[2016] The Practice House

by Laura McNeal

  Mr. McNamara gave her a wide sidelong smile. “And I never dreamed that a Kansas dust storm would blow a goddess all the way to Fallbrook.” He winked. “Buttons please.”

  She laughed and said, “Two and that’s all.”

  With two buttons undone, she felt like a model for one of those racy true-crime magazines. It surprised her how easy (and secretly pleasing) it was to do such things for him, but it was every bit as easy and satisfying to deny him the larger favors he wanted. She stretched and yawned in a way that he liked. He’d begun buying her underthings, and the brassieres he plumped for were so flimsy she often thought she’d bust right out of them. “Eyes on the road, Mister,” she said, “or you’ll get us both dead.”

  74

  The next day, Ellie told Ansel she’d made an appointment for him with Dr. Quigley. “I heard you coughing half the night,” she said. “We’re going to have a wedding. You can’t cough all the way up the aisle when you’re giving Charlotte away.”

  Ansel had been coughing during the night. And when he wasn’t coughing, he was trying to find his bearings now that the world had shifted. Aldine was pregnant. That was the fantastic refrain. Aldine was pregnant. It seemed so unlikely. And yet not impossible. He’d read and reread Gilbert’s letter. The image of the Teagarten girl kept coming to him unbidden, the hut she lived in, the dead baby wrapped in her arms, the strange look in her eyes. Until opening Gilbert’s letter, staying in Fallbrook had seemed the right thing—it meant honoring his family, which they deserved, and it meant bringing no further dishonor to Aldine, which she deserved, too—but Gilbert’s letter changed everything. If the baby was his, he needed to be there to help, and if it wasn’t—well, she might still need his help.

  “What time?” Ansel asked.

  “Four o’clock,” Ellie said. “Right after work.”

  On the day of the appointment, he was pruning deadwood from Valencias in a grove near De Luz when Oscar de la Cueva picked him up early. Ansel was glad of that. It afforded him time to wash up and change into fresh clothes before walking to the little cottage that served as a hospital. Alone in the small examination room, he took off his shirt as the nurse had asked him to do, and sat down on the metal table. The facing wall was covered with framed diplomas and commendations issued to Morris A. Quigley from Boston College and the University of California. The room must have once been the pantry or some such. There wasn’t a window to look out of; all there was to look at were the gilt-lettered commendations. Presently Dr. Quigley entered, smiling in a friendly way and saying, “Mr. Price,” and drawing a folder down from a cupboard. Friendly, and yet he had not offered his hand.

  Ansel had met Quigley, of course, but their dealings had never gone beyond a nod and hello. Ansel regarded Quigley’s shoes, which looked right out of the box, though he knew they weren’t. Neva had told him that Dr. Quigley wore two pairs of shoes, one to and from the office and another that he wore only at the office so they never got dirty. The doctor’s chin was dimpled and, though he looked to be no more than forty, his hair was already silvery. He was a widower—a quiet, serious one, according to Ellie, who set aside a piece of lemon meringue pie every day so he wouldn’t be disappointed when he came in after the café was closed. Quigley called it his standing order, and Neva said he was a good tipper and nice to everybody, “especially Mama.”

  “You know that lemon meringue pie your wife bakes?” Quigley said now as he labeled the folder with Ansel’s name. “Sometimes I’ll be thinking about that pie all day long.”

  “It’s good pie,” Ansel said. He always knew which days Quigley came and which days he didn’t, because when he didn’t come, Ellie gave the leftover pie to Ansel. Those days, he’d noticed, were few.

  Quigley leaned over his folder with pencil in hand and asked for Ansel’s full name, date of birth, and past medical conditions.

  “I don’t get sick much,” Ansel said. “Only this little cough of mine.”

  Quigley nodded and wrote. “Your last visit to a doctor?”

  “Thirty-six years ago,” Ansel said. “Got kicked in the head by a milk cow.” He grinned. “I was fine and would not have gone. It was my mother’s decision.” He paused and smiled. “That milk cow was saucy.”

  Quigley gave this a polite laugh, not the broad, knowing laugh Kansans generally gave it. He closed the folder, and hooked his stethoscope over his ears. It felt strange and unpleasant to sit bare chested on the table and breathe the scent of another man’s hair oil while he listened to you inhale. Quigley wore a blue bow tie and the knot looked intricate. The only man Ansel had known in Kansas who knotted a bow tie was Fitzimmons the banker.

  After a time, Quigley sat back. “Have you ever coughed up blood?”

  Ansel shook his head, but from the expression on Quigley’s face, Ansel guessed that Ellie had told him about the handkerchief. “You’ll need to give me a sputum sample,” he said. “We just need to rule out tuberculosis.”

  Even before Ansel could absorb the shock of hearing the word spoken to him, straight out, from a doctor’s lips, Quigley was handing him a paper titled Rules to Be Observed for the Prevention of the Spread of Tuberculosis. He scanned the set of rules that followed. Patient’s utensils marked and separated. Patient must spit only into sputum cups. Sputum cups boiled every day for 10 minutes. Contents burned.

  Ansel looked up. “I don’t have tuberculosis,” he said, and extended the paper back to the doctor, but Quigley wouldn’t take it. “It’s just a bad cold. I’ll recover.”

  “I imagine you’re right, Mr. Price, but we’d better do the test.”

  Ansel felt a sudden need to buy time, to figure out how to get out of here. “Kind of an old-fashioned illness, isn’t it? Tuberculosis I mean,” he said.

  “It’s come back into fashion,” Quigley said. “Especially where you’re from. All the dust.”

  “What about Neva? Did you do the test on her?”

  Quigley’s expression relaxed as he nodded. “Of course. She’s negative.”

  He’d done the test on Neva? Ellie had told him that Dr. Quigley had said that Neva was fine, but she never said anything about taking a test for tuberculosis. Ansel got up and reached for his shirt. “This is all kind of sudden,” he said. “Just give me a day or two to get used to the idea.”

  “There’s nothing here to get used to, Mr. Price,” Quigley said. He took a deep breath. “It’s not just your own health we’re talking about.” He paused so that this could sink in. “Without a negative finding, you should be immediately quarantined.”

  Quigley’s fingernails were flat and clean, just like McNamara’s. There was nothing wrong with Quigley and McNamara, except for their clean fingernails and the smoothness of their lives. Ansel knew this, and yet it did little to moderate his resentment of either one of these men. Quigley went to the cupboard behind him and took out a piece of cardboard, which he folded to form a rudimentary cup. “Just spit into this,” he said, “so you can prove me wrong.”

  “It’s just a cold,” Ansel said, buttoning his shirt, “and if it isn’t gone in a day or two, I’ll come back.” In a day or two, he would be gone and he could forget all this.

  “Mr. Price,” the doctor said. His voice was firmer. “If the health department thinks the café might be a source of TB, they’ll shut it down, no ifs, ands, or buts.”

  The doctor stood holding the improvised cup. Ansel wanted out of this room and this town but between him and the door stood Quigley with his little cardboard cup.

  What if I told you I don’t give a tinker’s damn about that restaurant? Ansel thought about saying and then pushing him aside and stepping through the door, but that wasn’t really true. He wanted Ellie to be happy. He wanted a good life to be hers if he left.

  He took the cup and spat into it.

  Since opening the café, Ellie had begun serving the family supper on the table closest to the kitchen. Often she would make a casserole or potpie with leftovers from the day’s cooking. Tonight
it was a beef pie topped with browned biscuits that everyone except Ansel ate with relish. Charlotte and Neva and Clare kept up a stream of newsy chatter—a broken window at the Practice House, a perfect score on a history test, an unwed girl going to Los Angeles to get swallowed up in who knew what. When there was a respite, Clare asked how many lunches they’d served that day, a question he always asked.

  “Twenty-four,” Ellie replied quietly.

  Clare looked up from his beef pie in surprise. “Twenty-four?” His face was brimming with approval. “That’s swell, Mom. That’s a record, right?”

  Ellie nodded and laughed. “And one of the bankers said he wanted to patent my Duchess Potatoes.”

  Charlotte and Clare both gave small laughs; Neva wanted to know how you patented a potato, which brought more laughter.

  Ansel could not help but marvel at his wife. She would even hum popular tunes now—“It’s Only a Paper Moon” was the one he heard the most—while doing the dishes. Always before he’d found her bustling cheer discouraging, but now he found a certain compensation in the transformation: it was one more reason that argued for his leaving.

  It was nearly eight o’clock before the dishes were done and the children were gone and they were alone in the café. By then, the room had a scrubbed aspect, like the face of a person who was ready for church, but Ellie was still working the surfaces with a damp rag. “Charlotte sewed up Neva’s monkey,” she said. “Really you can’t even tell.”

  He nodded. He’d asked Neva what had happened to the doll, but she wouldn’t say, and everyone else seemed happy to leave the matter untended. That was the way of it here, with him on the outside looking in, seeing only parts of the room, hearing only some of the conversation, and it was his fault, he knew that. Ellie was holding up a glass, tilting it to the light, searching for fingerprints when she said casually, “How’d your appointment go?”

  “Fine.”

  “And is he doing the test?”

  “He said if I didn’t, the café would close.” He waited just a moment. “I suppose he told you that, too.”

  “He’s trying to help us, Ansel. That’s all he’s trying to do.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m going back, Ellie. I think it’s the only way.”

  She kept rubbing the glass. “You mean after the wedding?”

  “No,” he said, “tomorrow. I’ll check the house and see if things are looking up. Maybe it’s turned the corner, the whole drouth situation, and I can start again in spring. Besides, there are some papers I have to sign at the bank.”

  “What papers?” she asked.

  “Something wasn’t signed right and needs witnessing.” He wanted her to accept that it was a good lie, a defense she could offer to anyone who asked.

  “And you can’t take care of it by mail? Or after Charlotte’s wedding?” She seemed to understand him; he wasn’t sure.

  “No, I can’t.”

  She set down the glass and stood perfectly still. She’d grown comelier in her happiness, and it came fresh to him how he had once loved her, but it was like thinking of two people he’d known a long time ago.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  A moment or two passed in silence. “But you’ll be back for Charlotte’s wedding, is that right?” When he didn’t answer, she said in a keener voice, “This is Charlotte’s wedding, Ansel. She expects you here. So does Mr. McNamara, and so do I.”

  He nodded, and then he said it, so he would hear himself say it. “Yes. I’ll be back for that.”

  The headlights of a single car passed on the street and he wondered what they might look like to the driver of that car, a man and wife in their café talking at the end of a long day. In his mildest voice he said, “Did Quigley test you, too?”

  She nodded. “I’m fine.”

  “It’s just a bad cold,” he said.

  She walked over to the Hardy’s Drugstore calendar on the wall and turned the page to November. “Thanksgiving’s the twenty-third. Wedding’s the twenty-fourth. You need to be back by the twentieth.” She was looking at him now. “For appearances’ sake.”

  Just like that, he thought. Just like that, they had come to an agreement.

  She let the lifted calendar page fall back into place. Without looking at him, she said, “I’m guessing your first stop will be the Harvey House.”

  He didn’t answer.

  There were footsteps on the stairs and they both looked up to see Charlotte, who was wearing her movie-star bathrobe (no one had to tell him it had come from McNamara). There was also a funny expression on her face, as if she’d heard some of their conversation.

  “I found the dress I want to make,” she said, holding a magazine open with her thumb. Ellie didn’t say anything, and neither did Ansel. “Wanna see it?” she asked, and she held the picture up for Ellie, who reached out to take the magazine, and then passed it to Ansel. After he’d looked it over, he nodded and said, “You’ll look beautiful, Lottie.”

  But there was a terrible stiffness in the room—it was impossible the girl didn’t feel it. He stood up to go. “Good night,” he said, and they both murmured, “Good night.”

  75

  The next morning Ansel stood with Clare outside the packinghouse waiting for their ride. Hurd was picking up an order of crates from a man in Del Mar and Ansel had arranged to ride along as far as Oceanside, where he would catch his train that afternoon. He wasn’t sure why Clare had insisted on riding along, but he wished he hadn’t. He didn’t want him asking questions there weren’t good answers for. So while they waited for Hurd, Ansel stood a few paces away from Clare and stared off. It had broken a mild, clean day but there were changes in the making. Steely cumulus clouds were rolling in, shadowing the hills and turning them violet, the kind of clouds he prayed for in Kansas. He heard a grinding downshift of gears, and turned to see Oscar de la Cueva’s flatbed turn into the lot with Hurd behind the wheel.

  Ansel picked up his bag and grinned at Clare. “Maybe we should say our good-byes here, champ.”

  They were almost eye to eye now. The boy seemed to have grown three inches since they came here. “Naw,” he said. “I want to see you off and I want to see the ocean.”

  Hurd pulled the truck close and grinned out at them, rotating a toothpick in his mouth. “You hobos looking for a ride?” he said.

  Ansel nodded. “I appreciate this,” he said. Clare nodded to Hurd but neither smiled nor spoke. It was lost on nobody that Clare hadn’t really warmed up to his uncle. Or rather that he had, but then something had cooled between them. But why exactly, Clare would never say.

  Ansel stowed his gear in the back of the truck, then climbed into the cab with Clare in the middle, but no sooner had he pulled the door closed behind him with the three of them sitting closely packed together than he felt the familiar hitch in his throat, the first pesky command to cough that could be ignored for a few seconds or maybe even a full minute but would finally be obeyed. “You know, Hurd, I think I’ll ride in the back.”

  Hurd registered surprise. “The hell you say.”

  “Yeah. If I’m going to spend the next few weeks in Kansas, I need to enjoy the California weather while I can. Besides, this is Oscar’s field truck. I’ve ridden in the back so many times I’ve got the boards broken in to my particular specifications.”

  He fought back a cough and swung open the door, but before he could start to close it, he’d begun coughing. He coughed and spat several times and only when the coughing began to abate did he realize Clare was standing behind him.

  “You okay?” Clare said.

  “Yes.” He was surprised at the frank apprehension in the boy’s face. “Go ahead and sit up front,” Ansel said. “Hurd will want the company.”

  But Clare climbed into the back with him and once they’d settled themselves in the truck bed with their legs extended and their backs to the cab, Clare tapped on the rear window and gave the thumbs-up sign, and soon they were rumbling through town. There were s
everal tarps in the bed of the truck, folded and tied loosely with rope. Ansel tightly refolded two of the tarps so each had a cushion beneath him. Then when Hurd turned the truck onto the highway and they gained speed, he took another of the tarps and wrapped it around them for warmth.

  They didn’t talk. The road noise was too keen and constant for that. He looked back at the highway trailing behind them. He looked off at the passing fields and groves and houses. He looked up at the splintered beams of light that found their way through the massing black clouds. There was a beauty here, but he could only view it as a traveler would.

  The highway descended south out of town, curving beside a creek that fed into the San Luis Rey River. Oaks and white sycamores lined the banks. From the rains the week before, deep ridges cut the bluffs where water had flowed through reddish soil. Hawks were out hunting, and Ansel spotted two of them perched on broken limbs within a few yards of each other. The truck hummed along. Ansel experimentally took a slightly deeper breath and didn’t feel the tickling cough-trigger. He breathed deep, and still nothing. It was as if the cough command had slid away. He felt something he could hardly remember feeling. He felt warmly . . . what? Not happy exactly, but contented. Clare was looking off the other way, and Ansel was regarding the soft swirl of his hair when the boy suddenly turned to him with a wide pure smile, and Ansel found himself nodding at the boy, nodding yes to everything he had been, and had become, and would one day be. He wondered if this wasn’t as pure as love could be, the admiration of a son by a father, and then he wondered if in leaving he would lose Clare’s regard forever.

  Perhaps twenty minutes later the countryside gave way again to clusters of houses, and a sign and then another. Clare shed the tarp and stood to peer over the cab. Ansel also stood. He had never seen the ocean before, and was surprised to sense it an instant before it lay before him, the way you could sometimes sense the presence of a wild animal. Vast and imperturbable, shimmering with silver light, the water covered everything in the distance, from one end of the earth to the other.