The Awakening of Dr. Brown

fire.”

A choking blackness crawled into her throat. Desperately she swallowed, fighting it down. “Then you-” She swallowed again, and croaked, “Then you know…”

“I know that you were a child…a little girl…and that you suffered a terrible, terrible loss. And then, to compound the trauma, you were put into foster care, probably without proper treatment for post-traumatic-”

But she was shaking her head wildly, and when she spoke, her voice sounded like an intractable child’s. “No-but you don’t know what I did. You don’t know!”

“What don’t I know?” She looked stubbornly away from him-again like a child. He cajoled her like one. “Come on…you can tell me. You can, you know. Whatever it is, it can’t make me think less of you.”

“Oh, yes, it will.”

He smiled. “Now, what can a nine-year-old child have possibly done that could be so terrible?”

“Something…”

“How terrible? Big black ugly terrible? Or little mean red terrible?”

She threw him an angry look that dissolved into bleakness, and he recognized the look as the one he’d seen that day in the park beside the basketball courts, the one that looked like rain was falling somewhere behind her eyes. She looked down at her hands, knotted in her hair. Pulled in a shuddering breath. “Momma sent me to the store,” she said softly.

“That’s why you weren’t there. But-”

She held up a hand, stopping him. “I was angry. I didn’t want to go-I don’t know why, I was in the middle of something, probably. But I was mad because I always had to be the one to do everything-run errands, take care of the baby, do the chores. Jonathan was always sick-he had asthma, I think. Sometimes he even had to go to the hospital. So I was always the one Momma called on when she needed help. That day I was supposed to get milk for Chrissy and some medicine for Jonathan. Momma told me to come right back, and I promised her I would. But-” she paused to draw another quivering breath “-I was feeling angry and resentful and rebellious. I remember thinking ‘I hate you! I hate you all.’ I don’t know if I said it out loud…” Her voice broke.

Ethan held himself still. The urge to gather her into his arms burned in every muscle, every fiber of his being. But after a moment she went bravely on.

“Anyway, I got the things like I was supposed to, but then, instead of going right home like I’d promised, I stopped to listen to some men playing music. There were two of them, and they were always there on that corner- one played a guitar and the other one had a banjo. They’d play and sing, and people would put money in the guitar case that was lying open on the sidewalk. I used to love to listen to them, but Momma didn’t like me to. So, that day I did it anyway, because I was mad at her. And I got so caught up in listening to the music, I just…lost track of time…until I heard the sirens. They came right up the street, getting louder and louder, until I thought my ears were going to burst. The engines went right by me, with this big wind. Screaming…screaming. And for some reason, I just…ran. Ran after them. I ran and ran as fast as I could, but by the time I got there…” She choked, and a sob gusted from her, shaking her like a powerful wind.

Ethan reached for her and gathered her in, encompassing her jutting legs and stiff, unyielding body, and arms that tried to fend him off. Little by little, coaxing and insisting, he drew her close against him. Molded her quaking body to his. “You were a child,” he whispered brokenly. “You were nine years old. What could you have done? If you’d been there you’d only have died in that fire, too.”

But she was shaking her head, wildly, insistently. “No-no, if I’d been there, I’d have saved them. Don’t you understand?” She drew back and looked at him, touching his soul with her wounded eyes in the same way, he realized now, she’d been touching him with her music all those years. “Jonathan was sick-he’d been in bed. Chrissy was little-not even three. Momma couldn’t carry them both! If I’d been there like I promised, I could have helped. I could have gotten them all out-I know I would have saved them…I would have saved them…”

He had nothing to say to her; the enormity of the burden she carried on her soul, had carried for so many years, utterly defeated him. He could only hold her…stroke her and caress her, trying so hard to tell her with his touch what he couldn’t possibly in words…pleading with her silently to lay her terrible burden down, or if she couldn’t do that, at least to let him help her carry it.

“It didn’t work, you know,” he murmured when she’d quieted, his voice thickened slightly, as if he were drunk.

“What?” It was a croak, defiant and angry, making him smile.

“Your terrible sin. It only made me love you more.”

Her reply was a hopeless-sounding whimper. But he felt encouraged when she lay quiet, peaceful in his embrace, as if she’d found a home there. And a little while later he heard the cadence of her breathing grow deep and even, and still later, a faint but unmistakable snore.

Dawn was breaking when she began to stir and whimper in her sleep. He remembered then what Doveman had told him about her nightmares…remembered the lullaby she’d played on his guitar…remembered her grief-stricken, Who’s going to sing to me…? Remembered Doveman’s words: Can you sing, boy? And his own response: Yes, sir, I can. So that’s what he did, brokenly, stroking her hair while his lashes grew wet with his own tears:

“Hush little baby, don’t say a word, Papa’s gonna buy you a mockin’bird…”

Phoenix woke to an unfamiliar sound: a man was singing in her shower. No-not her shower, she remembered; the doc’s. Ethan’s shower…Ethan’s bed.

A sneaky little sense of well-being crept over her in the instant before she remembered exactly how and why it was she’d come to be there. Before she remembered that Doveman was dead, and that Ethan Brown loved her. Two more tragedies she was responsible for causing-two more items to add to the ever-growing list of her sins.

Defiantly, knowing herself to be damned already, she threw off the bedspread that had been folded over her and tiptoed into the bathroom.

Ethan had his eyes closed when he felt the sudden rush of cool air and an instant later the silky slide of her arms coming around him…the exuberant press of her body. The bar of soap he was holding slipped from his hands, in much the same way his heart had just slalomed out of his chest and into his belly. Turning in her slippery embrace, he found her mouth there, hungry and waiting, and sank into it with a laughing, good-morning growl.

“Feeling better this morning, are we?” he said when he surfaced for air.

“Mmm…I had a very good doctor.” Her hands were busy…busy.

“Yeah, well…keep in mind, I don’t hand out this particular prescription to just anybody.” Breathless, he caught her hands and brought them together, pinned between their chests, stifling her protest with his mouth.

Her protests grew in volume, threatening insurrection when he reached behind him and turned off the water. He recaptured her rebellious hands, and, laughing, gave her excuses about winding up in traction, and running out of hot water. But the truth was, he’d had a lot of time last night to think about the implications of what had happened to them. Singing away her nightmares and holding her while she slept, it had come to him that the road ahead of him wasn’t going to be an easy one. Finding Joanna had been the easy part. Loving Joanna, he now realized, had been a given all along. Healing Joanna, now-that was the real challenge. He knew his job as healer had just begun. He very much wanted to get it right.

Standing dripping on the rug in the middle of the bathroom, he took a towel and mopped water droplets from her face and his while she sipped them thirstily from his chest. With the air chilling their skin and tightening her breasts, raising her nipples to rosy nubs, he turned her to face the mirror. He held her tightly with one arm across her hips, her buttocks cool and firm against him, and with the other hand reached with the towel to wipe away the condensation from the mirror. Eyes half-closed, she leaned her head back against his shoulder and moved sinuously against his body, testing its heat and hardness.

Desire coiled like a python in his belly, but he held her still and kept his voice gentle as he asked her, “Do you know why I fell in love with you?”

Staring dully at their blurred reflections, she made a soft, snorting sound and shook her head. He let her look for a long time, then lifted his hands to frame her face. The perfect oval gazed back at him, lovely as a cameo, black-fringed eyes like tiny pools, reflecting a summer sky. Lightly he brushed her cheeks with his fingertips…traced the lines of her jaw…her nose…her lips. She gave a sad little sigh and closed her eyes.