A small shushing noise from Mrs. Schmidt warned him just a heartbeat before he heard it-the careful and polite clearing of a throat.
Then a voice-rich and liquid, with traces of the South-a vaguely familiar voice. “Excuse me-are you the doctor?”
A few feet away a woman was standing-a young woman, buxom rather than plump, dressed in a faded T-shirt and too-tight shorts and balancing a chubby baby on one hip. Her dull black hair wasn’t any particular style, just pulled back in clumps and fastened with various rubber bands and clips, in the manner of frazzled mothers with no time to spare for primping. Her skin was the color of coffee with cream, and her dark eyes-her best feature-were almond-shaped and set at an exotic tilt.
When he saw those eyes Ethan felt a jolt like a punch to the gut, even before he recognized the child standing beside her in baggy pants, an oversized shirt and a baseball cap turned backward. A small child with arms folded defiantly across his chest, an angry tilt to his chin and a wounded look in his proud amber eyes.
Chapter 5
Michael Parker. Ethan had forgotten all about the otitus and the follow-up visit he’d asked for. Now, he didn’t know what to say in the face of those accusing eyes. Guilt was heavy in his chest, helplessness a burning in his belly.
“My sister said he was supposed to come back here in three days to get his ears checked. It’s been three days, so I brought him.” When Ethan didn’t respond the woman added with a touch of impatience, “My name’s Tamara? And this here is Michael. My sister is-was Louise Parker, she the one got-”
“Yes- Hello, Michael, how’re you doing today? Those ears feeling any better?” His voice was too loud, too jovial. The amber eyes regarded him in sullen silence.
“I been seein’ he takes his medicine,” Tamara said. Her voice had that strange liquid quality that sounds like tears, so he was surprised, when he was finally able to take his eyes from the boy at her side and give his attention to her once more, to find her gaze steady and her face impassive. “My sister said it was important, so that’s what I done.”
He nodded at Ruthie, who normally would have seen the patient to an exam room and taken care of the preliminaries, to let her know he had this one under control.
“It’s good you did that,” he said as he touched Tamara’s shoulder and gestured with the other hand that she and Michael were to come with him. The tired way she gave the baby a hitch as she fell into step beside him made him wonder if she’d walked all the way from The Gardens carrying the child on her hip like that. “Listen, if you’d like, I can get the nurse or Mrs. Schmidt to take the baby-”
“Oh, no, that’s okay. She ain’t heavy.” But she shifted the burden again, this time to her other hip.
Ethan pulled back the exam room curtain and ushered the three inside. “Okay, Michael, you want to hop up here and let me take a look at those ears?” But when he held out his hands to offer the boy a lift up onto the table, he jerked angrily away.
“
“It’s okay,” he hastily assured her, and selecting a scope, squatted on his heels in front of the child. “I can look at him from here just as well. How ’bout it, buddy, you going to let me see what those bad bugs are doing in there?”
For his answer, Michael struck out with one wiry arm and sent the scope flying. It landed with a clatter and slithered across the tile floor.
His Aunt Tamara screeched, “
The amber eyes regarded Ethan unflinchingly, searing their grief and anger into his soul.
“Hey,” he said quietly, “I thought we were getting along better than that. I’m the one that’s trying to make your ears feel better, remember? You want to tell me why you’re mad at me?” But he knew. He could still feel those small fists pounding him, right over his heart.
“My momma’s
Ethan took a deep breath. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Again the hard little fists thumped his chest, just once, the way they’d done that night, the night Louise Parker died. “You didn’t
A hard knot of pain formed in Ethan’s chest, just where the blow had landed. “I couldn’t fix your momma, son, I’m sorry. I wanted to. I tried very hard to fix her, but…I couldn’t.”
He put his hands on the boy’s thin shoulders, then slid them down to his arms. Michael squirmed, but this time didn’t pull away. “Did you ever want to do something so bad, but you weren’t big enough, or strong enough, and no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t do it?”
Michael’s gaze wavered. Then, unwillingly, he nodded. When he finally spoke, it was so softly Ethan had to lean close in order to hear. “Can’t…reach the basket. Can’t throw the ball high enough. Can’t throw hoops like Michael Jordan.” His lower lip quivered. The amber eyes shimmered for an instant like guttering candle flames, then spilled over.
Wordlessly, Ethan gathered the little boy into his arms. As he held the trembling body close he looked up and saw Tamara standing there, the round-eyed baby astride a canted hip and a tear rolling silently down her cheek. He watched her, still not speaking, his hands gently circling the knobs of the boy’s shoulders, until she brushed the moisture roughly away with her fingers. This time when she spoke, oddly enough, now that there were tears, her voice didn’t sound liquid anymore. Instead it was a whisper, dry as sand.
“I wanted to say thank you for what you done-what you tried to do for my sister. I know there wasn’t nothin’ you could do. They told us at the hospital. And…I wanted to thank you, too, for what you’re doing for us-all of us- talkin’ to that woman, getting her to fix up our building. Mr. Wilkins, he lives on the floor below me, he was there and he told me how you was the one gonna be talkin’ to her, seein’ we get done what needs to be done. I can’t thank you enough, Dr. Brown. I just wish…” Her voice trailed off and she looked away, brushing again at her cheek.
Ethan didn’t know what to say to her; once again he felt frustrated, fraudulant, unworthy…and trapped. He cleared his throat as he rose to his feet, with Michael still clinging fast to his neck. Inside the fragile chest pressed against his he could feel the heart beating, quick tap-tap-taps that made him think of a bird, some small frightened animal.
Muttering something vague to fill the silence, he set the boy on the exam table and peeled the scrawny arms from around his neck. Clearly humiliated by his lapse into babyhood, Michael sat staring dumbly into a distant corner of the exam room while Ethan busied himself finding another scope, and a wad of tissues with which to mop up tears and a runny nose. For several interminable minutes, the only sound was the rustle of fabric, a muffled sniff.
Then Tamara spoke in her normal liquid voice, but pitched a little too loudly and too high. “Dr. Brown, could I ask you a question?”
Still bent over Michael and intent on his examination, Ethan shot her a glance. “Sure.”
“I heard this rumor? Somebody said you was the president’s kid. That true?”
He straightened up slowly and looked at her, seeing the defensive cant of her head, the way her body was turned half away from him, as if to shield herself. Oh, Lord, he thought, what do I say? He knew if he denied it, it would cause this already grief-stricken woman considerable embarrassment. But there was nothing he dreaded so much as watching people’s faces change when he said yes.
It was instinct-and an overwhelming wave of compassion-that made him speak to her first only with his eyes… silently imparting secrets, imploring trust. He breathed a small sigh and muttered, “Rumors…” as he bent once more toward his patient. Then quickly, before Tamara’s face had time to register even a flicker of disappointment, he glanced back at her…and winked.
He heard the sharp sound of her indrawn breath and the beginnings of an excited, “Hot damn, so it’s-” before
