ drive to Agate Beach. So we need to leave no later than eight. Oh, Lucy might enjoy looking for fossils. She’ll need boots. Okay, never mind, I’ll check with Elizabeth…Hey, Matthew. You think Lucy will like me? I’m not exactly a kid person…well, that’s not true. The girls at Saint Julia’s liked me, but…okay. I’m going to shut up. Good night, Matthew.”

  And then she’d left a second message. “Hey, I just wanted to say I’m glad we’re doing this. Okay, now I’ll really shut up. Good night again.”

  Matthew had played the messages twice, smiling as he listened to her. Talking fast, rapid burst of words. Just as she’d always spoken, he remembered, when she was nervous. It had been after midnight by the time he got home from the hospital, too late to call her. Although, knowing Sarah, the time wouldn’t have mattered.

  He lay with his hands behind his head. Lucy was still at her friend Sierra’s house where she’d spent the night. He’d left a message with Sierra’s mother that he’d be by at seven to pick up his daughter. She’d laughed and said something about that being the middle of the night as far as kids were concerned. He’d said nothing about the beach expedition. He rehearsed his response to Lucy’s inevitable protest. “Lulu, you need to do more than hang out at the mall. We live in one of the most beautiful areas in the Northwest and it’s time we started taking advantage of it.”

  After a while he became aware of a new sound. Rain beating against the window. He dragged himself out of bed and shuffled downstairs to make coffee. It was not an auspicious start. He turned on the TV. The rain would clear, the relentlessly cheerful announcer informed him. He showered and dressed, then made two fried-egg sandwiches.

  “Why couldn’t we just go to McDonalds?” Lucy complained when he presented her with the sandwich, doubled wrapped in foil to keep it warm.

  “This is just like McDonalds,” he said, biting into his as they drove. “I even put cheese on it. And it’s better for you.”

  Lucy, cocooned in a red goose-down coat, her hair hidden under a square hood, took a cautious bite. Then another.

  Matthew shot her a sideways glance. “Good?”

  “It’s okay.” She flipped the hood of her jacket, shook out her hair and turned to look at him. “So what’s going on? How come we had to leave so early?”

  “We’re going to Agate Beach,” Matthew said. “To check out tide pools.”

  “Huh?”

  Matthew explained the day’s itinerary, trying to make it sound every bit as exciting as a trip to the mall. Lucy’s expression told him he’d failed. “You’ll enjoy it,” he said with more conviction than he felt. “There’s a lot to see. Starfish, sand bars.” He reached out to ruffle her hair. “Come on, Lulu.”

  “But I don’t get it,” she said as he parked outside Sarah’s apartment. “Why do we have to do this?”

  “I already explained.” Matthew saw Sarah at the window as though she’d been watching for them. Knowing Sarah, she probably had been. A moment later, the front door opened and she appeared wearing a yellow oilskin slicker, black boots and carrying a large canvas bag. He smiled. A blue felt hat and she’d look like the Paddington Bear he’d once tucked into Lucy’s crib. “Remember you were asking me about Sarah? Well, you’re going to get a chance to meet her.”

  MATTHEW’S DAUGHTER LOOKED just as she had in the picture Elizabeth had shown her. Glossy dark hair, green eyes, a rosiness to her cheeks that, as it used to with Elizabeth, reminded Sarah of Disney’s version of Snow White. But while Lucy had been smiling in the picture, the Lucy who greeted her from the backseat of the car, huddled into a bulky red parka, just barely managed to be civil.

  “I’ve heard so much about you,” Sarah said as she reached to shake Lucy’s hand. “And your dad was right, you look just like your mother.”

  Lucy frowned and met Matthew’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “Sarah means when your mother was your age.” Matthew started up the car and winked at Sarah. “Right, trooper?”

  “MOM GOT the wrong socks for me,” Lucy said some thirty minutes later. “I told her the kind I wanted and she got these weird ones.”

  “What kind did you want?” Matthew asked.

  “The kind that wick the moisture off your skin. They have them in Brown’s Outdoor, but they were ten dollars and Mom said that was too much.”

  “You know, I think I saw the kind you mean at Goodwill.” Sarah turned to look at Lucy. “It’s amazing how people buy stuff like that, spend a bunch of money on it and then decide they don’t really need it after all. Lucky for us though, we can pick it up for a fraction of the price.”

  Lucy smiled politely.

  You’re talking too much, Sarah told herself. Shut up. Don’t try to ingratiate yourself. Be cool. Looking at Lucy, she had the oddest sense of talking to the old Elizabeth. But unlike Elizabeth who, despite her formidable beauty, was always sweet and kind, Lucy had clearly been brought up to believe that she was the center of the universe. She’s just a kid, Sarah reminded herself after Lucy had continued to complain about the socks.

  “When I was in Nicaragua,” she said when Lucy finally ran out, “I met this woman who was probably about my age, but she lived in a grass hut and washed her clothes in a stream.”

  Matthew shot her a glance, no doubt guessing where the story was going. Lucy seemed to be watching his face in the rearview mirror. Or watching her own, Sarah couldn’t tell.

  “Anyway,” she forged on, “I started wondering what it would be to live like that, to have nothing—”

  “Pretty hard for you to imagine that, huh, Lulu?” Matthew asked.

  Lucy rolled her eyes.

  “But the point is, I could see this woman was eyeing my backpack. I’d just bought it to go on the trip and it was really expensive, but I figured it would be like winning the lottery for her to have something like that so I thought, what the hey. I was just about to unstrap it, when she looked at me and shook her head. Then she asked me what it was like to have to carry such a heavy load around all day.”

  Lucy smiled faintly.

  “She felt sorry for me,” Sarah elaborated, not sure whether Lucy had understood the point.

  “What d’you think about that, Lucy?” Matthew asked.

  “I don’t know,” she replied, an edge of irritation in her tone.

  “It must have been quite a culture shock for you, coming back here after all those years away,” Matthew said. “Not that Port Hamilton is exactly a thriving metropolis.”

  “No, but you’re right.” Sarah turned back in her seat, grateful that at least Matthew seemed interested. “Even in a town the size of Port Hamilton, the quantity and variety of things you can buy is amazing.”

  “Port Hamilton needs a mall,” Lucy said.

  Matthew chuckled, then reached into the backseat to squeeze her knee.

  Sarah felt oddly defeated. Reading the newspaper yesterday, she’d found herself turning from an article about the Manila slums, where mothers supported families with garbage salvaged from a dump, to an ad for Ikea. Worse, she’d been reading both with roughly the same degree of involvement. Maybe I should just volunteer for the Philippines, she’d thought. Or maybe I should buy some candles, some new sheets. Invite Matthew over. No, she had a better shot in the Philippines. If there was even an outside chance Matthew might reconsider the practice idea, complicating it with a personal relationship would be disastrous. If he’d made up his mind to join Comp
assionate Medical Systems, she still had all the work of setting up the practice, but without Matthew. Complications enough. Besides, she hadn’t picked up the slightest hint that Matthew saw her as anything other than a friend.

  Which, all things considered, was probably a good thing.

  “Daddy, when we get home, can I stay the night at Brittany’s?”

  “We’ll see,” Matthew said.

  “Daddy, can I see if your cell phone works out here?”

  Matthew handed it back to her. “How did we ever get along without cell phones?” he asked Sarah with a grin.

  “Pigeons,” she said. “Remember?”

  “Oh, right, but I always hated the mess they made. The way they’d poop on your hands when you were trying to retrieve a message.”

  “Oh, gross,” Lucy said.

  “Sarah taught her pigeon to play the piano,” Matthew said. “Chopin, Beethoven. Her pigeon was much smarter than mine.”

  “Shut up, Dad.” Lucy punched his shoulder. “You’re crazy.”

  Sarah glanced at her watch. The rain hadn’t let up and she was getting a headache. They still had a good forty-five minutes to go, which meant they’d miss low tide. Less beach to search on but, given the rain, it probably didn’t matter a whole lot. She thought of the box of hammers and tools and shovels and God knows what that she’d carefully assembled. Matthew had loaded them into his car as Lucy looked on.

  “How come we need all that stuff?” she’d asked.

  Sarah tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. Earlier, trying to fill what felt like a suffocating silence, she’d launched into a rambling explanation about the Mesozoic period. She’d intended it as an introduction to the dinosaurs—something she was sure Lucy would find interesting. Nerves had sidetracked her into a lengthy discourse on how the continents were formed and, even though she could see that Lucy was struggling to keep her eyes open, she hadn’t been able to stop talking. She now gazed through the streaming passenger window at the stands of dark pines, at the relentless rain. Lucy was wearing some kind of perfumed cream that smelled like apples. She could smell her own wool sweater. The scents filled her nose, mixed with the stuffy warm smell of three bodies in a small space. She rolled down her window a crack, felt the rush of cool, wet air, then quickly closed it, afraid she might get Lucy wet.

  Lucy didn’t like her. But maybe Lucy didn’t like any women Matthew was involved with. Except she wasn’t involved with Matthew. Pepita had liked her though. All the girls at Saint Julia’s Orphanage had liked her. Fighting for her attention, hanging on her hands. Resting their heads on her lap. Why could she talk to them and not to Matthew’s daughter? The easy explanation was that Lucy reminded her of Elizabeth. But, come on, she wasn’t that petty. Was she? Maybe it was wanting Lucy to like her.

  Standing at the window that morning, waiting for Matthew and Lucy to arrive she’d felt as if she was waiting for a first date. She’d paced the room, changed from a navy parka that struck her as drab into a bright red one before deciding that wouldn’t be warm enough and putting the navy one back on again. She’d added a scarf for color. And then because of the rain, she’d added the yellow slicker.

  She glanced at her watch again.

  “Only five minutes since the last time you looked.” Matthew squeezed her shoulder. “Relax.”

  Sarah smiled. The gray skies seemed to lighten just a bit. They’d turned onto the road that ran along the coast and, through the pines, she caught glimpses of the ocean. “See that formation over there?” She scooted around in her seat to look at Lucy who was now in communion with her video game. “That tall pile of rocks?” Sarah gestured at the rugged seashore outside the window. “Formations like that are called stacks and they form when part of the headland is eroded.”

  “You know what erosion means, Lulu?” Matthew asked.

  “Like when the sea washes stuff away?”

  “Exactly.” Sarah beamed at her. “Stacks also form when a natural arch collapses due to subaerial processes and gravity.”

  Matthew cleared his throat.

  “What?”

  He smiled. “Nothing.”

  “Was I rambling on too long?” she asked.

  “That’s okay,” Lucy said.

  “See, when a stack collapses or erodes, it leaves a stump. Or sometimes it leaves this small island, like that one over there.” She pointed again.

  “What’s a headland?” Lucy asked.

  “It’s a piece of rocky land that juts out into the sea.” Sarah smiled, feeling encouraged. She likes me, she really likes me. “You’ve heard of the Rock of Gibraltar, right?”

  Lucy gave her a blank look.

  “Sure you have,” Matthew said. “Remember when we all went to Spain? That big rock—”

  “Oh, yeah,” Lucy said. “Cool.”

  “Interesting, Sarah,” Matthew said.

  “Can we get something to eat soon?” Lucy asked.

  “It’s early for lunch,” Matthew said.

  “Stacks are important sites for nesting seabirds,” Sarah said, trying to regain Lucy’s attention. “They’re also ideal for rock climbing. Your dad and I used to have these great adventures rock climbing.”

  “We did.” Matthew looked at Lucy in the rearview mirror. “Those are the kind of experiences you remember years later.”

  “Dad, really. I’m so hungry.”

  “I made sandwiches,” Sarah said. “Two kinds. Goat cheese with red bell peppers on whole-wheat bread and—”

  “Sounds good,” Matthew said with a tad too much enthusiasm. “Right, Lu?”

  Sarah sat back in her seat. Rose had stopped by while she was making the sandwiches. “Hardly kid’s stuff,” she’d said. “But you know best.” Which Rose obviously didn’t believe and, Sarah could see now, was obviously not true.

  “Or…I don’t know, it’s kind of cold,” Matthew said. “Remember that beach café that made really great clam chowder?”

  “Yeah, let’s go there,” Lucy said, showing enthusiasm for the first time that morning.

  “Hey, Sarah,” Matthew said. “What about that rock formation just west of Agate Beach? One of the rocks was like a little cave, remember that?”

  “I used to hole up in it,” Sarah said.

  “I wonder if it’s still there…”

  “One way to find out,” Sarah said, and Matthew turned to smile at her.

  “Dad,” Lucy said, “I am seriously hungry.”

  “Let’s put it to a vote,” Matthew said. “I say rock formation, then lunch. Sarah?”

  “I’m starving,” Sarah lied. “Guess you lose, Matthew.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE RAIN FINALLY STOPPED and by the time they’d had lunch, burgers for Lucy, clam chowder for him and Sarah—he’d been quite willing to eat her sandwiches, but she’d insisted—a few anemic sunbeams were illuminating the gloom. Encouraged by the break in the weather, they’d hiked a mile or so along a wooded trail, then clambered over barnacle-and mussel-encrusted rocks to check out the tide pools. But as they’d crouched on the rocks watching a hermit crab wind its way through ribbons of pale green seaweed, Lucy had grown bored and announced she was going off by herself to look for shells. He could see her red coat, a splash of color against the muted seascape.

  “I guess my expectations were unrealistic,” he said.

  “About?”

  “You and Lucy.” He kept his eyes on his daughter’s back. “You’re not exactly getting along like a house on fire.”

  “Oh, come on. I’m this woman she doesn’t know from Adam.” Sarah’s voice was heated. “She gets dragged along on some cockamamy trip with…Did you even ask her if she wanted to do this?”

  “No.”

  She turned her head to look at him. “Figures.”

  “In my defense,” he said, “I did think it would be good for her to do something other than shop.” He straightened his legs. “And I wanted you two to meet each other. Elizabeth’s always tellin
g me I spoil her. I decided this time, instead of letting her choose, I’d set the agenda.”

  “It’s a difficult concept to imagine,” Sarah said thoughtfully. “Being spoiled. With Rose I tended to feel like a small and less intelligent adult she’d been stuck with but that she was trying to make the best of it.”

  “She used to intimidate me,” Matthew said.

  “She intimidated everyone. Once, she told me that my father died of a heart attack because he really wanted to leave her, but didn’t have the guts to just walk out.”

  Matthew could hardly remember her father, a quiet, mild-mannered man, because his memories of Rose were so vivid. Sarah had baked a cake for, maybe, his tenth birthday. She’d called him over to her house on some pretext and it had been there on the kitchen table. Lopsided, frosted before it cooled sufficiently—Rose had pointed this out—but the first birthday cake he’d ever had. He’d hardly blown out the candles though before Sarah slipped into a gloomy funk. It was hideous, overcooked, revolting, on and on. And he’d imagined then, as he often did, a bird, a big black raven, perched on Sarah’s shoulder, berating and judging her and continually finding her wanting. And he’d wonder what it was like being Sarah.

  Today, at this very moment, he suspected it wasn’t a whole lot of fun. The thought made him feel protective toward her. With any other woman he might have put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her close. But with Sarah, the simple gesture would turn complicated, require an explanation. He could hear her. So you’re feeling sorry for me?

  Down at the water’s edge, Lucy was holding up a long strand of seaweed, her face in three-quarters profile, the wind tossing her dark hair.

  “She looks like Elizabeth,” Sarah said.

  “Her personality’s more like Elizabeth’s, too,” he replied. “She’s creative and impulsive. Unlike me.”

  Sarah said nothing but, somehow, the silence spoke volumes.

  Something wasn’t working about the day. The chemistry was all wrong. He’d envisioned Lucy and Sarah forming this instant bond, chattering away about girl stuff, teasing him for being a guy. Instead, Lucy had hardly said two words and Sarah was most un-Sarah-like.