“It’s all right,” she said. “It was only a nightmare.”
She sat down next to him on the floor and rocked him in her arms.
Walt peeked in behind her. “Everything all right?”
Teri nodded.
The boy whimpered, and she held him a little tighter. “Shhh. It’s all right now. It’s all right.”
[24]
She was up early the next morning, but not early enough to catch Walt before he had left. There was a note on the counter, weighted down with the salt shaker. It read: I wanted to get an early start. I should be back tomorrow night. Wednesday morning at the latest. Make yourself at home. Keep a low profile. Walt.
Short and to the point.
Beneath his name, he had added a phone number where he could be reached. Teri read the note twice, looking for a hint of something but not really knowing what. When she finished her second time through, she folded the note in thirds and slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans.
The boy was up by then.
She watched him come stiffly down the hall, still half-asleep. His limp was more pronounced this morning, though she chalked that up to the fact that he had just woken up and was moving without his cane. He fell wearily into one of the chairs at the counter.
“You look tired,” she said.
“I am.”
“Didn’t sleep too well after the nightmare?”
He shook his head. “What’s for breakfast?”
“How about some bacon and eggs?”
“Sure.” He toyed around with the salt shaker, trying to spin it the same way he might spin a top, and Teri couldn’t help but wonder who he really was – this boy who looked so much like Gabe. She had stayed in the room with him last night, while he struggled to get back to sleep again. It was only after his eyes had closed and his breathing had become rhythmic that she noticed his fingernails. They had all been chewed, some almost down to the quick. Gabe had always been a nail-biter.
She brought the bacon out, managed to tear off a couple of slices, and set them in the frying pan. By the time the grease was snapping, she had already broken two eggs, added a slice of mild cheddar and some mushrooms, and scrambled the whole concoction in another pan. A slice of toast and a little butter and she had just spent as much time in the last ten minutes making breakfast as she had in the last ten years.
She set a plate on the counter in front of him, and watched as he shook a few grains of salt into the palm of his hand, and from there onto the eggs.
“Where did you learn that?”
“Miss Churchill,” he said. “This way you won’t use too much.”
“Makes sense.” She leaned back against the refrigerator, her hands behind her back, the fingers curled around the edge of the counter. “You remember Dr. Childs?”
“Uh-uh.”
“He’s the family doctor.”
“I thought Harding was my doctor.”
“No, he’s your dentist. Childs is your regular doctor.”
“You aren’t gonna make me go see him, are you?”
“’Fraid so, kiddo.”
“Ah, Mom…”
“It won’t take long,” she said quickly. She could have caught herself and corrected him about calling her mom, but as unnerving as she had initially found it, she had grown to like the sound of that word. Especially when he offered it up with such little effort, as if it were the word he had used all his life when referring to her. “I promise. He’s just going to take a look at you, and maybe see if we can figure out why your hair’s turning gray and you aren’t quite as strong as you probably should be.”
“I’m strong.”
“I know, honey. But…”
But it wasn’t just the matter of his strength. It was everything: the gray hair, the cane, the color of his eyes, the wondering if he really was Gabe or if he was just some kid who happened to look like him. It was all of those. And it was none of them. Because more than anything Teri was simply worried about the boy.
“But it’s better to be on the safe side,” she finished.
[25]
She wasn’t going to play the fool a second time.
Teri called ahead to the doctor’s office and spoke with his receptionist, making certain that Dr. Childs wasn’t off on vacation or out of town or playing golf at the country club, and that he would, in fact, be seeing patients. Once she had been assured of that fact, she tried to make an appointment and when it appeared that it wouldn’t be possible until tomorrow or the day after, she politely thanked the woman and hung up.
“What did they say?” the boy asked.
“The doctor’s booked today.”
He grinned, obviously pleased with the news. “Gee, that’s a bummer.”
“Yes, it is. Now go wash your hands and comb your hair.”
“What for?”
“Because we’re going to see him anyway.”
“Do we have to?”
“Yes, we have to. Now go on.”
They arrived at the clinic a little after ten and ended up sitting in the waiting room until well past lunch and into the mid-afternoon hours before a nurse finally called for Gabriel Knight. She escorted them into a small examination room, took his temperature and his blood pressure, and promised the doctor would be in shortly. By the time the door finally swung open and the doctor walked through, Teri was half-way through an article in Woman’s Day on working out of the home.
“Well, let’s see what we have here,” Childs said with barely a glance. He sat on a stool across the room and read down the top page of Gabriel’s file. It had been a long time since Teri had last seen the doctor and she was surprised by how much he had visibly aged. He was wearing glasses now, thin, round, wire-rimmed specs that perfectly complemented a receding hairline and graying around his temples. If pressed, she would have to guess that he was somewhere in his mid-to-late fifties now.
He glanced up, peering over the rim of his glasses, and smiled warmly. “It’s been awhile, Teri.”
“Yes, it has,” she said.
“About time we got you in for a check-up, isn’t it?”
“I’ll make an appointment on my way out. I promise.”
“Good. You do that.” He smiled again, in that warm, fatherly manner, and turned his attention to the boy. “So what seems to be the problem?”
“He’s been feeling a little run down lately,” Teri said.
“Run down?”
“Actually, it’s not so much that as the fact that he seems to have lost some of the strength in his legs and arms. Especially in the morning, when he first gets up. It’s as if he just can’t seem to get going.”
“But he gets stronger as the day progresses?”
“A little.”
“Uh-huh. Has he been running a temperature at all?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Had any flu or cold symptoms?”
“No,” Teri said, somewhat unconvincingly, she feared. Guilt, like an unwanted house guest, had slipped through the door and begun to make itself at home in her thoughts. What kind of a mother am I? she asked herself. Maybe he had been running a temperature. Not today, of course. Not yesterday, either. But maybe the day before that. “You haven’t, have you, honey?”
“No, Mom.”
“I didn’t think so.” She glanced at the doctor, and noted with some relief that his expression had remained unchanged. No surprise or disgust there, just a doctor’s mask of passivity.