Two years later his father died, killed in a freak explosion.
Aunt Margaret, his mother’s older sister, already widowed at fifty-five and childless, had insisted on moving in and taking care of him. “For a while,” the crusty old woman told him at first.
She’d stayed for good.
Even when he’d come back from medical school, she continued to live here. At the time he sensed she wasn’t finished watching over him. Since they were each other’s only family, he didn’t mind.
Initially he’d set up his own office in town, finding one with a spacious apartment above it. But when Margaret died, he moved in here, practice and all. Just until he had time to dispose of the estate, he told himself. That was two years ago.
Outside the wind had come up, moaning and whistling against the wooden slat door that led to the yard. The beams above his head creaked and groaned as if the whole structure threatened to lift off the stone foundation, but it never had and, Mark guessed, never would. He easily ignored the sounds, having snuggled under blankets and fallen asleep to them throughout his life. Instead he concentrated on going through the Mcs.
“You have a dad who’s a great doctor, you know,” Kelly had said to him on many occasions, puffing him up with pride. “He saw me first when I was a little girl and was very sick. Now I’m healthy, but he’s still the one I talk with. Lucky you to have him all the time.”
Not for long.
The summer she disappeared, he lost his father in the autumn.
Funny about sound memories. Recalling a person’s voice seemed far more vivid than conjuring up a face. It was as if the dead spoke to him.
He moved on to checking the Bs.
Whenever Kelly came up from New York, she’d always made it a point to come over. As a little boy Mark assumed it was to play with him, especially since she had been his baby-sitter for most summers up until medical school kept her in the city. She always made such a big deal out of seeing him, scooping him up in her arms for a hug and a big smooch. He smiled, remembering how her skin smelled like cinnamon. She made him feel important, the first adult outside his mom and dad or aunt to do so, and he loved the way she fussed over him on account of she liked him, not simply because they were related.
But the truth was she’d also been there to see his dad. An hour became a slow, unendurably long torture whenever he had to wait outside the study, listening for the two of them to finish talking so she’d be all his again.
Kelly might have told his father about her troubles. And if he acted as her physician, even if only as a sounding board, he might have kept a file documenting whatever they discussed. If such a record existed, Mark figured he might find an adult’s point of view as to what was going on in Kelly’s life just prior to her death.
His own youthful recollections of that time came to him filtered through love. When his mother died, Kelly became so much more to him, even though she was in medical school by then, and her visits were less frequent. For a year he felt safe only when she hugged him, said everything would be all right, and softly sang to him. “Puff the Magic Dragon,” “Yellow Submarine,” “To Every Season” – no matter what the lyrics, her voice in his ear made them both invincible. Eventually his mother’s death started to seem long ago, and at times he could again be a carefree kid in endless sunny days. She’d given his childhood a reprieve, resurrecting it before the world grew dark again.
He flicked over voluminous sets of labeled manila tabs before Braden-McShane, Kelly popped up. Looks promising, he thought. the folder being thicker than the rest. Pulling it out of the box, he carried it over to a workbench, snapped on a lightbulb that dangled from the ceiling, and opened the front cover.
The first page contained a faded clinical entry dated July 13, 1951.
His father’s first year in practice. He began to read.
Kelly is six years old. Mother states she’s had a long-standing stomach disorder that no doctors in New York have managed to help her with. Complaints, according to her mother, range from intermittent abdominal pain, nausea, loss of appetite, irregular bowel movements, and diarrhea alternating with constipation. The problem has been episodic since infancy. No history of fevers. No history of tarry stool or blood by rectum. No discoloration of urine, nor jaundiced skin or eyes. Recurrent nonspecific rashes. Repeated investigations, including X rays of her upper and lower intestinal tracts using barium, have been negative.
Rest of Functional Inquiry: Negative.
Immunizations: Complete to date.
Surgical History: Appendectomy at age four, subsequently reported to be normal. Laparotomy at age five, for abdominal pain NYD, results negative.
Family history: No siblings. No history of allergies, diabetes, arthritis, nervous or psychiatric disorders in either mother’s or father’s family (according to the mother’s account).
Social History: Father is founder and president of a brokerage company in New York. Mother active in some charities, but looks after Kelly herself. No nanny or nurse.
Kelly initially shy, but on careful questioning reports no abdominal symptoms of any kind today.
Physical Exam:
Appearance: Well-groomed. Blond hair, blue eyes, thin physique.
CVS: Normal heart sounds. BP 85/60; P 88
Chest: Clear
Abdomen: Non-tender, normal bowel sounds, no bruit, no masses, liver and spleen normal. Surgical scars RLQ and midline below the umbilicus consistent with history of appendectomy and laparotomy.
External genitalia: Normal
Limbs and extremities: Normal
Skin: No rashes at present.
EENT: Normal.
Head and Neck: Normal
Neurological Exam: Normal
Impression: Healthy young girl. Functional GI disorders and neurodermatitis, both secondary to stress.
Plan: Prescribed fun and sun. Good nutrition. Frank discussion with Mrs. McShane stressing the absence of any physical illness in her daughter. Follow up in one month to see how child is doing, or immediately if symptoms return (which isn’t likely).
Mark started to flip the page when he saw written faintly in pencil off to one side the word Mother? He smiled. His father had obviously nailed the problem, diagnosing Kelly’s symptoms as the result of a high-strung parent.
No further entries appeared on the other side of the paper. Clearly Kelly’s mother hadn’t brought her daughter back. Probably hadn’t liked the “frank discussion.”
He shivered. The dampness down here had already penetrated his bones, but now he felt a draft around his legs. He got up and walked over to the slat door that was taking the brunt of the wind. A flow of cool air from where the bottom had warped out of the frame ran across his feet. He grabbed an old coat and stuffed it into the opening.
Seated again, he came to a sheet not so faded, but nevertheless aged. It had brief entries running from July 1, 1970, to July 3, 1974. Each one was identical. Three words: Psychiatric support therapy. Mark let out a solitary quiet chuckle. He’d been right about Kelly discussing her issues with his father. But the man had done what he, Mark, did when the material was so sensitive the patient wanted it to be kept absolutely secret, even from people authorized to look at the record – simply recorded that the session took place, not what was said.
Discouraged, he went on to the third document, a sheet of flowered stationery folded in thirds.
Opening it, he read:
July, 14, 1974