Curious as to her condition and certain that cancer hadn't been the culprit, I'd spent many hours searching Neil Farris's files for Rosy Deighton's medical record, but found nothing. I'd never met Farris, and knew very little about him before I assumed his life here in Ashborough. But what I'd learned was that he was a very detail-oriented man. His files were immaculately kept, alphabetized by last name, and categorized by condition. There were fourteen people suffering from cancer in Ashborough (at least those of whom came to Farris for support), and Rosy Deighton wasn't one of them. Actually, according to the records left behind for me, Rosy hadn't even been a patient.
I never told Phillip that I couldn't locate Rosy's file—I felt this bit of information was something he didn't need to know about; last thing I needed was the
necessity
to unearth it under his watchful eyes, wherever the hell it was. I ended up examining her (another choice by default) during my lunch-breaks and prescribed her a mild anti-anxiety medication in addition to the painkillers she was taking, something that would help her get through the mental aspect of her discomfort. That's the difference between old-world practice and new: Farris, in his seventies, mostly avoided prescribing anti-anxiety or anti-depressive meds for fear of their addictive properties, something he indicated in many of his patient files. Little did Mr. small-town physician know was that half of America chows down Xanax and Zoloft like they're tic tacs.
Although I knew the medication would help Rosy's thinking patterns (I decided to chalk up her window-tapping outburst as a case of sleepwalking, and prescribed some Ambien to keep her bed-bound), I felt disappointed that there was nothing else I could do for her to make coping a bit easier. She'd have to live with her deformities for the rest of her life, and she'd have to deal with it, otherwise she'd end up in some padded room wearing diapers and swilling on her very own custom pacifier.
On a different occasion Christine met Rosy and did her best to make nice with her by talking herbal teas, spice candles, and aromatherapy; as it turned out, Rosy had a bit of new age pith in her bones, and Christine took to that just fine, happily discussing the healing properties of jasmine and sandalwood and other essences of the mind. Rosy had mentioned how much she enjoyed children, but Christine thought it best to keep Jessica away, and I agreed. To a five year old, Rosy was the bogeyman. To some adults, too.
Sometime during the third week I took the afternoon off so that we could tour the elementary school, and get Jessica registered for kindergarten in the fall. When we first arrived there Jessica had spotted an unruly line of older children in the hallway, third-graders I supposed, and casted a silent wary look up at me as if to ask whether she had a choice in this matter. Suddenly, school didn't seem all the fun and games Christine made it out to be.
We met the elementary school principal, a bald and rotund fellow named Goodwin Clarke, who made a strong point to discuss the rheumatoid arthritis in his hands and how the anti-inflammatory meds gave him the bloodies, something both Christine and I really didn't need to visualize at the moment. Christine did her best to not look at me for fear of bursting out in laughter, and I changed the subject by promising Goodwin an appointment the following Saturday.
When we arrived home Jimmy Page was eyeing his leash. He ran to the door, then looked at me, then at the door, then at me again. I got the hint and took him for a walk in the back before he started whimpering. Page's first and favorite spot had become the cement bird fountain, and in no time all the weeds around the pedestal were dead. They ought to market the stuff, I thought.
I made a point to spend some moments between appointments here in the backyard (not much hustle and bustle here in Ashborough, unlike New York where you bounced back and forth between examining rooms like a volleyball), circling about the property, checking out the grass and the weeds and the sea of trees and copses that seemed to go on forever. Regardless of the amount of time, whether it was a few minutes or a half hour, each time out seemed like a small journey, and I would discover something else with the property I didn't know about, simple little things like where the water spigots were or how someone had planted a line of white rose bushes about twelve feet deep into the woods. One Sunday afternoon—soon, I promised myself—I would take a few hours to search these woods. Don't ask me what I expected to find. But since most of my life had been spent on sidewalks and concrete, I thought it'd be fun playing the role of forest explorer.
The rest of the day was spent in typical Cayle family fashion. Jessica ran about the property with Page, Christine rearranged our things while getting dinner ready, and I painted the hallway and examining room the flat-white color I thought it should be. At one point Jessica slipped into my office to proudly show off a marvelous scrape on her knee. I covered it with Bacitracin and a Band-Aid and sent her on her ungraceful way.
After dinner we spent the evening relaxing in the living room, something we really hadn't done as a family since moving in. The television was off, another rarity. Jessica was lying on her stomach on the spiral-weave rug reading Dr Seuss, and I poked through the last of Farris's files trying to accustom myself with the medical histories of Ashborough's families. At one point Christine glanced over at me. She was sitting on the loveseat by the window that looked out across the front yard. I saw a glossy joy in her gaze, and she aimed her eyes down as if embarrassed of her tears.
Jesus
, I thought,
she wants another child. Ain't that a number you can bet on. And she wants one soon. My excuse of having no space is moot now. No more tight city living for the Cayles. We could have two or three more with the room in this house. I'd have to settle for one more.
Then, she said it. "Michael...I want to talk."
I stood, walked over to her and kissed her, knowing that I'd have to give in to her appeal. Yep, she wanted another baby, and she'd start the conversation by saying,
I'm thirty-four, and I'm not getting any younger.
Neither was I. And I wanted another child too. Kind of.
"Wait until Jess is in bed, then we'll talk."
She nodded, smiling, knowing she was finally going to win this cold war.
An hour later Jessica was asleep on the floor, unperceiving of her mother's yearnings. Christine looked up from her
Better Homes and Gardens
with that same glazed stare. "Michael...I'm not getting any younger. And you know Jessica needs a sibling." She
always
started the talk that way. It was her path of least resistance, of trying not to sound too selfish. Thing was, I was starting to agree with her, more so now that we lived at 17 Harlan Road. Without any other children in the immediate area—heck, there were hardly any
people
in the immediate area—Jessica would have much to gain with a brother or sister in the house.
I said, "Let me put her to bed, and then we can discuss it." Me, procrastinating again.
I scooped Jessica up and carried her upstairs, walking through the moonshadows that painted the open staircase with gray slants. I made it to the top and thought of Rosy Deighton...well not
Rosy
, but the woman in the room I met that day, how she rose from bed and spoke inscrutably of
them
, how
they'll
get me like they did everyone else in this God-forsaken town. I'd kept this odd little tidbit of information to myself, did my best, really, to try to shove it from my mind. But it kept coming back, the image of Rosy and her gnarled face, her disfigurements, the yellow nails tapping their signal upon the windowpane as she forewarned me of some obscure and hidden threat.
It terrified me.
I stood on the landing for a minute, maybe more, holding Jessica,
embracing
her as though a clear and present danger positively existed in the cool unstirring darkness of my home. She fidgeted slightly in my arms; a wave of sick fear burned a hole in my stomach. Confusion beset me, strengthening the bloom of fear within me.
Something bad happened here
, my conscience told me. There was a sudden surge of anxiety torturing me. My breathing was quick and labored, matching the urgent pace of my heart; my legs felt like sodden tea bags; my feet and hands tingled, as though all the blood had rushed away from them towards my head, causing my lightheadedness. The human body responds dramatically to the perceived threat of danger, the symptoms as real as if an actual intruder emerged from the darkness with a weapon aimed in one's direction. But there was no intruder, no immediate peril.
So then why am I so damn terrified? Is my subconscious trying to tell me something? Or am I in need of medication like so many of the patients that leave my office with an RX for Xanax clutched tightly in their sweaty palms?
Something crashed in Jessica's room.
I started—
exaggerated response
I told myself—then tried to soothe it away, taking long slow deep breaths through my nostrils, blowing it out across my coated tongue. My body ran with gooseflesh, and again I had to remind myself that there was nothing to be afraid of—spontaneous crashes were nothing out of the ordinary when you had a playful Cocker Spaniel sniffing about the house. No
what ifs
here, nothing to ask the anxious mind that never offered a practical answer.
I took Jessica into her room and placed her gently on the bed. A cool breeze raced in through the screen, tossing the lace curtain toward the ceiling; the billowing fabric looked like a ghost caught in the clutches of the window frame as if it attempted to sneak its way in from the cold night. On the floor alongside the dresser lay one of Jessica's many plastic dolls, its fall coming from a toss of wind, not one of Page's nosy pokes. Its head had come loose and rolled halfway across the room. I could see the glassy eyes staring up at me, unblinking, seeming to forcefully demand,
Michael, give your wife another child. I need another playmate.
I retrieved the head and tried to reattach it, but failed in my attempt to do so, the plastic eyelids blinking as it shifted in my grip. On the dresser Jessica had all her dolls lined up. There was a gap in the queue. Oddly, it reminded me of a missing tooth. I walked over and fitted the doll back in its spot, alongside her teddy bear with the one button eye that dangled from loose threads, and nestled the head in its lap. I then shed the curtain aside and peered out the open window. The woods were as dark as the ocean at night. Huge. Threatening. A monster. Psychologically, I could have been standing at the edge of the universe, or in the wake of a giant tidal wave.
That's your anxious mind speaking out again, Michael. Time to let it go.
I closed the window, swallowed a dry lump in my throat, and tucked Jessica in, snug as a bug. Gently, I ran a finger across her cool brow, moving aside a blonde curl, then kissed her goodnight. Standing in the doorway I couldn't help but stare at my sleeping beauty before heading back downstairs to discuss adding another child to the Cayle family household.
T
he fourth Sunday we were in the house, I decided it was time to strap on the work boots and take a nice long hike through the woods. Christine had brought Jessica into town for lunch, a haircut, and perhaps some shopping (as per Jessica, there was a toy store in town, a bit of information she must have gained through osmosis), and I took in the warm June sunshine with some iced tea (Rosy Deighton's recipe), snuggled in a folding chair in the front yard. As soon as I finished the tea and stood to make my way around back, Phillip Deighton came walking across the front lawn. Page, who'd been sleeping in the shade of the chair, yipped a few times then licked himself and went back to dreaming about filet mignon, or t-bones.
"Hello Phillip," I said. "Have a seat. Chair's a bit old, but clean. Found it in the garage."
"Looks as though you're headin' out." Phillip had on a pair of carpenter shorts, work boots, and a golf shirt. As usual, gray chest hair exploded from the collar.
"I was going to explore the woods a bit."
Phillip nodded knowingly. "Hmm...you know where you're going? I'm only saying this 'cause it's easy to get lost when you don't have your direction about you." Phillip painted a straightforward grin on his face: next best thing to coming right out and asking if he could come along.
"No, I haven't been back there yet. At least not beyond about thirty feet."
"Well, it's a good thing I wore my boots. Gets a bit mushy back there. And there's also something back there I think you'd like to see."
Apparently I wasn't going to be spending this time alone. Not that I minded, of course. Phillip had been pretty good company since we moved to Ashborough, and when push came to shove, he was my only friend. "I could use a tour guide, I suppose."
"There's some beaten paths in and about the clearer areas," he said. "Best to find them and not stray too far. Three, four times a year the Sheriff and his men end up scouring the woodland beyond the town 'cause some kids end up losing their sense of direction. And don't you think it hasn't happened to any adults, either."
"As long as it isn't any trouble..."
"No trouble at all."
"Well, then let's go."
I grabbed two plastic bottles of water before heading out, and in five minutes we were well beyond the perimeter of the woods, to a point where I couldn't even see my house anymore. The land rose up over a hill and then down along one of Phillip's aforementioned beaten paths. I thought it interesting how the woods, quite thick in most places, cleared every now and then to give way to brambles and high grass. Still, the trees remained intimate, their branches reaching out and caressing like fingers, the leaves whispering songs down from the clutches of balmy winds. It was that special time of year when Spring surrendered to Summer, sending kisses of warmth across your moistening skin. It showed down my chest in a dark wet stripe, Phillip had one on his back. A product of nature's embrace. How poetic, I thought.