“He’s allowed,” Thora said.
“And your two rooms, those are the two with the Jack and Jill bathroom, right?” Allison asked.
“Connecting doors,” Deacon said.
“Guess we won’t be needing separate bedrooms much longer,” Thora said.
“I’m still sleeping in my own room,” Deacon said. “You steal the covers.”
“You kick.”
“Because you steal the covers!”
Allison couldn’t help but laugh.
“You two are cute,” Allison said.
“We are,” Deacon said, nodding slowly. “Extremely adorable even.”
“Thanks for being cool about it,” Thora said.
“I’m cool,” Allison said.
“You are, you rascal.” Thora came over to the couch, bent down and kissed her on the cheek. Deacon applauded. They both looked at him and glared.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll show myself out. Better make sure Dad’s okay.”
“I’ll go,” Allison said. “He’s still on his best behavior with me.”
“You sure?” Deacon asked.
“If he needs something I can’t do for him,” Allison said, “I’ll get Roland. Good night.”
“Night, sis,” Deacon said. They left the room but two seconds later Deacon stuck his head back in.
“What?” Allison said.
“Told you there were flowers in the attic.”
Allison made like she was going to throw her book at his head and he ducked out again, laughing. Allison switched off the lamp, when something Deacon had said earlier suddenly struck her. She raced from the sunroom to the stairs to stop them before they disappeared for the night.
“Hey,” Allison said in a whisper when she found them heading upstairs.
Deacon waited while Allison ran up to meet them.
“Did you say Dad treated you?” Allison asked him, her voice low.
“Yeah, of course,” Deacon said. “Where do you think we met him? At a bar?”
“You and Thora both?” Allison asked.
“Us both.”
“I had an astrocytoma,” Deacon said. “Thora had a dermoid brain cyst. We were charity cases. Dad brought us home after to recover. We never left. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious,” Allison said.
“He saved our lives,” Deacon said. “Whatever we have to do to repay him for that, we’ll do it. Even lie for years and years.”
“You’re a good son,” Allison said. “Good brother, too.”
Deacon kissed her on the cheek and went off to bed. Allison climbed the steps to the third floor. It was quiet. She heard nothing but the wind and the ocean and the creaking of the floors under her feet. She hoped this meant Dr. Capello was sound asleep. She went to his bedroom and saw it was dark inside, no lights on at all. She crept over to the bed and started when she saw it was empty. Slept in, yes, but abandoned. Where was Dr. Capello then? She walked over to the door to the bathroom and rapped her knuckles on it lightly.
“Dad? You in there?”
No answer.
“Dad?”
She turned the knob and found the bathroom empty, as well.
“Dad?” she called out a little louder and heard nothing. She would have to find Roland. Dr. Capello must have snuck out. What if he was hurt? What if he had gone off somewhere on his own to die like an animal? All sorts of horrible thoughts raced through her mind as she ran from the bedroom. It was then she noticed a faint light coming from under the door to the attic. She turned the knob and found the door unlocked. The stair lights were on and she heard someone shuffling about above.
“Dad?” she called out as she started up the stairs.
“I’m up here, doll,” Dr. Capello called back.
Allison took a huge gulping breath of utter relief.
“You scared the hell out of me,” she said.
“Sorry,” he said. “Had to do something up here.”
She turned the corner at the top of the stairs and found Dr. Capello standing in his robe and slippers by the big wooden filing cabinet. At his feet was a metal wastepaper basket, and although every window in the attic had been opened, it didn’t completely erase the scent of smoke from the room.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. She looked down into the metal trashcan and saw the remnants of burnt paper.
“Something I should have done a long time ago,” he said. “I don’t want you kids having to clean up after me when I’m gone. These old medical records should have been destroyed when I retired. Just never got around to it.”
“It’s midnight and you’re burning papers in the attic,” she said.
“I was hoping to get it all done before any of you kids noticed and sent me back to bed.”
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“I’m afraid this stuff is all confidential.”
“You know there’s such a thing as a paper shredder, right?” Allison asked. Dr. Capello opened the top drawer of the cabinet and pulled out a sheaf of files, five inches thick. It made a thud on the top of the filing cabinet.
“You can put shredded papers back together,” he said. “Burning them is the best way to get rid of them. And I already know the smoke goes right out the windows. A few rotten kids of mine like to come up here to smoke pot when they think I’m not paying attention.”
“I know nothing about that,” she said, batting her eyelashes.
“I’m sure you don’t. My littlest angel girl would never do anything like that, would she?”
With her finger Allison drew a halo over her head. Dr. Capello chuckled and got back to burning. It was a little odd, burning the old medical files. Seemed so drastic. And smelly. Then again, just a few days ago she’d put the photographs McQueen had taken of them together plus the negatives into a metal trashcan and dropped a match on them and watched them burn. She’d had to do it fast before she chickened out. They’d been mementos of her six years with McQueen but they were also so explicit she couldn’t bear the thought of anyone anywhere in the world getting their hands and their eyes on them. Was Dr. Capello as embarrassed by his medical files as she’d been of her pornographic pictures? What on earth was a bunch of children’s medical files that a simple paper shredder wouldn’t have sufficed?
“You really should be in bed,” Allison said. “I’m saying that because I know Roland’s going to ask me if I told you to go back to bed.”
“You did. I’ll vouch for you. You just sit over there and make sure I don’t faint. I’m feeling okay today but we know that won’t last. Gotta do it now.”
She pulled a white sheet off an old chair and sat down in it. She warily eyed the cabinets along the south wall, the ones that held Dr. Capello’s “collection.” How strange that a man as normal and kind as Dr. Capello kept such a gruesome collection.
“What’s on your mind tonight, doll?” Dr. Capello asked.
“Can I ask what’s up with all the creepy stuff?” Allison said.
“What creepy stuff?” he said as he tossed a few more pages into the metal basket.
She pointed at the cabinets.
“That’s not creepy stuff,” he said, sounding affronted.
“You have a speculum made out of wood. With a leech applicator.”
“All right, that one may be a little creepy,” he conceded. “But those objects over there were created to save lives. Even two hundred years ago, surgeons were drilling holes in the head to relieve the pressure on swollen brains.”
“Did anyone survive these surgeries?”
“More than you would think. Less than you would like.”
“What are you doing with it all?” she asked.
“A few of the pieces were here in the house when I inherited it. My grandfather hired doctors from all over the world to treat my grandmother, bought every machine, every treatment, every pill and potion money could buy trying to bring her around. I imagine he thought if he could heal her, he’d somehow magically be all right again himself. Where you see ‘creepy,’ I see lives saved by brave pioneers. I see surgeons trying to help others as best they could given their limited understanding of anatomy and physiology and psychology. In a hundred years people may look back on my own work in horror the way so many of us look back on medicine from the past. I hope they show me the same mercy I show the doctors of past decades and centuries.”