Replacing Dad. Shelley Fraser Mickle

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СКАЧАТЬ arms. Boy, that guy was smooth.

      My mother smiled. “I’m so sorry,” she said. ‘‘I know you rushed back here.” “It’s okay,” he said. “That’s what I’m here for, to handle emergencies.” “I just mean, it’s not an emergency anymore.” She looked down at the rug and pointed.

      Dr. Haley stepped back, still holding George. He saw the rock my mother was pointing to, and then my mother added, “He just sneezed.”

      Dr. Haley looked at George. Then he laughed. “Well done,” he said. He added that he ought to check George over just to make sure no damage was done.

      As he carried George through the door to the other parts of the clinic, we all followed him. I don’t know why. I guess we were morbid or so stuck together out of habit, we all just went with him. Mrs. MacHenry held open the examining room door, then came in, too.

      Dr. Haley set George down on the treatment table and looked up his nose with a flashlight, while Mrs. MacHenry held his head. Boy, that guy was tall! Six-four, at least.

      My mom was watching, but was still talking like her tongue was having a jerk-fit. I wished we could get her looked at next. “I was just so worried it would go to his lung,” she said. “I had to rush here; I just knew this wasn’t something I should take lightly, but I’m so sorry we made you rush back.”

      “Not many people know something like that. How’d you know it could go to his lung?”

      My mother looked at Dr. Haley, and for a minute she was quiet, her eyes squinted like she does when she’s trying to think. Then she smiled and let loose, her words fast and hooked together. “I guess it’s something I picked up when I was working for my uncle. I was fifteen, about Drew’s age here—yes, just exactly Drew’s age—and I had this thing about how I was going to be a doctor.” She smiled, then sort of laughed. “So my parents let me spend a summer with my uncle, working in his office. He was a pediatrician, and we had a lot of kids that summer with things up their noses.” She laughed loud then. “I’d forgotten that.”

      He was watching her, holding that little flashlight thing and unscrewing it, and then he handed it to Mrs. MacHenry, and she put it away. George was now down to the end of his sucker.

      “Did you go on to medical school?”

      “No. My parents kept telling me it’d be best for me to be a nurse.” She laughed again. “You know, that girl thing: We ought to be nurses, not doctors. Everything’s changed now, thank God. But not then—and not to my parents. “

      Just then George started cutting up, wiggling around and wanting down from the examining table. “I want that rock,” he said, heading for the waiting room.

      Dr. Haley followed him; everybody was still there, and watching. We stood at the office door, watching, too, as Dr. Haley and just about everybody else in the waiting room got down on their hands and knees to help George find his rock. Then Dr. Haley came back into the examining room carrying George, with George holding the rock, and then Dr. Haley shut the door. “I have to listen to your chest, George,” he said. “Make sure your lungs are clear. Won’t take but a minute.”

      While my mother was taking offGeorge’s shirt, Mrs. MacHenry was handing Dr. Haley his stethoscope, and then before he put it in his ears, he said to my mom, “I’ve been wanting to hire a medical assistant or another nurse. We’ve gotten so busy. I had no idea this practice would be like this.” Then he put the stethoscope tubes in his ears and put his head close to George’s chest.

      “Breathe deep, George,” he said.

      Mrs. MacHenry stood behind Dr. Haley mouthing: “Linda, if he offers you this job, take it.” “Are you crazy?” Mom was shaking her head, her eyes wide, doing a no-go pantomime.

      George was huffing and puffing in the background. “It’s all right,” Mrs. MacHenry whispered, “I’ll cover for you. We don’t need a R.N.”

      “But, Betty.”

      “Hell, I’m just an L.P.N. We don’t need no genius. Just do it.” She coughed, making a sound that covered part of her words, but since Dr. Haley had the stethoscope in his ears, me and Mandy were the only ones knowing what was going on, and maybe not even Mandy. She had this horrified look on her face, studying the reflex hammer on a little white table with a bunch of other things, probably trying to figure out which body parts all that stuff could be poked into.

      My mother was breathing like George, coaching him. Then Dr. Haley pulled the things out of his ears and turned around. Both my mother and Mrs. MacHenry froze. “All clear,” he said. “Must have been a lone rock.”

      My mother folded up George’s shirt. She was mashing it up into this little square. ‘’Thank God,” she said. Then she smiled, adding, “and you.” She had on this blue-and-white-striped suit, real neat. And her face was still flushed. She’d gotten into scarves in the last few months, and she had on a red one now draped over her shoulder. I don’t know why, but she always dressed real fine to go to work at The Dump. “We’ve needed a doctor here for a long time,” she said.

      “So how about it?” He looked at her.

      “How about what?”

      Mrs. MacHenry was lifting George down off the treatment table, and she looked at my mom, her eyes glaring and rolling, with some blue stuff on her lids.

      “You want the job?”

      Dr. Haley was still looking at my mom; his mustache reminded me of the handlebars on a bike. I knew that in just a minute Mom was going to tell Dr. Haley the truth: that she’d gone to school to be an artist and didn’t even finish that. I didn’t even know she’d once had that nurse and doctor thing.

      But instead she said, calm and quick, “Fine. Sounds wonderful. Give me two weeks.”

      She put on George’s shirt, patted him on the back, made sure he had a close hold on his rock, thanked Dr. Haley again, and was standing in front of Mrs. MacHenry’s desk by the time Mandy and I caught up. “I can’t believe I did that,” she was saying to Mrs. MacHenry.

      “I can,” Mrs. MacHenry laughed. “This is just the job you’ve needed all along. And don’t worry. I’ll help.”

      My mother reached over and touched Mrs. MacHenry’s arm. “God, Betty. What would I do without you?”

      Mrs. MacHenry grinned, “Not much. That’s for sure.” Her teeth parted her lips, reminding me a little of how my johnboat plows through the Gulf.

      My mother laughed, “Betty, you’re such a mess,” she whispered, then added: “And by the way, send the bill to George the First.” “Damn tootin’,” Mrs. MacHenry said.

      And we were out the door.

      A second later. Mom stopped on the sidewalk, still holding George, looking stunned and just staring at the green Toyota parked at the curb. “Why did I do that? Am I losing my mind? What’s wrong with me?”

      Neither me nor Mandy nor George answered. Hell! What were we supposed to know? Besides, it wasn’t our job. I didn’t know what to say to women. Even if it was my mother who was asking, I didn’t know what to say.

      I watched her looking out across the street at nothing, her eyes СКАЧАТЬ