“I’m not a ‘client’—I’m not here about a procedure. I’m Dr. Voorhees’s wife, he’s expecting me.”
It was gratifying, it was miraculous, how the words I’m Dr. Voorhees’s wife opened the door to us, that had been virtually shut in our faces.
In any case our mother was pushing her way inside—“And these are Dr. Voorhees’s children. Excuse us!”
Another staff person, also in a white uniform, came to see what our mother wanted; to this woman, in a nervous belligerent voice, our mother identified herself another time, as well as us—“These are Dr. Voorhees’s children. He’s expecting us.”
The white-uniformed women were trying to explain to our mother that Dr. Voorhees was “very busy” right now, but they would tell him that she was here, and waiting for him. Our mother said anxiously, “But has something happened? Is anyone—hurt? Why are you closed in the middle of the day?”
“Dr. Voorhees will tell you—”
“He’s all right? Is everyone—all right? What happened? Is it safe in here?”
So my mother questioned the nurses, who did not know how to answer her, and who may not have known the answers to her questions. There seemed to us children of Dr. Voorhees nowhere to go: forward or back.
Yet, we could not go back. Our mother was tugging us forward.
Sick with dread we followed her farther inside the building. The sleek dark thick braid between her shoulder blades, the uplifted high-held head. There was an odor here of something sharp and disinfectant like the clear-liquid ammonia with which our mother wiped our insect bites and minor injuries before putting on bandages, that made us feel like choking.
Fluorescent lights in the ceiling were over-bright, blinding. My mother’s raised voice was all we could hear.
“What has happened? Why are you all standing around? Where is my husband?”
We were in a waiting room where indeed people were standing indecisively as in the aftermath of a crisis. No one was sitting: all of the vinyl seats lining the walls were empty. We did not see our father, we did not see any man at all. There were nurses here, or nurses’ aides; there were several women and girls in street clothes, presumably patients and/or their mothers—“clients.” One of the girls, who might have been as young as sixteen, was visibly trembling; another young woman was being comforted by an older woman, possibly her mother. The waiting room was like any other waiting room and yet—no one was sitting down. Our mother asked one of the women in street clothes (the one who looked as if she were a mother) what had happened and was told breathlessly—“We don’t know. They won’t tell us. Maybe somebody has died . . .”
These words so bluntly spoken by a stranger. Only just overheard, utterly by chance. Maybe somebody has died . . .
It was that kind of place—was it? A smell of disinfectant, a surgery. We knew that our father was a surgeon.
You could not imagine what a surgeon did. You did not want to imagine.
If the surgeon is your father, particularly you do not want to imagine.
In this room, in this waiting room, no one seemed to know what had happened, not yet. If the staff knew, the staff did not say. The staff was concerned with calming the visitors to the Center—that was the task. There must not be hysteria!
Our mother had other intentions. Our mother pulled us—literally, gripping our arms—gripping Darren’s arm, and Naomi’s, and so positioning the smaller Melissa that she was made to come with us, forced forward at a quick march—out of the waiting room and into a corridor, and along the corridor—blindly (it seemed)—or (possibly) our mother was being led by the older nurse, who had taken responsibility for her, and for us; for our mother had a way of demanding attention, despite her anxiety, and confusion, that made others defer to her. And now, suddenly we saw our father, who had not yet seen us: Dr. Voorhees in white cord physician’s coat, and clean creased khaki pants, standing at a waist-high Formica-topped counter where a package that had been wrapped in plain brown paper lay partially opened. Our father was trying to comfort a middle-aged woman, one of the nursing staff, who looked as if she’d had a shock of some kind, who had slumped in a chair behind the counter.
The woman was ashen-faced, shaken. She was pressing a hand against her bosomy chest as if her heart pained her and she was breathing rapidly, and shallowly. In this emergency situation (it seemed) our father Dr. Voorhees was providing comfort to the stricken woman. He was speaking reasonably to her—he was calling her “Ellen.” Telling “Ellen” it was all right.
Everything all right. No danger.
False alarm. All clear!
Whatever had happened, had happened within minutes of our arrival: now was the aftermath.
Our mother had not dared call to him. Almost shyly she hesitated, and held us back as well.
Seeing that others were glancing at us, our father turned to see us, and the expression in his face changed: surprise, and more than surprise.
“Jenna! Jesus! What are you doing here?”
“What happened? Is there—danger?