“I’m concerned about me. Why shouldn’t he be?”
“He doesn’t understand some of the things you’re writing.”
Barbara wrapped her hands around her cup to warm her cold fingertips. “I only asked him to explain some things.”
“He’s never seen this from you—morbid drawings and abbreviations that don’t make sense.”
“Then he doesn’t know me very well.” It wasn’t Barbara’s fault if Gordon hadn’t taken the time to decipher such simple acronyms as WFF (for Wilson Follett’s Folly) or glean the meaning of a dripping sword.
Her mother sipped her tea and eyed Barbara over the rim. “He spent all those days at sea with you. I’d say he knows you well enough.”
“Then I don’t know him—for the stool pigeon he is.”
“Bar, this isn’t like you.” Her mother plunked her cup onto its saucer. “Of all the fourteen-year-olds I taught, you’re the most trusting and optimistic I’ve ever known.”
“I’ve obviously been wrong. To have trusted you and Daddy.”
“It’s only natural you’re upset. But we have to find a way for you to get through this.”
“I know the way through it. Apologize to him. Make him come home.”
Her mother snorted. “What exactly should I apologize for?”
Barbara looked down and studied the knots on the pine tabletop. Her mother had driven her father away—with her spiteful ways. She couldn’t shake the memory of the hateful ring in her mother’s voice when Daddy was home for Christmas. Although she couldn’t make out her mother’s words through their closed bedroom door, her tone was unmistakable, as savage as a clawing beast. And her father, who rarely raised his voice, had yelled back, and Barbara had heard some of what he said: “I can’t abide your possessiveness . . . Leave me alone . . . Try and stop me.” The next day, her father packed up and left, two days earlier than planned, and that was the last time she’d seen him.
Her mother slapped a hand flat on the table. “I have asked him to come back. I can’t make him come home any more than you can. He won’t even write to you.”
“Because he knows he’s wrong. And because . . .” But Barbara couldn’t finish, couldn’t bring herself to tell her mother: Because you drove him away with your viciousness.
“I want our family back together more than anything in the world,” said her mother. “But he says he’ll not compromise one millimeter. For now, we have to go on without him.”
Barbara took a sip of tea. Its tannins needled her saliva glands. She swallowed hard. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to feel this way. She only wanted her old life back.
Her mother reached out and cupped a hand over her shoulder.
That only made it worse. Barbara sloughed her hand off. “Don’t, Mother.”
“It’s my job to take care of you. I’ve tried, but I can’t seem to get through to you. You won’t even let me comfort you.”
She looked up at the pouty sympathy in her mother’s upraised brow. Angry words crowded her mind. She clenched her lips and clamped her eyes shut to stanch them.
Her mother said, “I hate seeing you suffer so. I’m making an appointment for you with Dr. Lowry.”
✭
Anticipating her visit to Dr. Lowry conjured old memories: his wrinkly black bag opened wide as crocodile jaws; her annoying bout with whooping cough just at age nine; and the Norman Rockwell in his office—a round picture of a mother tucking two rosy-cheeked children into bed. Barbara had always fancied the way the lamp beside the bed cast a golden glow on the scene and how the mother gazed lovingly at her children’s sleepy faces.
Only now, upon entering the doctor’s cluttered office, the sight of the picture irked her: to think she’d ever delighted in such a dotty scene. And Dr. Lowry put her in mind of a sugar-sweet Norman Rockwell character, his black hair streaked with silver and his manner everlastingly affable. Except she feared he wouldn’t be as genial as usual since her mother had complained to him about her grouchiness.
“Well, well, Barbara,” he said as he closed his office door, “You’ve certainly sprouted up since I last saw you.”
“Almost as quickly as Alice in Wonderland.” She smiled, hoping he’d just check her height, weight, ears, and throat and send her on her way.
Barbara followed him to the patch of white wall marked in feet and inches and stood against it.
“You’re going to be tall, Barbara.” Dr. Lowry placed a ruler on her head perpendicular to the wall. “Sixty-four inches. You are growing up. And looking more like your lovely mother every day.”
Barbara gazed at her arms: How alien and gangly they seemed. During the schooner trip, she’d delighted in the length of her reach and her prowess climbing the rigging. But now, when she looked in the mirror, she flinched at the sight of her rangy limbs.
With a wag of his head, Dr. Lowry said, “Why, I remember when you were a plump-cheeked girl little more than knee-high.”
“My hair reached to my waist then.” That reminded Barbara of the photograph of her at five nestled on her father’s lap with a book. If only she could once again be the little girl her parents and Grandma Ding had smothered in hugs and kisses. But Grandma Ding had moved back to Hanover, and now hardly anyone hugged her, except her mother, which made her squirmy.
Dr. Lowry walked to the examining table and patted it. “Step up, and I’ll have a look at you.”
Barbara hopped onto the leather table and gripped the thick corner folds. He looked down her throat and into her ears.
“All shipshape, Barbara. Now, hop on down and make yourself comfortable.”
Barbara seated herself on the wooden chair beside the examining table, and Dr. Lowry wheeled his chair to within three feet of her.
“You know, you can talk to me about anything, Barbara. And I’ll keep it to myself.”
“I appreciate that, Dr. Lowry.” Barbara studied the green-and-white checkered linoleum floor, wondering what he expected her to say—and what good
