The Doctor's House

by Ann Beattie

  The same could not be said about my father, though. Leaving my mother’s room one night, I passed the bathroom, where he was peeing into the toilet in the dark. He followed me to my room and stood in the doorway. I had gotten into bed quickly, and was trying to pretend to be asleep.

  “What were you doing?” he said, knowing perfectly well I was awake.

  “I was going to use the bathroom,” I said.

  “You were? It’s empty now,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said, not moving. “Thanks.”

  “So you should get up,” he said.

  Why didn’t he ask her what I was doing, coming from her room? Why torture me?

  I pushed back the covers. I tried to appear sleepier than I was.

  As I passed him, head down, he put a hand on my shoulder.He turned on the overhead light with his other hand and looked into my face. What could he have seen, except my bloodshot eyes? He put the light out. I was shaking, sure that he knew. I went into the bathroom and closed the door. I even went to the toilet, which I did not need to use. The seat was still up. I was about to put it down and sit on it for a few seconds before flushing when I heard my father’s voice. “Is that where you keep it?” he said from the other side of the door.

  “Keep what?” I managed. I kept it in his workroom, in the back of a Brillo box thick with dust. I looked over my shoulder, realizing I hadn’t locked the door.

  He opened the door and walked in. “Marijuana,” he said. “Or am I to believe that you keep it in your mother’s room?”

  I stared at him. He was not going to like any answer I gave him.

  “You think you’re smart, don’t you?” he said.

  Yes or no. Neither answer would do.

  “You probably think that because your mother drinks, it’s all right to smoke marijuana,” he said. “Actually, marijuana itself is not so bad. It’s useful with glaucoma patients. For relief of nausea, with some illnesses. There’s even the suggestion that it should be legalized.”

  Nothing to say. Nothing at all.

  “Your mother tells me that you and your sister enjoyPlayboy,” he said. “Isn’t that an unusual magazine to be looking at with your sister? You know, I had wanted to keep my magazines hidden from Mom.”

  “We were looking at the cartoons,” I said.

  “Is that right? Is that what the doctor should believe?” He went right on, not waiting for an answer. He said: “Yourmother drinking, you smoking marijuana—it has a smell, you know, that clings to you just like cigarette smoke. A doctor, with two people abusing substances in his own house. What does your sister do, if I may ask? I would presume that she does exactly what her brother does, since he is the only person who exists in her world.”

  I looked at the floor.

  “I’m glad you’re not continuing to lie to me. I do take note of that,” he said. Then he said: “How many times have you smoked marijuana?”

  “A few times,” I said. I was only lying by half a dozen times.

  “A few times,” he repeated slowly. “The doctor’s son has smoked marijuanaa few times. His wife drinks approximately one third of a bottle of scotch and one bottle of wine a day. His daughter . . . but we don’t know about her. She may even be the Miss Goody Two-Shoes she appears to be, though somehow I doubt that. I think she has a secret, and that’s why she’s so condescending toward her parents. Ready to become an informant any day now. Ready to go to the authorities, as they’re called, aboutthe doctor’s family.”

  I looked at him.

  “Could you check that out for me?” he said.

  My expression must have told him I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Your sister. Could you check and make sure that she isn’t going to become an informer?”

  I nodded, hoping he didn’t mean right that moment. I knew that he did, though.

  “I’ll come along, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Listen,” I said truthfully. “Nina doesn’t know anything about this.”

  “She doesn’t? Can you honestly tell me that you and Nina have never once remarked on your mother’s drinking?”

  “We have,” I said, “but she doesn’t know I smoke marijuana. I never gave her any. She doesn’t know,” I said emphatically.

  “I see. Well, that’s good that you didn’t feel the need to share this experience with your sister. Perhaps if she develops glaucoma, that might be another matter, but right now, you haven’t felt the need. That’s good. It shows that you have some common sense.”

  He was not going to end with a compliment. He was just warming up.

  “So what do you say? You wake her up, she corroborates that she’s never smoked marijuana—I mean, doubting her would be like doubting the pope, wouldn’t it, she’s such an honest girl. So she says, no, she hasn’t, and then half the problem is solved. Then all we have to find out is whether she’s going to turn us in.”

  “She wouldn’t,” I said. “You know she wouldn’t.”

  “I know that? Do I? Do I know my children? For example, do I know from their teacher that they sign each other’s report cards—or you do, or she does, how exactly they’re signed I don’t know—and did I know, until tonight, that my son smoked marijuana? No, I didn’t. I truly didn’t. So when it comes to knowing what my children are doing, I think the prudent thing to do is toask, don’t you?”

  “You just want to upset her. I’m the one you’re mad at,” I said.

  “Such a good brother, always wanting to protect his sister from any unpleasantness. That must be why you tolerate your mother alone, instead of inviting Nina into the room.”

  Naturally he knew about that. Naturally.

  “I get so few answers when I ask questions. It doesn’t help me toknowyou,” he said.

  “It’s me who has the stuff. Not Nina,” I said.

  “Yes, I understand. But my worry is that she might be planning to turn us in, don’t you see?” He was exaggerating, crouched like a coach with his hands on his knees, pretending to be very wary of Nina. He rolled his eyes toward her room. Okay: I would wake her up, and whatever happened would happen, and then eventually we could all go to sleep. He had a way of drawing things out when he got angry in the middle of the night.

  Nina’s room was usually lit with a Tinkerbell night-light, but the bulb must have burned out. Walking slowly in the darkness, I waited for him to flip on the overhead light. For a long time, she had not come into my room, and for a longer time, I had not entered hers. Our morning routine of going to our father’s bedroom had also been suspended. There was no point in constantly checking, since we’d found the bed neatly made for months. I crossed the room carefully, groping my way in the dark, and went to her bed, where the dog had once slept. Suddenly, the overhead light went on. A textbook was on top of the blanket, open to the page she’d been reading. The bedspread had slipped halfway to the floor. She was sleeping so deeply that she shifted, but did not respond to the light. “Nina,” I said quietly, putting my hand on her back.

  “Look at how well he finds his way in the dark,” our father said. “What an unerring sense of direction he has.” He spoke as Nina, startled, jumped to a sitting position. “What?” Nina said. She squinted at me. At our father. It didn’t take her long to register what was happening.

  “Dad wants to talk about something,” I said.

  She struggled up on one elbow. Her eyes darted past me, looking at him. She said nothing else.

  “Your brother and I were discussing what an honest girl you are,” he said.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she was looking at me. There was nothing I could do.

  “My question for you is: Have you ever smoked marijuana?”

  She didn’t know I had because I’d never told her, though she might have suspected. With him staring at us, I could think of nothing to do.

  “No,” she said.

  “But you know what it is,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said slowly. She had a way of lookin
g straight ahead, while she watched me in her peripheral vision. She hated what he was doing even more than I did.

  “And are you aware of your brother’s smoking marijuana?”

  “I told him I did, Nina,” I said.

  She looked at me, surprised. She looked from me to him without answering.

  “What do you have to say about that information?” he said.

  She said nothing.

  “And your mother,” he said. “Your brother has also told me that you’ve discussed her drinking.”

  Again, she didn’t answer.

  “What conclusion have you reached about how to help her?” he said.

  “We haven’t,” I said.

  “I’m not speaking to you,” he said. “Nina?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “That is so often the conclusion people come to, even after much discussion,” he said with mock sadness. He nodded his head from side to side. “Yes. Even after much discussion,” he repeated.

  “I have to go to school tomorrow,” she said.

  “I realize that. Waking you in the middle of the night with accusations about your brother and your mother. Not very nice, is it, when you, yourself, have done nothing?”

  I saw her shoulders sag. Mentioning school only ensured that he would go on longer, she realized now. She knew that I knew she had made a mistake.

  “Here’s something that’s been on my mind, though, that your brother wants to get to the bottom of before we all call it a night. I’ve been thinking that our family is not one that I would particularly want to come under scrutiny, given that I am a doctor who gives advice to other people in the community when his wife and his son seem to be out of control, as well asbreaking the law. Your brother . . . well: you ask her the question,” he said to me.

  “Tell him you wouldn’t inform on anybody. That’s what he wants to hear,” I said.

  “What?” she said.

  “He wants to know that you wouldn’t go to the police,” I said. The ridiculousness of the notion came through in my voice.

  “I wouldn’t,” she said.

  “Ahh. This verifies my suspicion that my daughter can be very closemouthed. Just what your brother feels is the case, and I’m sure that brings him much consolation,” he said. “But tell me this: If someone was hit by a car outside the house, you would call the police, wouldn’t you?”

  She looked at me. I knew if I showed any expression, he would get even crazier.

  “Come, come. This is not a problem to be solved by your beloved brother. The police—an ambulance. You would call someone, I presume?”

  “Yes,” Nina said.

  “You would,” he said. “Well, that’s good. You would do the right thing if someone was hit by a car, but you would do the wrong thing—according to the authorities, at least—by not reporting your brother for smoking marijuana. You wouldn’t ever report your brother for anything, would you, Nina? You would always be—the word is,complicitous.”

  We both looked at him.

  “And on the issue of your mother. You and your brother will have further discussions,” he said.

  We said nothing.

  “I’m trying to understand here, but I’m not quite sure I do understand,” he said. “Nina, I asked whether you and your brother would have furtherdiscussions.”

  “No,” she said.

  “You won’t? You’llstopdiscussing it?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And about your brother’s marijuana use . . . will you be discussing that?”

  “Yes,” she said, narrowing her eyes. She had every right to be pissed.

  “I see,” he said. “Well, perhaps I’ll leave you to that now. I’m feeling so much better, myself, knowing that our private problems will remain within this house, some of them not even being discussed any longer. Thank you, Nina.”

  He left. We both waited a long time before moving. Finally, she spoke. “What was that about?” she whispered.

  “He smelled grass,” I said. “We passed each other in the hallway.”

  “Why don’t you be more careful about getting up if he’s walking around?”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “You smoke grass?”she said.

  “Big deal,” I said. “Half the people I know smoke grass.”

  “Don’teverlet him catch you again,” she hissed. “He’s crazy. You know that.”

  I went back to my bedroom, relieved that he hadn’t carried on more than he had. To my surprise, though, my father was sitting on the foot of my bed, waiting for me. My heart sank.

  “If I were a more conventional father, I would have read you the riot act and cut off every privilege you had,” he said, “but I was sitting here thinking: Television? I’m going to be like those parents I have no respect for who think they’re so smart, forbidding their children to watchtelevision? What am I supposed to say next: ‘No more breakfast cereal for you’? It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? The withholding of, say, breakfast cereal.You’ll see, when you have a son of your own. Meanwhile, get rid of any marijuana that’s in this house—inthe doctor’s house—and stay out of your sister’s bedroom, and out of your mother’s bedroom, too. The next time she asks you in, tell her I said you were forbidden to go.” He got up. I knew something bad was coming. What he said had been too rational. Too self-reflective, even for a man who loved to parody self-reflection. “I’m tired,” he said. “It’s unpredictable, taking barbiturates. Some nights they wake me up instead of putting me under. Then—you’ll get to know what this is like, too—you realize every hour or so you need to get up and piss again.”

  He got up and walked halfway out of the room, then stopped. “Drugs can confuse a person,” he said. “They release people’s inhibitions. Terrible things can happen in those circumstances. For example, if you take drugs, you can wake up next to someone you might be horrified to realize you’d had sex with the night before.”

  I said nothing.

  “But you’re like every other kid. You think you know it all, and I’m some simpleton. Even though I’m a doctor, to you I’m just someone who really knows nothing, isn’t that right?”

  I knew I couldn’t refuse to answer one more question. “I know drugs are bad,” I said.

  “Yes, but they’re also tempting, aren’t they? Would you think that I might know the slightest thing about temptation? Or do you conveniently assume that everything will go along just the way it is, with the doctor being a good doctor and cautioning everyone to always resist temptation?”

  It was unanswerable. I was glad I’d responded to his previous question.

  “Years from now—or tomorrow, for all I know. If, in spite of everything I’ve said tonight, tomorrow you find yourself in bed, let’s say, with an inappropriate person—would you blame yourself, or would you feel relieved of any responsibility, because it was just the marijuana?”

  His words trailed off as he walked away. I lay there, waiting for the grand finale. Considering the way he’d acted other times he was displeased, I knew the worst was yet to come.

  I felt that way until the afternoon of the picture taking, not long afterward, when all the fury he hadn’t expressed that night came roaring out like an angry genie asked for one too many things. He was furious to have been found out, sneaking into a friend’s mother’s house. Whether my sister and I asked questions aloud or implicitly, he did not like questions, and of course the looks on our faces formed questions the second our eyes met his. Our father liked to be the questioner, not the questioned. Like us, he was practiced in not giving answers, but unlike us, he would become infuriated—as he was when he chased me through the house, tackling me and calling me “another one of your mother’s faggots,” pounding my back, dragging me back to the basement, and humiliating me in front of Nina and the girls. “You bastard,” I finally said, when I thought the girls couldn’t take another second, and I doubted I could. It surprised him. At first he seemed almost gratified, but whe
n he had a notion in his head, he didn’t easily discard it. He played with notions like a cat pawing a dying mouse. Examining from a different angle; taking a nibble, followed by a long period of rest before chomping down. His new cause célèbre was that I was a faggot, and proof of this, to him, was that I wouldn’t approachthe miserable, huddled girls—the lesbians, he might have been amused to know.

  It wasn’t an orgy he’d stumbled into, just sexually curious kids thinking they were more sophisticated than they were. The only idea that seemed to appease him was that I accost one of them sexually. Nina was staring into the middle distance. Lucy Roderick gagged, she was so terrified.

  “Now look at this. Look at the unhappiness the doctor has caused, by being where he wasn’t expected to be,” he said. “He stumbles on his faggot son and a bunch of little whores, and it’s the doctor who has made everyone—all these nice young people—cry. That is such a shame. Such a terrible shame,” he said. “I’m overcome with regret. But I’ll make you an offer, kids. You don’t say you saw me, I won’t say I saw you.”

  Nina and I told Mac that story and Mac looked at us as if we were telling him about life on another planet, a planet where all atmospheric gases were lethal. Of all things, the story had come up as we were having Thanksgiving dinner their first year at the carriage house. Mac was in the first year of his residency and he was always tired, and Nina and I delighted in reviving him, whatever it took. We were both good storytellers, filling in just enough details the other might have omitted, giving a buildup to the punch line. “You never even thought of telling your mother?” he said. “Not a teacher, not a friend’s parents, or some relative? Didn’t you have any relatives?” We both loved Mac for his practicality. We loved him because we saw that he was naive, to think there was always a way for people to get help. “She was that bad a mother, that you couldn’t have told her a story like that and gottensympathy?”Mac said. We said that we were sure she didn’t want to hear about his infidelities. “But who did you feelprotectedyou?” Mac had wanted to know.

  “We protected each other,” Nina said.