It’s common knowledge that Dr. Reed Zimmer has taken a leave of absence from the hospital because of “personal reasons.” Most of us know that Dr. Zimmer admitted to having an affair with a patient’s daughter. This was not cause enough to fire Dr. Zimmer, but it was cause enough for the hospital board president, Adam Greenfield, a.k.a. Greenie, to suggest he take a break until the brouhaha blew over.
“We have the reputation of the hospital to consider,” Greenie said.
Dr. Zimmer reportedly accepted the censure without argument. He then moved out of the house he shared with his wife, Sadie.
Sadie placed a sign in the door of her pie shop that read: CLOSED UFN. This was a huge disappointment to the hundreds of summer visitors who counted Sadie’s pies as a seminal part of their summertime experience.
Some of us wondered whether Reed and Sadie had left the island together in an attempt to mend their marriage. Perhaps they headed to a place where nobody knows them. Their house, right next to the Field Gallery, would have rented for a pretty penny—at least that’s what Realtor Polly Childs thought when she drove by in her LR3. She was curious enough to pull up in front of the house and bold enough to knock on the front door. Polly was no stranger to island scandal and rumors, having once been ensnared in their vicious tentacles herself.
Sadie Zimmer had answered the door. She knew who Polly Childs was, of course, though they had never officially met. “Yes?”
“Just wondering,” Polly said, “if you’re planning on renting your home this summer. I have clients who would pay ten thousand dollars a week for it in August.”
Sadie had given Polly a tired, barely tolerant smile. “Not renting,” she said, and she closed the door in Polly’s face.
Later people reported sightings of Sadie Zimmer at Alley’s General Store and the up-island Cronig’s. Christine Velman saw Sadie driving out to her parents’ house in Katama—and in conversation a few days later during the meeting of the Excellent Point book group, Lydia Phelps confirmed that Sadie was remaining on the Vineyard for the summer, although she was taking a break from the pie business. Reed had moved out, Lydia told Christine, although whether he was off island or still on the Vineyard was unknown. Most of us guessed he was off island—and, as we know, off island is a very big place.
But then, late on the evening of the Fourth of July, Ken Doll nearly ran over a bicyclist on South Road. Thankfully Ken Doll caught a flash of reflective gear and swerved out of the way. But the incident flustered Ken Doll. Who goes biking at eleven o’clock at night? he wondered. He was only on the road himself because he had to retrieve his teenage daughter, Justine, from a party at Lucy Vincent. He put the window down to shout a warning at the biker—but when he saw it was Dr. Reed Zimmer he was so surprised that he hit the gas instead. He had heard that Dr. Zimmer had left the island for good.
But no. Reed Zimmer was still on the Vineyard, living in nearly hermetic seclusion at Sheep Crossing in a house owned by his medical-school roommate’s elderly aunt Dot, who let the house sit vacant except on the rare occasions when the medical-school roommate used it himself. The medical-school roommate, Dr. Carter Mayne, worked as the head of the infectious diseases department at the Cleveland Clinic, a demanding job that left him precious little vacation time, so when Reed called saying he had marital problems and asking whether he could use the house for the summer, Carter said, Of course, man, it’s yours. The key is under the mat. I’ll let the caretaker know. Carter refused Reed’s offer of fair-market rent, because if anyone understood marital problems it was Dr. Carter Mayne. He was on wife number 3, and he was about to leave her for a nurse in the burn unit.
Carter’s aunt’s cottage is nothing special, but Reed doesn’t want, nor does he deserve, anything special. Every minute of every day since Sadie caught him at Lucy Vincent with Harper has been excruciating.
Reed fell out of love with Sadie all at once, a year and a half earlier: it was as if someone had thrown a switch from IN LOVE to NOT IN LOVE. This had happened in the dark days of January during a blizzard. Reed and Sadie had been trapped at home as the snow piled up outside. Sadie had built a fire and put a short-rib-andonion pot pie in the oven; she had opened a bottle of red wine and turned up Harry Connick Jr. on the stereo. She patted the seat next to her on the sofa and said, “Come sit with me.” Reed dutifully sat, and she handed him a wineglass, which he accepted, despite the fact that he rarely drank, and when he did—that is, if there was no chance he would be called into work—he preferred beer or a Scotch. They had clinked glasses, and Sadie said, “Kiss me.”
Reed could remember feeling repulsed. He had not wanted to kiss his wife. He had not been charmed or lulled by the cozy wintertime domesticity. He could see where things were headed: Sadie would want him to make love to her, and he simply didn’t want to. He took a sip of his wine, hoping alcohol might work its magic, might make him feel something for the woman next to him. It was nothing short of deliverance when, a second later, the house phone rang: Reed was needed at the hospital.
Reed had thought of himself as saved. Spared.
But Reed wasn’t a quitter. He was thoughtful and methodical by nature. He figured that if the switch could be turned off, then it could also be turned back on.
The night of the blizzard he had been called upon to deliver a baby—Dr. Vandermeer, the OB, was stuck in Woods Hole—and Reed, who had not been in a delivery room since his ob-gyn rotation in medical school, found the experience enormously gratifying. The patient was a first-time mother, Alison, who had been determined to give birth without drugs, but the baby was big, and it was a struggle. Alison was swearing and screaming; the agony on her face troubled Reed, and he almost encouraged her to give in—at least take some Nubain—but in the end he was glad he didn’t. Alison handled each contraction like a mountain she had to summit, and Reed and the two labor-and-delivery nurses cheered the way they might have for an elite athlete—Michael Phelps or Lindsey Vonn. After four hours of fight and nearly fifty minutes of pushing, Spencer Douglas entered the world weighing nearly nine pounds, a beautiful, healthy baby boy.
When Reed and Sadie reunited post-blizzard, nearly thirty-six hours later, Reed described the birth to Sadie. He detailed Alison’s determination, the focus in her eyes, the strength of her will, the raw power of a female when she was in the midst of her most profound and fascinating function: giving birth. Reed had been a doctor for more than twenty years by that point, but he had still been struck by the nobility of it.
He had grasped Sadie by the shoulders. “We should have a baby.”