'Even though he never gave me peace.' Her voice soared in pitch, teetering on hysteria. 'He blamed me till the end. Never got rid of those feelings that first faker planted in his head. I was the bad one. I'd never cared about him. I'd made him not learn, not do his homework. I didn't force him 'We used to say that,' she said defensively. jimmy and me and Reggie.
When Reggie was little. When someone would make a good catch, he was Baseball Bob-it was stupid.'
'In my family it was You can be on my team.
'Yeah, I've heard that one.'
We sat in silence, resigned to each other, like boxers in the thirteenth round.
She said, 'That's it. My secrets. Happy?'
The phone rang. I picked It up. The operator said, 'Dr. Delaware, please?'
'Speaking.'
'There's a call for you from a Dr. sturgis. He's been paging you for the last ten minutes.'
Vicki stood.
I motioned her to wait. 'Tell him I'll call him back.'
'I didn't force him to go to school because I didn't care a hoot. It was cause of me he dropped out and started... running around with bad influences and I was one hundred percent of it, hundred and five.
She let out a laugh that raised the hair on the back of my neck.
'Wanna hear something confidential of stuff you people like to hear? He was the one gave me that book about that bitch from New Jersey. That was his Mother's Day gift to me, okay? All wrapped up in a little box with ribbons and the word Mom on it. In printing, cause he couldn't do cursive, never mastered it-even his printing was all crooked, like a first-graders. He hadn't given me a present for years, not since he stopped bringing home his shop projects. But there it was, little gift-wrapped package, and inside this little used paperback book on dead babies. I nearly threw up, but I read it anyway. Trying to see if there was something I'd missed. That he was trying to tell me something I wasn't getting. But there wasn't. It was just plain ugly. She was a monster. No real nurse. And one thing I know-one thing I've worked into my own head, without experts is that she has nothing to do with me, okay? She and me didn't even live on the same planet. I make kids feel better. I'm good at that. And I never hurt them, okay? Never. And I'm gonna keep helping them the rest of my natural life.'
'Can I go now?' she said. 'I'd like to wash my face.'
Unable to think of a reason to keep her there, I said, 'Sure.'
She righted her cap. 'Listen, I don't need any more grief, okay?
The main thing is for Cassie to get better. Not that...' She colored and began walking to the door.
'Not that I can do any good in that department?' I said.
'I meant, not that it's gonna be easy. If you're the one ends up diagnosing her, hats off to you.'
'What do you think about the fact that the doctors can't find anything?'
Her hand rested on the doorknob. 'Doctors can't find lots of things.
If patients knew how much guessing goes on, they'd.
She stopped. 'I keep on, I'm gonna get myself in trouble again.'
'Why are you so certain it's organic?'
'Because what else could it be? These aren't abuses. Cindy's one of the best mothers I've ever seen, and Dr. Jones is a real gentleman. And despite who they are, you'd never know it, because they don't lord it over anyone, okay? That's real class, far as I'm concerned. Go out and see for yourself they love that little girl. It's just a matter of time.
'Before what?'
