Abomination (4 page)

“There’s no one else here today.  Everyone else is on vacation.”

“Then I will be going.”  She began to stand. 

“Have I offended you, Ms. Ionesco?” Jamie asked suddenly.  He took a seat on his chair.  “We’ve never met before, never spoken before, but I see how you look at me in the hallways when you see me.
  If you tell me what I did to make you angry or offend you, then maybe I can fix things.”

Elena was half in and half out of the chair
when she stopped moving. She looked at Jamie quickly then turned away, as if viewing him was as dangerous as looking directing into the sun for too long. “You have done nothing to offend me, doctor. I simply find your very existence offensive.”

“Excuse me?”  Jamie
wondered if he had heard wrong. 

“You are a
monstru
.”  The gypsy practically spat the word.  “
Monstru
.”

“A monster? I- I don’t understand, Mrs. Ionesco.”

Elena gathered her courage and finally locked eyes with Jamie.  A newfound strength burned within her eyes.  “Not a monster, doctor.  Nothing so simple as that.  An abomination.  An anathema to the purity and sanctity of life.”

Jamie sat there, his jaw hanging open slightly as he listened to the old woman speak.  He was speechless. 
He could think of half a dozen valid reasons why this strange woman wouldn’t like him, but this wasn’t one of them.  He had no idea how to respond to such an absurd statement. He had been called many things in his life, but never such hateful epithets.  He didn’t understand.

Elena continued.  “Even men with the darkest so
uls and most evil thoughts have human shaped auras, though black they burn,” she said.  “But when I look at you, doctor, I see chaos.  A human spirit, but twisted and in turmoil.  Only abominations, only those who oppose the true nature of the universe, have auras that are so twisted and perverse.  You are not part of the natural order, doctor.  You should not exist.  And I will not have your filthy hands on me.”

“I can assure you, Mrs. Ionesco, I do exist.” Jamie said, not knowing what else to say.

Elena offered a sad, almost pitiful smile.  “Just because you
do
exist does not mean you
should
exist.  There is something unholy about you.  Something profane.  And we are done.”  She stood suddenly, the chains around her neck jangling as she rose.  “I will return Monday.” 

“At least let me take a look and write you some prescriptions,” Jamie said
, standing. 

“You will not touch me,” Elena Ionesco replied.  “Not if my life depended on it.  I will not see my own soul lost to your
wicked touch.”   And with that, she disappeared from the room, leaving a stunned Jamie Whitman behind.

Chapter 4

A dozen conflicting emotions warred within Jamie’s head as he drove home that evening.  Anger and outrage.  Confusion and uncertainty.  Guilt and indignation.  He replayed that final confrontation with the old gypsy woman several times during the first fifteen minutes of his ride but failed to make any sense of the conversation.  He had done many bad things in his life, most before the age of fifteen, but those were youthful indiscretions and could hardly define him as
evil
. 

In the end,
after much soul-searching, Jamie dismissed Elena Ionesco’s words as the simple ramblings of an old woman who was probably coming down with a serious case of dementia.  Growing up in Eastern Europe during the second World War, as Jamie assumed she had judging by her age and thick accent, she had probably seen her share of horrors during her childhood, and now, seventy years later, her dying synapses were triggering delusions.  She was simply suffering from a rapid neurological and psychological breakdown that was common in people in their seventies and eighties and, for some reason, his face elicited horrible memories from her past.  It was a shame, and Jamie found that he actually felt sorry for the woman.   Because of her delusions, she would suffer through the weekend without the antibiotics and pain medications, or actual treatment, that could have calmed or erased her toothache.

Jamie finally pushed the gypsy’s face from his mind, telling himself that he was done thinking about her.  It was over.  One and done.  He would never be in the same room
with her again.

He inserted his new Godsmack CD into the in-dash CD player and cranked the volume up.  He began to sing along, the words flowing flawlessly from between his lips.  He concentrated on the music as he weaved through the traffic around him.  He thought about the upcoming weekend, his trip to Philly to see his girl, Samantha Hendricks. 

But despite his every attempt to keep his mind on the present and the future and on purely positive thoughts, a part of his mind continually drifted back to the gypsy, and he found he couldn’t quite push aside the image of her haunting eyes and the hatred that burned within them.  Couldn’t forget the venom he had heard in her voice when she had named him
monstru
.
Abomination

They shouldn’t have bothered him, the accusatory looks and the irrational words of a crazy woman.  But they did. 
And that brief, bizarre encounter gnawed at his mind, an insidious little worm burrowing through his brain.

Jamie turned his
three-year-old Volkswagen Jetta onto Eagle Court and guided the car to his parent’s home at the end of the cul-de-sac.  The house was a two story brownstone with a two car garage, prototypical of the homes which populated Nutley, Montclair, Belleville and all of the other tiny towns that surrounded the sewer that was Newark, New Jersey.

His mother’s Acura was parked in the driveway but Steve’s BMW was
nowhere to be seen, which meant that his stepfather hadn’t returned from the office yet.  Like most middle class American homes, his parents’ garage housed years of accumulated junk and crap instead of actual cars, and if Steve’s car was not in the driveway, he wasn’t home.  Jamie parked his car on the street in front of the house in its customary location, leaving the empty driveway spot for the Beamer. 

He
stepped out of his car, slung his messenger bag over his shoulder, and made his way up the driveway toward the front door.  As he walked, he allowed his gaze to wander over the simple house, still amazed that after all these years it still felt like home.  He had moved back to his childhood house for his year-long residency because the program did not pay a lot in monetary compensation.  Instead, the residency rewarded him with the experience he would need to be a successful dentist going forward.  He had decided to save the money he would have had to spend on a tiny apartment for the year for a down payment on a house or condo next year.  So after being away for eight years, four spent in Boston at Tufts and four at Temple University Dental School in Philadelphia, he had moved back in with his mother and his stepfather.

He had been wary about moving ba
ck in with his mom and Steve at first because he truly believed that you could never go home again.  That once you were out, you were out for good.  That your parents wanted to get on with their lives and didn’t want you back.  But his mother and Steve had accepted him with open arms, and the transition had gone more smoothly than anticipated.   Since he had come home relatively often during his college and post-graduate years for holidays and the like, his parents hadn’t touched his bedroom.  His mother assured him, with a sly smile, that his room would only be turned into the dedicated sewing room she so desperately wanted once he was absolutely gone for good, which wouldn’t be until he was married.  Jamie’s biggest worry about moving back home was that, despite the DMD after his name, the three of them would slip back into the comfortable-yet-strict parent-rebellious teenager relationship that had existed during his high school years.  He couldn’t begin to count the number of times his mom and step-dad had uttered “
This is our house and you’ll live by our rules, young man, or you’ll find another place to live.
”  

H
is worries, though, had proved unfounded. Despite the fact that his mom and Steve were still the parents and he the child, they quickly afforded him all of the respect and privacy he could have wanted.  Things had been shaky for a couple of weeks as everyone acclimated to the new dynamic, but once his mother and Steve came to terms with the fact that their little boy was now an adult, and a doctor at that, a balance was struck, one they all could accept and live with comfortably.  Home felt like home, and he couldn’t be happier.

Jamie made his way up the walkway, fished his keys from his bag
, and unlocked the front door.  He slipped into the house as quietly as possible, pulling the door closed behind him.  He stepped out of his shoes and was no more than four feet into the foyer when the smell of freshly baked pastries wafted out from the kitchen, tickling his nostrils.  The sweet aroma was accompanied by the equally delightful voice of his mother as she sang along with the radio.  Jamie followed his nose and ears into the kitchen, where his mother stood at the counter, her back to him, working a pie crust against the sides of round tin.  She wore a white baker’s apron, and her brunette hair was pulled in a ponytail to keep loose strands from getting into her face as she worked.  A fresh pan of sugar cookies cooled under a small window to her left.  The song on her lips as she moved was Janice Joplin’s immortal “Mercedes Benz”. 

The scene was so peaceful, so perfect, so Americana, it could have been immortalized in a Normal Rockwell painting.

“Hey mom,” Jamie said, dropping his bag on the kitchen table.  He walked over to her and kissed her gently on her cheek.

“You never kiss me when you get home anymore,”
Leslie Whitman said, a smile on her face.  “You must want something.”

“Smelled the cookies,” Jamie admitted.  He reached out to take one but was thwarted by a well-timed blow from a batter-covered wooden spoon.  He rapidly w
ithdrew his bruised hand, a look of mock horror on his face.  “Not cool,” he said.

Leslie turned to her son.  She was a petite woman, no more than
five-foot-four, and Jamie towered over her.  But she had a certain presence about her, an almost divine fortitude that always made her seem much larger than she actually was.  She was thin, though not in an unhealthy way, and her facial features were soft and kind.  The only blemish that marred her otherwise smooth skin was a one-inch scar on her right cheek that BrianWhitman, her first husband and Jamie’s biological father, had left her with the night he had disappeared from their lives forever.  Though closer to fifty than forty, she had an air of renewed youth about her courtesy of both her second husband and her second chance at life.  For her, age was truly nothing more than a number.

“They’re for dessert,” his mom said.  “I know how many I made, and I’ll know if you take one, young man.”

“I thought we had an understanding, mom.  That you can’t treat me like I’m seven anymore.”

“Maybe not, but your still my son.  And you will not ruin your dinner with a cookie.”

“Yes ma’am,” Jamie said.

“And don’t call me ma’am.  It makes me feel old.”

“Yes mother.”

His mom sighed.  Jamie knew she hated being called mother as much as she hated being called ma’am. 
“How about you make yourself useful and go set the table for dinner.  Steve just called.  He’ll be home in ten minutes.”  His mother turned back to her pie.

Jamie did as instructed, pulling plates and bowls, cups and utensils, from their respective cabinets and drawers
in the kitchen and arranging them on the dining room table.  It took him only two minutes to complete this task, and when he was done, he returned to the kitchen and turned his eyes to his mother, taking pleasure in watching her as she blissfully worked at making the world’s best apple pie.  It filled him with a great contentment to see her so happy in her skin, enjoying the simple pleasures of life.  After suffering at the hands of his birth father for thirteen years, enduring emotional and physical violence and pain on an almost daily basis, she truly deserved this: a beautiful home filled with love and warmth, a husband who raised neither voice nor fist in anger, and a respectful child who did as he was asked without complaint.

“How was work today?” his mother as
ked, not turning from her task.

“Fine,” Jamie said.  “Weird.  The usual.”

Monstru
. 
Abomination
. 

The words cam unbidden to his mind, sent a shiver down his spine.
  He kept them to himself for the moment.

“I’ll tell you over dinner.”

Several minutes later, the sound of the front door opening and closing echoed through the house.  Steve Gorman, Jamie’s stepfather of ten years, entered the kitchen.  He was fifty-seven years old, ten years older than Leslie Whitman, but appeared no older than forty, a fact he attributed to his daily workout routine, healthy eating, and excellent genes.  He ran three miles every morning, played tennis twice a week at the local racquet club, and lifted weights in the basement every other day.  As a result of these activities, Steve’s facial features retained a youthful, elastic quality, and his body more closely resembled that of a twenty year old athlete than one belonging to a man on the wrong side of fifty.  He was not tall, standing just under six feet, but he was imposing in his own right, with broad shoulders and a strong jaw and dark, inquisitive eyes that seemed to penetrate whatever his gaze fell upon.  He wore his dark brown hair pushed back and kept his goatee square and sharp.

Leslie drifted over to her husband as he shed his suit jacket and kissed him quickly on his lips.  He kissed her back then hung his charcoal jacket on the back of one of the kitchen chairs.  “Do I smell an apple pie baking?” he asked, lifting his nose to the air.

“For dessert,” Jamie warned.  “You go after it now and I promise you’ll get nothing but bloody knuckles.  And maybe a splinter.”

“Duly noted.” 

“Jamie, be a darling,” Leslie said, “and get the salad from the fridge.  The dressing is on the door.  And Steve, the brisket is in the oven.  Could you take it out and cut it?”

Both son and husband went to work without question or complaint.  That was the power Leslie Whitman had over the men in the household; they did as they were asked because she had earned their respect by being a strong but fair mother and wife.

Minutes later, the three of them were sitting at the table, enjoying the food and each other’s company.

“So how was work, Jamie” Steve asked as he drenched his salad in a
lite raspberry vinaigrette dressing, reiterating Leslie’s question from earlier.

Jamie spent ten minutes telling his mother
and Steve about his day and the motley collection of patients he had treated.  Or attempted to treat.  He told them about Khalif and Bunny, about the young woman who claimed that her babies had stolen the calcium from her teeth while in utero and the man who was receiving alien transmissions through his fillings. 

But he didn’t mention Elena Ionesco.

“Sounds like the Mad Hatter’s tea party,” Steve remarked.

Leslie kicked him under the table, eliciting a yelp.  “I would expect a little more sympathy from a therapist,” she said, half smiling. 

“Steve’s right, mom,” Jamie said.  “Sometimes I feel like I’m dealing with a bunch of lunatics at the clinic.  I think they do it on purpose, attract the weirdoes to prepare us for private practice.  If we can treat these people without killing them, we should be able to handle anyone we’ll treat in the real world.”

“You know, Jamie,” Steve said, swallowing a lump of
meat, “it’s been ten years.  Can’t you call me dad yet?”

“You keep asking me that and I’ll start calling you Dr. Gorman again, like I did when you were my therapist.  How’d you like that?”  There was no anger or resentment in Jamie’s voice.  This was a little game he and Steve played once a month or so.  Steve felt that
, after being married to his mother for so long, Jamie should call him dad, or even father.  Jamie simply wasn’t ready.  He didn’t know if he would ever be ready.  He liked Steve.  Loved him, even.  And that was exactly why he couldn’t bring himself to call him dad.  The only man he had ever called dad had been an abusive, sadistic monster, and the association between the concepts of father and monster was firmly etched in his mind.  Jamie felt that if he started to call Steve “dad”, he would begin to associate the horrible traits of his birth father with Steve, and that was something he didn’t want to do.