Gates of Paradise (Casteel 4)

. God morning, Annie. How do you feel?" Dr. Malisoff sat on the bed and Tony hovered a few steps behind him, looking like at expectant father, nervously rocking on his feet, his hands clasped behind his back. Mrs. Broadfield rushed in from the sitting room to bring the doctor a blood-pressure gauge. I struggled to sit up. I had slept deeply, but I didn't feel refreshed, and my lower back was stiff.

"A little tired," I confessed. Truly I felt exhausted, wrung out, but I also wanted the doctor to allow a phone and visitors.

"Uh-huh." He wrapped the blood-pressure cuff around my arm. "Has she been eating well, Mrs. Broadfield?" he asked without taking his doctor's eyes of me. They looked like little microscopes turned on csy face.

"Not as well as I would like her to eat, no, Doctor," Mrs. Broadfield replied like one schoolgirl tattling on another.

The doctor put on a face of reprimand and shook his head.

"I haven't had that much of an appetite yet," I offered in my defense.

"I know, but you've got to force yourself to keep up your strength for the fight . . . Are you relaxing, Annie? You don't look relaxed." I glanced quickly at Tony, who shifted his eyes away guiltily.

"I'm doing my best."

"She hasn't been having visitors and such, has she?" Dr. Malisoff asked Mrs. Broadfield.

"I've tried to keep her quiet," she said without really answering. Why did she take everything so personally? I wondered. Was she afraid she would be fired as quickly as Millie was?

"I see." The doctor examined my legs, tested my reflexes and feelings, looked into my eyes with a small lighted instrument, and then shook his head. "I want to see more progress the next time I visit, Annie. I want you to concentrate more on your recuperation."

"But I am!" I protested. "What else can I do? I have no telephone. All I can do is watch television and read. Only Tony and Drake and Rye Whiskey, the cook, have come to see me." I couldn't keep the shrill sound out of my voice.

"I realize you're in a highly emotional state," the doctor said

softly, obviously trying to keep me calm, "but the reason you were brought to this house was so you would have a serene environment, conducive to improvement."

"But what have I done that I shouldn't?"

"It's mental attitude that we need now, Annie. The therapy, the medicine, none of it will work unless you want it to work. Think health; think about walking again, concentrate only on that and give Mrs. Broadfield one hundred percent cooperation, okay?"

I nodded, and he smiled, his reddish-brown mustache curling up at the corners. I didn't tell him about the pain and feeling I had experienced in my legs because there was something very important to be done before I could even think about myself.

"Doctor . . " I lifted my upper body by pressing my hands down on the bed. "I want to be taken to my parents' grave site. I'm strong enough to go, and I can't concentrate on getting better until I do." I didn't mean to sound stubborn and petulant, but I believed it was true.

He eyed me thoughtfully a moment and then looked at Tony. I saw the way their eyes read each other's and saw the slight nod in the doctor's head.

"All right," he said. "One more day of rest and then Mr. Tatterton will make the arrangements, but I want you to be brought right back here and given a sedative," he said after glancing at Tony again.

"Thank you, Doctor."

"And try to eat. You'd be surprised at how much energy a healing body needs."

"I'll try."

"By this time next week, Annie, I want to see those toes moving and I want you giggling when I tickle your feet, understand?" He waved his long right forefinger at me like a parent chastising a child.

"Yes." I smiled and lay back. He nodded and then started out, Mrs. Broadfield and Tony flanking him as he left. I heard the three of them whispering about me outside the bedroom door. They were in conference so long, I thought they might be thinking of returning me to the hospital. Tony was the first to return. He came directly to the side of the bed and took my hand into his. Then he shook his head.

"I'm angry at myself," he explained. "I feel rather responsible for your poor checkup. I shouldn't have permitted you to talk me into telling you all those sad and tragic stories in your parents' old suite yesterday."

"Don't blame yourself," I insisted, but now I was afraid the three of them had changed their minds about the service when they discussed me out in the sitting room. "Tony, you will take me out to the monument tomorrow?"

"The doctor has approved. Certainly, Ill make the arrangements for the service right now."

"Will you invite Drake and Luke? I want them to be there with me."

"I'll do my best. Drake should return from Winnerrow by dinner time tonight," he said, smiling.