Good Hope Road (37 page)

The truth was, I wasn’t sure that forgiving him would do the trick, but I was ready to try anything. That man had been haunting me, and I was tired of it.

Every time I lay down to go to sleep, somewhere in the dark of midnight he’d come, and I’d see him the way he used to be—with that mop of blond hair falling over his blue eyes, and that big smile, white against his sun-browned skin. In my dream, I’d feel the way I used to feel back then, with my heart flippin’ over and my insides fluttering. He’d take my hand, and we’d go into the old Bijou Theater and watch Judy Garland sing “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” and I’d lean my head on his shoulder and think it was the most beautiful song I’d ever heard. . . .

In the morning I’d wake with the words to that song on my lips. I’d touch the side of my face and almost feel him there. My mind would stay trapped in the past for a minute or two. Then one thing or other would bring reality back to me.

I would lay there feeling that old pain about everything that happened between him and me.

How could he have run off with my sister, Ivy?
I’d wonder.
Did he ever feel anything for me back then? Why do I even care after all these years? Why do I care so much?

The only thing I could think to do was bury the past, forgive and be forgiven, and hope that was what Ivy would of wanted.

I took a deep breath, straightened my arms, clutched my fists at my sides, and walked into the armory, ready to say it.

But as soon as I went into the armory building again, my courage went out of me a second time. I walked right past June and went to work filling the gaps on the picture wall, like that was what I come there for.

“Morning, Eudora,” he said. I could tell he was wishing I’d come over there and talk.

“Mornin’, June.” I tried not to look at him, but I noticed that he was sittin’ up in bed with a TV tray in front of him, sortin’ pictures, peeling the damp ones carefully apart, and laying them on the floor to dry.

“I got some more pictures sorted out for ya here. I figured, I was sittin’ here, I might as well make some use of myself. I figure by the end of the day I can have all these bags sorted through.”

June, I forgive you and I want you to forgive me. . . .
“Well, that’s all right, I reckon, but ain’t you about ready to be heading home? You look like you’re getting around better.”

“Ain’t much to look forward to at the old house.” He sighed, a long, slow, sad sound that come from somewhere deep inside him. “Drew said the doors blew open in the storm, and the place is a mess. Guess I can’t quite get my mind around the idea of going home and tearing into all that.”

Me either. June, I want to bury the past.
“Well, I hope Drew got your doors closed up good.”

“Um-hmm. I reckon he did.” He paused for a minute, and I heard him shifting on the bed. “Well, good mornin’, Doc Albright. How are you this morning?”

“Doing well, June.” I looked up to see Dr. Albright come in the door and stop by the medicine shelves, looking for something. “I just came in to pick up some things that I left in here. I’m on my way back to St. Louis this morning.”

I stopped what I was doing. “You’re not leaving this morning?” I wanted to talk to him about my worry that my mind might be slipping. Him being a doctor in a big-city hospital, he might know what to tell me.

Dr. Albright nodded, preoccupied and in a hurry. “Afraid I have to. The sheriff’s deputy got my car out of the mud and brought it back here, so I finally have transportation. I’m needed at home.” Something in the way he said it told me there was more to them last words.

Ask him, Eudora. Ask him now, or you ain’t gonna get the chance. See what advice he’s got about it, anyway.
“Doc?”
You know if you don’t ask him, you ain’t ever gonna get the courage to go to some other doctor and get looked at.

“Yes?”

“Do you have a minute?”
Now or never, Eudora.
“Just a minute to talk, I mean?”

He pulled his golf hat off and scratched his head, looking past me at the old letters on the wall. I’d seen him stand there and read them two dozen times in the past days.

“I suppose so. Sure. What was it you wanted to talk about?”

I saw June and the two other old ladies who had spent the night watching us. The last thing I wanted was for everyone to hear me. “Why don’t we take a stroll? Maybe go down the hill and get a cup of coffee? Looks like the men are making up one last breakfast before they pack up the van. Ain’t too many people left, but I reckon the ones still here will be glad for the food.”

Dr. Albright nodded. “I think they’re trying to use up the open containers of things before they pack up. Come on, we’ll see what they’ve got.” He motioned toward the door, and I hurried to catch up with him.

I waited until we were on the front steps to say anything. Finally I took a deep breath and let it spill out of me. “Doc, if I told you somethin’, it would be just between you and me, right?”

He nodded, giving me a serious look.

“Well, I . . . talked to Jenilee Lane about the internship program,” come out of my mouth. I don’t know why, because I thought I was all set to ask him about my problem. “She’s interested, all right. She said she’d have to see what happened with her father these next few days, but she could sure see where that program could give her a chance in life.”

The doctor smiled, seeming greatly pleased. “I would guess that you had a lot to do with her seeing the possibilities. I’ll have my office get the admission forms together and send them to Jenilee, care of Dr. Howard. He’ll be able to help her fill them out.”

A smile sneaked onto my face. “Well, anyhow, she’s pretty excited by the idea, but . . . well . . . I just want to make sure about somethin’ before I go pushing this any farther. There’s something I’m a little concerned about.”

He frowned, looking at me from the corners of his eyes.

I pushed on before he could say anything. “Well, I’ll just spit it out. I noticed, and not just once, that you give little Jenilee the strangest look. I can’t quite put a finger on it, but it was just . . . well . . . I just wondered what it meant. I wanted to make certain you didn’t have nothin’ . . . well, nothin’ . . . inappropriate in mind. She’s just a little twenty-one-year-old girl from a small town, and you’re a rich man twice her age, so you can see why I’d be concerned.”

The doctor raised an eyebrow, looking offended. “Mrs. Gibson, for heaven’s sake. I’m a married man.”

“Well, that don’t always make a difference.”

“And a Christian.”

“I’ve known a time or two when
that
didn’t make a difference, either.” I glanced heavenward, hoping lightning didn’t strike. “Forgive me for sayin’ it, but to some folks Christian is just a word. I guess I was wonderin’ if you were one of them kind of folks, or if you’re the kind who would help a young girl like Jenilee just because she’s had some hard turns in life, and she deserves a chance. I ain’t tryin’ to offend you, but when I want to know something, I generally just come right out and ask.”

The doc chuckled. “Well, I would hope I’m the latter kind of person.”

His smile faded just as quickly, and he stopped walking. We stood there for a long minute, and I watched all the hard edges of him chip away like dried mud flaking off a calf’s hide. Finally he let out a long breath and his arms fell limp at his sides.

“Lately sometimes I wonder which kind I am. I wonder how I came from being young and filled with a desire to help people to what I am today—just another middle-aged man wondering every day if I can drag myself through the same routine for one more time.” He put the knuckles of his hand against his lips and closed his eyes for a minute, laughing under his breath. “It’s pretty funny if you think about it. Here I am, driving hard to make chief of surgery before I’m forty-five, and all the while, I can hardly force myself to go to work.” He pointed toward the motor home. “The only reason I came here was because my car got stuck in the mud. When I got here that night and started treating people, I thought—actually thought—‘Boy, this will look good to the hospital board.’ The sad truth is, that was why I sent the message for the church relief crew to come, because I wanted to make sure I had an audience for my heroics. I thought it would look good on my résumé—board member of a big church, successful doctor, country club member in good standing, family man, wife and three kids, adjunct professor of medicine, disaster relief worker. The whole package, you know? The perfect package?”

I shook my head. It didn’t sound perfect to me. “A man in a perfect package wouldn’t be out behind the building on his knees cryin’ like a baby. That’s what I think.”

He nodded, his eyes a map of pain and confusion. He didn’t seem to care that I seen him break down behind the armory. “You see, that’s it. That’s the problem. It’s all an illusion. It’s evaporating faster than I can make smoke, and pretty soon everyone’s going to see that I’m losing my wife, I’m losing my kids. I’ve lost my faith. I’m not even sure how it happened—just a little bit at a time, I guess, one day after another while I was working to become the biggest and the best, and she was home getting the kids dressed, so she could take them to school without me, soccer without me, church without me. I come home, they’re all in bed; I don’t even stop to look in the girls’ room anymore. Don’t even go up to bed anymore. I just fall asleep in the chair for a few hours, then get up in the morning, and do it all again, and hate it all a little more.”

“Well, that ain’t much of a life,” I said. “Why don’t you think about doin’ something different? What I mean is, if that don’t make you happy, then why is it ever gonna matter if you get to be chief of surgeons? If it don’t make you happy, and it don’t make your family happy, what’s it worth?”

He stared at me for a long moment, drawing in a slow, labored breath, then letting it out again, taking on a look of peace. “I think that’s what I’ve finally figured out. I read those old letters, and I thought, ‘There’s nothing in my life that’s strong. I’ve built a house of straw.’ But I’m not sure I have what it takes to tear it down and start over.”

I reached over and give his hand a squeeze, because I knew how he felt. “I’m not sure I do either, to tell you the truth, Doc. But I figure you start with the people you love. That’s the foundation. That’s the only thing that lasts. You always gotta keep tending them bottom blocks.”

The doc nodded. “I think that’s what I’ve figured out too, these last few days. It started the moment I walked in here and saw Jenilee. For just a minute she looked so much like my wife when I met her back in med school. It took me back in time. I remembered how I felt back then, how we all used to sit around and talk about saving the world. I see that fire in Jenilee, and when I look at her, I can feel that piece of myself coming back. It isn’t just her I want to see have a chance. I want the chance to get that fire back myself. I want to put my life back together, and my marriage back together. I want to get to know my kids before they’re gone. I’ve got three girls—eight, thirteen, and sixteen. When I come home, nobody even bothers to look up from the TV anymore.”

“Then get rid of the TV,” I said. “Them girls will thank you one day.”

I reached out and stopped him just before we come within earshot of the breakfast line. “Doc, I got something else I want to ask you. Something I ain’t talked about to anybody these past couple of years. It probably ain’t your specialty, but I figure you come from a big hospital, so you ought to know some about it. Besides, if I don’t ask you now, I ain’t ever gonna get the courage.”

A wrinkle of worry crossed his brow. “What is it?”

I looked at my feet, watching them old black grandma shoes scrub in the dirt. “Well, Doc, my mama got dementia when she was about my age, and I think now I got it, too. Sometimes I can’t recall things that happened. I’m forgettin’ people’s names.” I didn’t look up. I just kept staring at them old black grandma shoes. “And the last few days I been . . . well, I been seein’ an angel that looks like my dead sister. I wondered . . . well, I guess I wondered if there was any way to tell if I was getting old-timer’s disease, or if I’m just an old lady with a bad memory and a good imagination?”

He was quiet for what seemed like the longest minute of my life. I stood there with my heart rapping so hard, I thought I might have a heart attack, and then it wouldn’t matter whether I had dementia or not.

“It isn’t at all my specialty,” he said finally, “but I can tell you that there are a number of treatments for Alzheimer’s, including drugs and nutritional supplements. You should be checked by a specialist in geriatric medicine, however, because memory loss can also be the result of a minor stroke, low hormone levels, or even electrolyte imbalance. If you have been noticing virtually the same level of symptoms for two years, the doctor will most certainly want to investigate possibilities other than Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s is typically a progressive disease.”

“Oh,” I muttered, not knowing what to think. “And what about the angel, Doc? Ain’t that a little strange?”

He wrote a phone number on the back of a card. “Here is the name of a good geriatric specialist at the hospital where I work. Call his office and schedule an appointment.” Our eyes met, and he smiled deep into my soul. “And as for the angel, who can say? We’ve seen our share of miracles, haven’t we?”

I took the card. “Yes, Doc. We certainly have.”

“There’s nothing to be gained by sitting around fearing the worst. Call and make an appointment with the specialist as soon as possible.”

“I’ll do that, Doc. I’ll do that right away.” I reached out and grabbed him in a bear hug. “I’ll do that, Doc. I surely will. Oh, thank you. I feel like the weight of the world’s been lifted off my shoulders.”