There’s a reason I became Doctor’s assistant and de facto nurse. There’s a reason I’m here cooing at a lamb clad in a diaper and a bow-bedazzled collar. I’m a nurturer. I remember pasting a Band-Aid onto Mummy’s finger once, and she said, “You’ll be like Gammy.”
“How so?” I asked.
She smiled. “A healer.”
Shortly after Mum and my father were lost, the island hired a licensed physician to live here fulltime, working on a two-year contract. As we cycled through doctors Ahuja, King, and Greer—who stayed for two “terms”—Gammy used her healing powers less and less, except to teach me tincture-making. But a healer she was. Mrs. White told me that way back when, she would take the mental cases and see to the infants. Gammy doctored wounds and sprains, crushed fingers and concussions and the like.
I feel warm, remembering my Gammy as I wait for Mrs. Glass to arrive at the clinic. She rings the bell, and I pull the door open to her radiant smile. Fluffy, fading red hair falls around her face. I look down and see that in the hand that’s not propped on her cane, she’s holding a Tupperware box.
“You didn’t!”
“Well, you know I certainly did.”
“Mrs. Glass.” I tsk, then take the box of berry muffins as she coos at Baby, whom I pick up to ensure Mrs. Glass’ safe passage through the waiting area and over to the first of the clinic beds. She’s got something neurological that flares at times—something that resembles multiple sclerosis—but she won’t leave the island for treatment. Not at her advanced age, she says, though she’s only sixty-three.
She asks all about Baby as I conduct her monthly neurological exam, checking boxes off a photo-copied list on my clip-board for each question I should ask, each small test I should do. Doctor wrote it out for me before he left.
“I’d say you’re as good as l
ast time, at least your reflexes appear to be. Your eyes are holding strong, I believe. Tell me how you’ve been feeling?”
I listen as she discusses toileting and her numb toes.
“Mr. Glass has been massaging them as you suggested,” she reports. “I believe that does help.”
“Lovely of him.”
She smiles proudly. “I did well.”
“Mr. Glass is quite a fellow, that’s true. What’s he writing now?”
“A story for the younger boys, Asher and Josh.” It’s Jacob, but I don’t correct her. “It’s about a rogue penguin.”
“That sounds delightful.”
We work through the rest of her vitals, and she talks of winning a bag of freeze-dried strawberries at bingo and “that poor dear” Sarah, who styled her hair a bit wrong last week at the salon.
“I quite hope my cousin can instruct her a bit more before retiring.”
“How has she been—Cindy? I last talked to her a few days back.”
“You know how she is. Not a thing wrong with her,” Mrs. Glass huffs.
“That’s not true, though,” I say gently. Cindy Glass has always suffered with depression.
“Mind over matter, as I see it.”
“For Cindy it’s more difficult, I believe.”
She pats her hair, sighing. “Evidently.”
And that’s all that’s spoken about that.
“How are you feeling?” she asks. “I can scarcely believe what happened with you and that Homer Carnegie. I heard he moved the boulders one by one until he cleared a path for those wide shoulders.” She winks, and I feel a flush creep up my neck.
“We dug out at last. We were thrilled to see the sky.”
“Oh, I’d imagine. He’s not hard on the eyes, though, so I suppose the alternate view was near as good. A bit sinful perhaps, but quite memorable.”