Gus was alone in the waiting room. He wanted to stay at Morgan's side while the dentist worked on her tooth, but his being there only seemed to make Morgan more upset that her mother wasn't. At the dentist's suggestion, he waited outside.
He sat on the couch and flipped through the usual stack of stale periodicals. No place like a dentist's office to catch up on People magazine's most intriguing personalities of 1991. Gus was too sidetracked to read anyway. He was still thinking about that scream from Morgan that had jolted him out of bed this morning. Beth had been missing for three days, and he didn't feel any closer to knowing what had happened than on the night she'd disappeared. The first reaction of everyone from his own sister Carla to homicide detective Kessler was that Beth had finally left him. The abuse allegations only fueled those suspicions. The lone dissident was Agent Henning. She was still clinging to the morbid possibility that Beth was the victim of a serial killer.
Now there was a dilemma. Hope for a serial killer so your friends will stop calling you a wife beater.
"Mr. Wheatley?"
Dr. Shippee was standing in the open doorway. Gus shook off his thoughts, rose from the couch. From the smile on her face, it looked as though everything had gone well. But you never knew with a dentist, even someone as gentle as Dr. Shippee. That gray hair and sweet grandmotherly demeanor were just a cover. Deep down was a sadist.
"Morgan's okay?"
"She's doing great. Little anxiety attack, so I had to use gas instead of novocaine. If you want to come inside and wait, she'll be clearheaded in about two minutes."
"Thanks." Gus followed her down the hall. She stopped before they entered Morgan's room. Her expression showed concern, as if something were on her mind.
"About that anxiety attack," she said. "She kept calling for Beth. Screaming, I should say. She wouldn't let me touch her. That's why I had to put her out."
"Since Beth disappeared it's been a bit of a crisis at home."
"I can understand. But are you sure the crisis didn't start before then?"
Gus blinked, not sure what to say. "Why do you ask?" "Beth had two appointments last week, before she disappeared. Missed them both. Didn't even call to cancel." "Must have forgot." He looked away, but her suspicious eye caught him. Lying to old Dr. Shippee was like lying to your mother. "What?"
"I don't mean to be presumptuous, but you know why she was coming here, right?"
"Something wrong with her teeth, I presume."
"She's been coming twice a week for the past month. Four more visits to go."
"For what?"
"I'm repairing the enamel. It was destroyed by digestive fluids. Stomach acids."
Gus checked her expression. She seemed to be telling him something. "I don't understand."
"It comes from excessive regurgitation."
"You're saying--what? She had a problem?"
"Beth suffered from bulimia."
He rocked back on his heels. "I had no idea."
"I didn't think you did. And as Beth's dentist, I technically shouldn't be telling you this. But now that she's missing, doctor-patient confidentiality be damned. This is something you should know. Any eating disorder is a sign of low self-esteem. It's not uncommon for someone with bulimia to engage in other forms of self-destructive behavior."
"Meaning what? You think she'd commit suicide or something?"
"The last thing I want to do is scare you. I'm not her psychiatrist, but from the condition of her teeth, I'd say her disorder was prolonged and severe. In that kind of mental state, a young woman shouldn't be out on the run. She should get help. I don't know what you're doing to find her. But if I were her husband, if she were someone I loved, I wouldn't just sit around and wait for her to come home."
Her words hit like an accusation, as if he'd already wasted too much time. "Neither would I," he said, looking her in the eye.
"Good." She turned and opened the door.
Morgan was awake but groggy, still in the reclining chair. A dental assistant stood at the rail to make sure she didn't fall out. From the hallway, looking through the doorway and into the room, it was like peering through a telescope. Morgan looked suddenly grown-up, perhaps because she was sitting higher than usual in the dentist's chair. He didn't focus on any single facial feature, the eyes or the nose. It was just an overall impression, a feeling that had never hit him so hard before.
She looked incredibly like Beth.
Dr. Shippee said, "There's your beautiful daughter."