Hungry Hill: A Memoir

Chapter 23 - The Doctor’s Revelation

A Memoir 117 23. The Doctor’s Revelation With seven wise-mo u t h brothers (though in fairness, I probably shouldn’t count Tommy), you would think I could stand just about any humiliation, but not my dad’s dating. I just wish things would slow down for him in the romance department and speed up for me. Tonight, he’s back on the sofa, tired, listening to Nat King Cole and talking to Michael as I pass through the living room, carrying Tommy upstairs to his crib. “How about a kiss from TJ?” my dad asks. I carry Thomas James over and lower him down for a kiss. “Worn out from all the back-to-back dating? Who was it last night— Mary or, is her name Anne?” I ask. “You do keep tabs on the old man. Now get the baby up to bed.” Climbing the stairs, I feel the weight of Tommy’s arm around my neck and I breathe in the toddler scent clinging to him. When I kiss his peachskin cheek good night, I think how I went through the entire ninth grade without a date or even a phone call from a boy. In spite of religiously following every rule listed in Seventeen magazine—smile, be friendly, say “Hello,” remember names—I had no date. When I jump the bottom stairs back into the living room, my dad asks me when I’m seeing Lew. Our family doctor, Lewis Blackmer, smokes so much the tips of his fingernails are yellow, and he hums the music from Dodge car commercials as he examines me and my brothers. After a visit, we crack one another up imitating him. “What is it that you need to see Lew for? A booster shot for school?” my dad asks. “I think it’s another polio shot.” Lew took care of my mother when she was sick. “Just sewed her back up. The cancer was everywhere.” In those exact words, I’ve since heard him explain my mother’s lymphatic cancer. Not when she was sick. Then Dr. Blackmer said she had mononucleosis, the “kissing disease,” which I thought sounded like fun, like a disease I’d like to have. 118 H u n g ry H i l l “I hate shots. I know Dr. Blackmer’s your friend, but his shots really hurt.” “You’ll be fine.” “Easy for you to say. I’m getting the shot.” My dad chuckles, and I think how I love to make him laugh. “Whenever he took my stitches out, he’d rip the bandages off. There’d be this tearing sound.” “The price of being a tomboy.” He dips his fingers into his shirt pocket for his glasses and picks up the newspaper from the floor. Later that night, I’m staring at the wooden pegs poking out of the ceiling light, wondering if it’s supposed to be a ship’s wheel. I’m wide awake, fretting about tomorrow’s visit to the doctor. Dr. Blackmer couldn’t save my mother, a fact I share with no one, but, even at fourteen, I know there’s more to being a doctor than humming car jingles. Because my dad never pays much attention to a routine doctor’s checkup, I sense that there’s something he isn’t saying, something he’s holding back from me. Maybe I’m growing suspicious. Dr. Blackmer’s waiting room is empty, but I hear muffled voices from inside his office. There are two years’ worth of National Geographics piled on the table, but nothing I feel like reading. Fjords. I wish he had better magazines. Dr. Blackmer opens the door, and a mother rushes out, cradling a crying baby in her arms. She coos, “There, there,” and kisses the infant’s cheek. Folding his arms over his starched white shirt, Dr. Blackmer watches them go, looks at me, and smiles. “Think you’ll cry like that?” he asks, beckoning me into his office. “Maybe I will,” I say with a challenge as I pass in front of him. “Excuse me,” I add, sure to please the Sisters of Saint Joseph. “Sit down. Sit down.” The chair is still warm from the mother and child. Reaching over, I hand him the form, which he drops in the sea of papers lapping over his desk. “So you’re going into tenth grade?” he asks, fully knowing the answer. Yes, I’m still two years younger...