The Awakening of Dr. Brown

Chapter 14

Her lips felt as if they’d been sculpted of ice. Numb. “How did you…how long have you-”

“I just found out yesterday. I went to your studio to talk to you, but you weren’t there. Doveman told me…a little more. We put it together, where you must have gone. That’s why we were both there…at The Gardens…the 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.

“Not this,” he whispered. “Or this…” His hands skimmed downward over her throat…briefly cradled her breasts…stroked the taut planes of her belly, the subtle curve of her hips. “You are beautiful…so incredibly beautiful. But that’s not why I fell in love with you. Here-shall I show you why?” He took her hand and led her out of the bathroom, and she followed silently, stumbling a little like a just-woken child.

He led her through the bedroom and into the living room. Standing in front of his stereo, with her close against him as they’d been before, he reached with one finger and pressed the power button. Music poured from the speakers and filled the room, wrapping itself around them. Phoenix’s music.

She started and tensed against him. “Hush,” he murmured. “Listen…”

“Newspaper says…

‘House Burns, City Woman Dies.’

Paper never says

‘City Woman Dies…Someone Cries…”’

“That’s you,” Ethan whispered. He laid his hand gently over her heart. “That came from the real Joanna…the one that’s in here.” He turned her to face him, his love for her burning hot in his cheeks, stinging in his eyes…thickening in his voice. “I’ve loved you for years…”

She didn’t speak or move, just stood there and looked at him with tears streaming down her cheeks. He took her face in his hands and tenderly brushed the tears away with his lips…then carried the sweet-salt taste of them to her mouth. He kissed her for a long time, deepening slowly, like the ripening of fruit in a hot summer sun. Then he took her back to his bed and made love to her the same way, cherishing her with his mouth, his body, and his healer’s hands.

He came into her slowly, gently…filling her with himself, with all the love that was inside him…fitting them together so sweetly, so perfectly, that it was hard to tell where he left off and she began…then rocked them together as one being, so that when their explosions came the shattered pieces might reform as one inseparable whole.

She wept again, but softly…and this time, when he told her he loved her, she didn’t pull away.

She wept often, in the days that followed, and Ethan didn’t try to prevent or stop her tears. It was necessary, he told himself. Healing.

He did wish, sometimes, while he was making love to her, that she would look into his eyes and smile.

She stayed with him from the night of Doveman’s death until the day of his funeral. She made all the arrangements herself, some by telephone, some in consultation with the other members of her band. Ethan’s living room had become their meeting place, with the grudging consent of the Service-after Ethan had appealed personally to his father, through Dixie, of course. He got used to coming home from the clinic to find his apartment throbbing with music-or arguments-and every space strewn with instruments, bodies, and take-out food containers.

The arguments were mostly about details. Everyone agreed that the services would be simple; that there would be music-lots of music; that in keeping with the traditions of Doveman’s New Orleans jazz beginnings, there would be a procession through the streets. The media would have to be accommodated-there was no getting around that. It would be managed, somehow. Everything would somehow be worked out. On one point, though, Phoenix was adamant. Rupert Dove’s remains would be cremated; she hadn’t decided yet what to do with his ashes, but she was certain of one thing: there would be no internment. A Dove, she said, did not belong in the ground.

The day of the funeral dawned cloudy, threatening rain, but it had all blown over by the time the procession wound its raucous and joyful way through the streets, past The Gardens, past the clinic, to St. Jude’s Church. During the service, which Father Frank conducted, Phoenix and the band played and sang for the select few invited guests inside the church. Among the songs performed was Rupert Dove’s last composition, the hauntingly beautiful, “Hard To Say Goodbye.”

After the service, Tom and Carl took Ethan and Phoenix back to his apartment. When, with the door closed and locked behind them, Ethan turned and found her standing tense and still in the middle of his living room, holding the small rosewood box containing Rupert Dove’s ashes in her hands, his heart began to pound. He knew before she said it, in her raspy, Phoenix voice.

“I have to go.”

He made himself calm and still as she, willing himself to numbness. “I suppose you do.”

“There are so many things I have to do-the album…the tour. We’re way behind schedule as it is.” Her eyes clung to his, begging him to understand.

He went to her and put his hands on her shoulders…brushed his fingers up and down her arms. “I understand,” he said, then bent and kissed her. Her mouth quivered. His throat ached.

She pulled away and would not meet his eyes. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone…where I’ll be…what I’m going to be doing. I’ll call you…”

“Well, I’d hope so.” His smile felt as if it had been carved in his flesh with a knife. He wanted to beg her to stay just a little longer, make love to her one more time, so unforgettably she’d have to change her mind about going. Instead, he said, “I’ll get Carl or Tom to run you home.”

While he was doing that, she went into the bedroom to gather her things. She came out carrying the small sports bag she’d collected from her loft, containing her toiletries and not much else. He walked her down the stairs and out onto the row house steps, where Tom was waiting for them. The dark sedan was at the curb, door open, engine idling.

“Take care of yourself,” he said huskily.

“You, too.” She went down the steps and crossed the sidewalk. At the car, she paused and looked back at him. “I do know one thing I’m going to be doing.” Her eyes shone at him like distant water through trees.

“What’s that?” He could barely breathe…

“Finding Joanna,” she said. She got into the car and the door closed, leaving him gazing at his own reflection in the tinted window.

But she didn’t say it, he told himself. She didn’t say goodbye.

It wasn’t until he was back in his own bedroom and found the little rosewood box sitting on his dresser that he started to breathe again…that his heart stopped bludgeoning him, and the knife wound in his belly began to heal. He knew for certain then that she’d be back. She’d left Doveman’s ashes in his care.

Though there were times, during the next few months, when he wondered. She did call a few times, but the conversations felt stiff and artificial, the way people talk when there’s someone else in the room. He told himself he had to be patient, that he had to give her time. That she would come to him when she was ready to accept his love, and that it would be pointless for her to come any sooner. But there were times he wondered if he was even alive in her absence. As if she’d taken his heart and soul with her, and left only his ashes behind.

He kept busy with the clinic and his ride-alongs, spent time with friends. Now and then he’d catch a glimpse of Phoenix when she appeared on some news show or other, being interviewed about her new album, the upcoming tour, the title of which was being kept a closely guarded secret. He didn’t know what was worse-seeing her like that, a small flat picture, so empty of life, so far away, or not seeing her at all. When things seemed loneliest, when he thought it most likely he’d never see her again any other way, he reminded himself of two things: the rosewood box, and the fact that she’d never said goodbye.

She came back on a late afternoon in early autumn. The only warning he had was a phone call from Tom. A terse “Sir, you have a visitor.”

He barely had time to get to the door. He opened it and she burst through and hurled herself into his arms, laughing and kissing him until he couldn’t breathe. Probably wouldn’t have been able to anyway, with his heart in his throat, and joy and relief and desire and love taking up all the room in his chest.

“My God,” he whispered when he could, “is it really you?”

“It’s me-Joanna. I swear it is. Oh, God, and I have so much to tell you. But-” she danced away from him, vibrating with excitement “-there’s something we have to do-right now…” And she crossed the room with her panther’s stride and disappeared into his bedroom.

Before he could even begin to think whether or not it was sex she meant, she was back, carrying the rosewood box. She grabbed at his hand, pulling him toward the door. “Come on-quick, before it’s too late…”

“There…” Joanna stood back and linked her arm through Ethan’s. She gave a sigh-of acceptance, of completion-and then there was only silence as they stood together gazing at the box, nestled in the maze of construction like a single blossom in a patch of thorns.

Behind them the sun was setting, casting long purple shadows across the site where The Gardens had once stood, and where the foundations of a new apartment complex were now taking shape. Tomorrow the cement trucks would arrive to pour the last section, the front of the main building, including the entryway. The forms stood empty, waiting. It was there that Joanna had placed the box containing Rupert Dove’s ashes.

A short distance away, Secret Service Special Agents Tom Applegate and Carl Friedenburg waited with backs discreetly turned, watching the street with their customary vigilance, forcing the ever-present photographers to keep a respectful distance.

Nearby, a sign proudly announced this as the “Future Site Of Rupert Dove Apartments.” The name of the construction company was prominently displayed, along with a telephone number for rental information-although at least half the units had already been promised to the former tenants of the Gardens, who were being temporarily housed at the expense of the Phoenix Corporation. Also on the sign was an artist’s rendering of the completed complex, and the words, “Funding for this project provided by the Rupert Dove Foundation-A nonprofit organization dedicated to the reclamation and restoration of the quality of human life…”

“I thought you said he didn’t belong in the ground,” Ethan said as the shadows merged into lavender twilight.

“Not in the ground.” Joanna’s head moved against his shoulder. “In the building…in the foundations. Right here by the entrance, where he can watch over the people who live here…you know…keep them safe.”

Ethan said nothing for a moment, while he weighed risks, pride, and hope for the future. His lifelong habit of shyness and reticence limited his response to a soft “What about you?”

Her head came up and her eyes met his, catching the last of the light like the glimmering of moonlight on water. “I don’t need him anymore,” she said. “Now I have you.”

Ethan’s chest filled with the sweetest, most beautiful ache as he lowered his head to kiss her…and heard her whisper at last, “That’s what I wanted to tell you. I love you, Doc.”

Neither of them paid the slightest bit of attention to the distant click and whir of cameras.