by Harry Kraus
The smile returned to her face. Claire McCall, surgeon. Send that through the gossip mill in backwards little Stoney Creek!
Movement in the back of the auditorium interrupted Claire’s dream. She watched as her father moved slowly down the aisle in search of his row. Her hand covered her open mouth as her father stumbled forward. Each step was practiced once or twice, then executed in a slow, deliberate slap. Della lifted her hand quickly, then lowered it as a murmur escaped the crowd.
Wally seemed lost, wobbling past his bench and down the carpeted aisle. Midway to the front, he turned and began a labored journey back, his face twitching in constant rhythmic motion. His right arm flailed forward, then returned, a swing propelled by an erratic, unseen wind.
How long had it been since she’d really seen him, studied him like this? Months? Years? It was close to a decade that Claire had avoided her father in the name of her educational pursuits. Now she gasped and felt a flush burn her cheeks. Drunk again.
Claire turned her head away, clenching her jaw, silently grateful that her classmates didn’t know the identity of the strange man. She stared forward, oblivious to the speaker’s monologue. How could he do this to me?
Long minutes later, she stole a glance behind her. Mercifully, her father had found his seat, and the disturbance seemed over.
For the time remaining, Claire fixed her eyes on the podium, not even looking back when the dean returned to the stage and asked the parents of the graduates to stand. The ceremony passed in a blur. She stood to be recognized with the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society graduates, and then, a few minutes later, walked the stage to receive her diploma, not risking a glance toward her family.
After the benediction, happy graduates spilled onto the sunny lawn outside Brighton University’s Memorial Hall. Claire followed, staying safely in the middle of the pack, but vigilant to observe the doors as the proud parents exited to find the new MDs.
She struck a cheerful pose for a picture with a classmate.
There were hugs, tearful good-byes, and more photos. Claire was mobbed by her fellow MDs, filled with triumphant revelry like that of a high school football team after winning the state championship.
Ten minutes later, she retreated into a white gazebo at the center of the vast lawn, her eyes still watchful of the crowd emerging onto Memorial Hall’s columned front portico. John Cerelli found her first and kissed her cheek. “You did it.”
She feigned a smile and lowered her voice. “Let’s get out of here.”
John looked over his shoulder. Claire followed his eyes. Della McCall was marching across the grass, ignoring the sloping sidewalk that led to the gazebo.
“Claire. There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere!” Her arms were open.
Claire surrendered to her mother’s embrace.
“Come on. The family wants a photograph.”
Claire stiffened against the pressure of her mother’s arm as she attempted to nudge Claire toward the building.
Della knitted her forehead. “Claire?”
“Take my picture with John. Right here.”
Della backed up a few steps and obeyed.
“Now,” her mother enjoined. “Your father wants to see you.”
Claire shook her head and tried to keep her voice steady. “No.”
John reached for her elbow. “Come on, Claire, it’s—”
“I said no!” She shook free, watchful of the crowd of celebrant graduates and their families. Her mother’s confused face prompted her explanation. “Mom, I saw him! Stumbling like a common drunk.”
“Claire, it’s not—”
“Wake up, Mom,” Claire protested, then softened her voice. “How could he do this to me today?”
Della stared at her daughter. “Your father’s a sick man, Claire. Come talk to him.”
“Take him to a doctor.”
“He won’t go.”
“Take him to Dr. Jenkins. He’ll tell him to straighten up.”
“Believe me, he won’t see a doctor.” She lowered her eyes to the floor of the gazebo. “Especially not Dr. Jenkins.”
“Then bring him up here to Brighton. Take him to AA. The man needs help.”
“He’s been through AA. He won’t go back. He doesn’t drink that much anymore anyway.”
“You’re in denial. You’re codependent.”
“He doesn’t need your fancy analysis, Doctor. He needs to see his daughter.” Della retreated back onto the lawn. “Will you come to Stoney Creek?”
“I’m leaving for New England tomorrow. I’ve got to prepare for my internship.”
“Surgery isn’t everything, Claire.”
“Don’t start with me, Mom. You know this is important to me.”
Della nodded without speaking.
Claire could feel her mother’s judgment. “Mom, this is what I was made to do. Don’t you get it?”
Grandma Elizabeth McCall appeared through the crowd, approaching Claire with her hands raised. “Congratulations, Claire. I knew you’d make us proud.” She hugged her granddaughter warmly, oblivious to the tension.
“Thanks, Grandma.”
“Let’s find your father.” Elizabeth raised a spotted hand toward the portico. “He’s in there with Clay.”
“I—I’ve got to run, Grandma. Some of my classmates are … well, I need to finish packing. My apartment’s a wreck.”
Della placed her hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. “She won’t go near her father today.”
“Grandma,” Claire pleaded. “He’s drunk.”
Elizabeth’s shoulders pitched forward. She sighed slowly before responding with a quiver in her voice. “He’s not drunk, Claire.”
“Grandma, I saw him.” She reached for John’s hand. “Let’s go.” The duo stepped away but couldn’t escape Elizabeth’s reach.
“Hold on,” she insisted, latching onto Claire’s wrist. “You don’t know everything yet, young doctor.” She paused, her voice low, and her gaze locked upon Claire’s. “I’ve seen this before. And I’ve been around Stoney Creek all my life. This is a curse, pure and simple—the Stoney Creek curse.”
Claire was too polite to pull away. “Grandma, I know you believe that. I suspect just about everyone in Stoney Creek would too.” She paused. “But if those rumors have some basis in fact, then it’s related to alcohol, not the supernatural.”
“Don’t ignore this. It’s darker than you realize, child. I fear your father is a marked man.”
“Your son is the town drunk!” She hated hurting her grandmother, but the words were out before she could stop them.
Elizabeth blanched.
Claire felt John’s hand tighten around hers. “Claire, let’s just go.”
Elizabeth released her grip. “One day you’ll understand,” she said softly. “I just hope your generation is spared.”
Claire looked at her mother and grandmother. Elizabeth knotted the end of a white shawl in her hand.
“I’m sorry, Grandma.”
The old woman nodded.
Claire dropped John’s hand and slipped her arm around his waist. They walked across the lush lawn toward John’s red Mustang.
After a hundred yards, John chuckled. “The Stoney Creek curse.” He shook his head. “Your grandmother’s a hoot.”
“Don’t laugh. To her, this stuff is very real. Stoney Creek has never laughed about the curse.”
John opened the passenger door to his Mustang, and Claire climbed in and nestled into the leather seat, wanting to disappear. John started the car and headed down the road. With the convertible top down, her long blond hair swirled in the wind and her eyes watered, both from the gusts and from the emotions she vainly tried to cap.
John slid his hand from the gearshift to her thigh. “Well, Dr. McCall, shall we join the others at the Oasis?”
She grabbed his hand and stared away.
He tried again. “Come on. We should celebrate. Would you rather drive over to Henley? Pringle’s Café? We could
sit on the deck and watch the ducks.”
She shook her head. “Just take me home, John.”
“Claire, this is what you’ve been working for.” He tapped his left hand on the steering wheel. “Doctor McCall,” he added, raising his voice above the whine of the engine.
She didn’t see it that way. This was just the beginning. She wasn’t even halfway to her goal. The MD degree was just the entrance ticket to another level of training. From where she stood, she couldn’t even see the light at the end of a dark tunnel. A dark tunnel called surgery residency.
Sure, Claire was glad to have the degree behind her. But with her father’s behavior at the graduation, and with her sharp words with her family still fresh in her mind, she didn’t feel like celebrating a milestone.
John prompted again, “Oh, Doctor,” he continued, pinching her leg, “paging Dr. McCall …”
She flinched and squeezed his hand. “I just want to finish packing. I want to be ready for an early start in the morning.”
She watched him shrug. He waited until he pulled to a stop at the next light before he turned and lowered his voice. “Just forget about your father, okay?” He paused. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
That and everything else, Claire thought. She couldn’t articulate the rising restlessness she’d been feeling. It was deeper than a desire to get her surgery training under way. It was more than wanting to put the stigma of being a student doctor behind her. John was right. She wanted to erase from her memory the feeling of being the town drunk’s daughter. She had wanted her graduation to feel like a victory. Instead, it felt like an old scab, picked open and oozing fresh pain.
She nodded slowly. “It feels smaller than I thought it would. For years, I wanted to show everyone in Stoney Creek that I could do what they thought was impossible.”
“You did, Claire. You’re a doctor!”
How could she tell him what she felt? She bit her lower lip and twisted her hopelessly tangled hair.
Here, on the pinnacle of her medical school education, she felt curiously defeated. The air rushed from the balloon, just as children come to realize that all those foot races with Father were won because he let them win, not because they were so fast after all. Here she was, a child again, with a medical diploma in her hand, feeling cheated of the elation she thought she’d earned. The degree meant a lot when it was obtained by others. For Claire, she couldn’t suppress the nagging feeling that they’d let her win. Someone somehow had turned the tables on her emotions. Instead of celebration, she felt mired again by the inescapable anchor of her smalltown identity as the daughter of Wally McCall.
She forced a smile, hoping her emotions would obey and follow.
John pulled to a stop in front of her apartment. “Want some help?”
“I just have a few things to pack yet.” She lifted the neck of her graduation gown. “It would have to be ninety degrees today.”
John nodded and leaned forward. Claire accepted his kiss as a perfunctory good-bye.
“Why don’t you bring some Chinese takeout later?” she offered. “I’ve packed away all my kitchen stuff.”
He smiled. “Sure. Our regular?”
General Tso’s chicken. Extra spicy. Small side of shrimp lo mein. Two egg rolls with hot mustard. “You know me.”
She watched him go, the Mustang convertible disappearing behind the corner Exxon.
She turned alone, diploma in hand, and trudged up the cracked sidewalk to her front door.
An hour later, Claire sat in the middle of the small living room struggling to fit her blow-dryer into an already full box. She pulled out the last three items, a small jewelry box, an anatomy textbook, and a photo album, and restacked them for the fourth time, creating an opening just large enough for … a hairbrush, but not the blow-dryer. “Ugh,” she gasped, lifting the blow-dryer by the cord. She stomped across the room and dangled the appliance over the open trash bag, which overflowed with the last few items she hadn’t been able to fit into the box. I’m going to cut these curls soon anyway. Surgery residents don’t have time for this sort of vanity. With the blow-dryer hanging precariously by its cord, Claire touched her thick blond hair and sighed. She paused, then grabbed a pillow that leaned against a box of dishes. She shoved the blow-dryer into the pillowcase against the soft foam. There. Never know. I might chicken out about the haircut.
The front door opened after a quick knock. John appeared, arms laden with Chinese takeout and a small bouquet of cut spring flowers. He smiled. “Congratulations, Doctor.”
Claire smiled and planted a kiss on John’s mouth.
“Hey, let me put these down first,” he responded, putting the large white paper bag onto the kitchen counter. Then he gathered her into his arms.
There, for the first time in days, she felt herself begin to relax. He kissed her slowly, luxuriously, before pulling back. He met her eyes before asking, “Hungry?”
“Starved.” She felt him edging away, and she tightened her grip around his waist. “Just give me a minute, Cerelli. I haven’t felt this good in weeks.”
He smiled, and lowered his lips to hers. She kissed him again, then buried her face in his shirt, inhaling his cologne. I’m going to miss this man.
After a minute, she released him and opened the bag of food. As she lifted out the containers, the wonderful aroma made her mouth water.
“Where’d you get all this stuff?” John asked, looking at the boxes. “You had all this hidden in here?”
“Four years of medical school accumulation.” She shrugged. “You should have seen the stuff I threw out.”
He pointed at a poster leaning against the kitchen trash can. “What’s that?”
“Old undergrad genetics project on blood types and inheritance. I did all the blood-typing myself in the biochemistry lab.” She picked up the poster. “See? Here’s my father,” she added, pointing at the upper left. “He’s blood type B negative. Here’s my mom. She’s O negative.” She moved her arm down to the next line. “My sister Margo—B negative, just like Dad.” She looked at John. “What type are you?”
“Beats me. I’ve never been checked.”
“Come on. Haven’t you ever donated? They give you a card with your blood type.”
“Not me. I hate needles. You know that.”
She nodded. “Well, let’s just say you’re type A. That means you have either two A genes or an A gene and a second gene that doesn’t code for any blood type. If you have type A and I have type O, our kids could be—”
“Kids? Did you say ‘our kids’?”
“Stop interrupting. I’m trying to teach you something.”
“Our kid? You mean John Jr.? Or how about Clyde? I’ve always wanted a Clyde.”
“Ugh! Okay, Clyde. Little Clyde, could be Type A or Type O.”
John studied the poster. “What about Clay? I don’t see his name anywhere.”
“He was too chicken. He wouldn’t let me draw his blood.”
“Can’t say I blame him.”
“You’re chicken too.”
John yawned. “Okay, Doctor. Am I going to have to listen to you talk about medicine all my life?”
She picked up a fortune cookie. “Yes.”
“Let’s eat,” he whined. “And no talking about blood or guts while we eat.
“Get used to it.” She giggled. “Blood and guts are my life.”
John laughed and busied himself with setting out two paper plates and serving portions of General Tso’s chicken and shrimp lo mein. They ate, talking about anything, everything.
Anything except their upcoming separation. But the subject remained, unspoken, a smoldering threat, like thunderclouds on the horizon.
John Cerelli had whisked her into happiness during her first year of medical school. She was introduced to him by a friend at the Baptist Student Union. He was from a stable family in Charlottesville. The oldest of three boys, he was an athlete, a warm communicator, and a Christian. He worked for
a small software company that sold patient record-keeping software to physician’s offices. She was driven, glad to be free from her family, but without an anchor in the high seas of graduate medical education. Soon, perhaps too soon, she found the stability she craved, the security that was lacking in her own family, in John.
Now, Claire found herself on the brink of an adventure that would carry her to her goal: a career in surgery. Why did she need to move so far away to pursue that career? That question had dominated many of their conversations. Claire was aiming high. The program at Lafayette offered prestige, cutting-edge research, and an opportunity to train with authorities recognized worldwide. It was a program that, if she survived it, would open any door in any surgical field she wanted.
John accused her of running from home.
Claire blamed it on the match—a computer program that places medical students in the proper internships based on program rankings chosen by the students and student rankings chosen by the programs. The computer matched her in Boston—which sounded to Claire as if it must be the Lord’s will.
John insisted that she should have listed only programs closer to home. He argued that she could find good surgical training outside the academic ivory tower she had chosen.
But to Claire, this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
John wanted to be near her all the time.
That’s what hurt the most.
Finally, after they had talked all around it for an hour, John broached the subject. Leave it to John to try to change her mind one last time. “Couldn’t you stay a few extra weeks? You don’t have to be on the job until July first. We could spend a few days on the shore.”
Claire rubbed the back of her neck, unwilling to simply articulate the same arguments again. Instead, with her eyes boring in on his, she began to hum. Softly at first, then louder, as John pushed back from the table, she hummed the theme from Chariots of Fire, drowning out John’s sigh.
“Come on, Claire, answer the question. I’m serious. I could take a few days off next week.”
She stopped humming long enough to ask, “Remember Eric Liddell?”
He rolled his eyes. Of course he remembered Eric Liddell. Claire knew that John’s favorite movie of all time was Chariots of Fire. Over the course of their relationship, they’d watched it no less than six times together.
