A diabolic plan was beginning to take shape in my head. I, her concerned and compassionate aunt, would take Julie to the pediatrician. To Dr. Voorhis. I was ashamed of myself, but only for a moment. What is the greater good, I thought? And after all, even if the earache was a false alarm concocted by a bored, neglected four-year-old, how could it hurt? I knew one way to find out if the child was faking. “I’m going to take you to the doctor, Julie,” I said.
Julie wiped her nose with the back of her hand, leaving a shiny streak. Her eyebrows knit with worry, then she surprised me by saying, “OK.”
I held out my hand. “Let’s get your coat.”
Julie squirmed off the sofa without using her hands, her thumb still in her mouth, Abby clamped under her arm as though it were in a vise.
While helping Julie into her jacket, I noticed my sister’s key ring hanging on a hook near the front door. I had my own house key, of course, but was curious about one of her keys, a flat brass key to which was tied a white disk labeled “AH.” All Hallows? Nowhere was the key stamped “Do Not Duplicate,” so, thinking it might be useful someday, I tucked the key ring into my pocket, intending to get a copy made. I knew I could put it back before Georgina ever noticed it was missing.
A few minutes later, as I strapped Julie under the seat belt of my Le Baron, I wondered what I would say to the doctor. I should have called for an appointment, but had decided to chance it. They could hardly kick a sick child out of the office.
A quick look in the telephone book told me that Dr. Voorhis had his office at Greenspring Station near the intersection of Joppa and Falls Road. Soon Julie and I were zipping up 83. I made the complicated exit and parked in front of a fake Colonial Williamsburg complex of upscale shops and professional buildings. Julie’s eyes, level with the window, caught sight of a shop. “Can I have an ice cream?”
“Later, love, after we see the doctor.”
Hand in hand, we strolled into the building and checked the directory together. Dr. Voorhis’s office was on the second floor. Once there, a receptionist dressed in a mint green suit with matching shoes and hose looked up when we entered. Julie’s hand was clasped tightly in mine as she lagged shyly behind. “I’m sorry, I don’t have an appointment”-I checked the nameplate on her desk-“Mrs. Care.” I fought to control a laugh. What a name for a nurse! “I’m taking care of my niece.” I dragged Julie out from where she was hiding behind me. “Julie Cardinale. She’s a patient of Dr. Voorhis’s.”
Mrs. Care’s face brightened and she beamed in Julie’s direction. “Hi, Julie. It’s nice to see you again.”
Julie, her thumb still planted firmly in her mouth, studied Mrs. Care through suspiciously lowered lashes and gave no sign that she recognized the woman. Mrs. Care returned her attention to me. “What seems to be the matter with her?”
“She’s got a raging ear infection, I’m guessing. My sister mentioned that she has had them before.”
“The doctor’s not in yet, Mrs…?” She raised an inquiring eyebrow.
“Ives. I’m Julie’s aunt.”
Mrs. Care jotted my name down on her telephone message pad. “As I was about to say, Dr. Voorhis has been delayed at the hospital, but I expect him any moment. If you and Julie will just have a seat in the waiting room, I’ll let you know just as soon as he comes in.”
Julie and I planted ourselves in a couple of overstuffed chairs by the window and spent the next ten minutes thumbing through an old Smithsonian Magazine, learning about what was in the Smithsonian’s “attic.” Julie’s thumb never left her mouth. It must have been shriveled up like a prune by then. Another patient, a girl I judged to be about fourteen whose mother was nowhere to be seen, worked diligently on her math homework. Two mothers with infants sat opposite us, and a little boy about Julie’s age hid behind his mother’s chair and peeked out at Julie from time to time.
I expected to see the doctor when he walked through the front door, so I was surprised when Mrs. Care announced that the doctor would see Linda Parsons now. Dr. Voorhis must have had a private entrance. The older girl slammed her math book shut, stuffed it into a tattered bookbag, and disappeared through a door behind the receptionist’s desk. Julie and I had made it completely through two more Smithsonians and a Highlights magazine before it was our turn.
“Ordinarily I’d take Julie right into the examining room,” Mrs. Care said as she escorted us to the doctor’s private office. “But since you aren’t the child’s mother, I suspect he’ll want to talk with you first.” We sat down before a desk completely clear of papers except for one file precisely in the center, a brass lamp with a black shade, a crystal clock, and a pen and pencil set-I tilted my head to read the inscription-presented to the doctor by the Baltimore Rotary Club.
I held Julie on my lap, her legs dangling between my knees as she scissored them rapidly back and forth. My eyes drifted from the desk to the credenza, where a picture of a man I took to be Dr. Voorhis was posing, Hemingway-esque, with a swordfish three heads taller than he was. Next to it sat an Oriental vase, and next to the vase, in a silver frame, stood an eight-by-ten photograph that stopped my heart. I had never seen her alive, but recognized her picture from the newspaper. What was a photograph of Diane Sturges doing on Dr. Voorhis’s credenza? Adrenaline rushed into the space under my rib cage, hard and cold.
I twisted my neck until the tendons twinged, to study the wall behind me. Dr. Voorhis’s diploma from Johns Hopkins hung front and center on the wall, flanked by other certificates and photographs. Holding Julie on my hip like a baby, I stood up and turned to study the photographs more closely. Dr. Voorhis shaking hands with Governor William Donald Schaefer. Dr. Voorhis receiving an award from Mayor Schmoke. From the formal pictures, I realized where I had seen his face before-in a photo on Diane Sturges’s desk that terrible day I had rescued Georgina. Well, well, well. That was a fact to chew on.
Then another photo made it all perfectly clear. Dr. Voorhis and a woman I took to be his wife were posed on the deck of a cruise ship, a young girl sandwiched between them, her golden hair cascading over her shoulders. Even then, Diane had been a beauty.
But why would Dr. Voorhis be recommending his daughter? Didn’t that constitute some sort of ethical conflict? No, silly. Doctors can’t treat their own family members. I supposed they could recommend them as professionals to anybody they wanted.
“Put me down, Aunt Hannah. I am not a baby.” Julie squirmed in my arm. It was like trying to hold on to a cat in a bag. I lowered her into the chair. Julie had taken her thumb out of her mouth long enough to reposition Abby under her arm, when Dr. Voorhis breezed in behind us, his white coat open and flapping behind him, revealing khaki trousers, a light blue shirt, and a dark blue tie.
“Morning, ladies.” He stood behind his desk, opened the file folder, turned over a few pages, and studied them through a pair of black reading glasses perched dangerously near the end of his long nose.
He whipped off the glasses and looked up. “Well, Julie Lynn, what seems to be the matter with you today?”
Julie unplugged her thumb and pointed to her ear. “My ear hurts.”
“Well, we’ll just take a look at it, then.” He beamed a five-hundred-watt smile in my direction. “And you are?”
“Julie’s aunt.” I was thinking fast. “My sister, Georgina, is unable to care for her children right now. She’s too upset over the recent death of her therapist.”
It was cruel, bringing that up. I expected his face to crumple, his eyes to fill with tears which he would fight, bravely, to hold back. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I watched the doctor’s face, but nothing twitched or blinked. There was absolutely no sign of recognition.