by Noah Gordon
When she reached the house, she went directly to the telephone answering machine, but no one had called.
She brought food and fresh water to Andy in the cellar, gave him a good scratching behind the ears, and then climbed the stairs and got into a long, hot shower, a blessing. When she left it, she toweled luxuriously and then dressed in her most comfortable clothes, sweatpants and a ragged sweatshirt.
She had put one shoe on when the telephone sounded, and she dropped the other shoe and hobbled to pick up the receiver.
“Hello? …
“Yes, this is she. …
“Yes, what did it show?…
“I see. What are the numbers?…
“Well, will you please send a copy of the report to my home? …
“Thank you very much.”
She wasn’t conscious of putting on the other shoe. She wandered about the house. Eventually, she made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drank a glass of milk.
A long-term dream come true, winning the globe’s best lottery.
But … the responsibility!
The world seemed to be growing bleaker and meaner as technology shrank it. Everywhere, people were killing people.
Maybe, this year, a child will be born who …
So unfair, even to think of placing on unborn shoulders the burden of being a secret saint, or even of becoming a Rob J., next in the line of the Cole physicians. It will be enough, she thought incredulously, to produce a human being, a good human being.
It was such an easy choice.
This child would come home to a warm house and would be familiar with good smells of cooking and baking. R.J. thought of what she would have to try to teach her/him—gentleness, how to love, how to be strong and deal with fear, how to exist with the live things in the woods, how to read a river for trout. How to make a trail, choose a path. About the legacy of heartrocks.
She felt as though her mind would burst. She wanted to walk for hours, but the wind was still outside, and it had begun to snow heavily.
She turned on the CD player and sat in a kitchen chair. Now the Mozart concerto made sense and spoke to her sweetly of joy and anticipation. R.J. calmed as she sat and listened, her palms on her stomach. The music swelled. She could feel it being carried from her ears down nerve pathways through tissue and bone. It was powerful enough to travel to her soul and to the very core of her being, down to the little pool where the tiny fish swam.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
During the writing of this novel a number of physicians shared with me their very limited time, answered my questions, and loaned me books and materials. Among them were private practitioners—Richard Warner, M.D., of Buckland, MA; Barry Poret, M.D., and Nancy Bershof, M.D., both of Greenfield, MA; Christopher French, M.D., of Shelburne Falls, MA; and Wolfgang G. Gilliar, D.O., of San Francisco.
I received help also from academic and hospital physicians, including Louis R. Caplan, M.D., chairman of the Department of Neurology at Tufts University and Neurologist-in-Chief at New England Medical Center, Boston; Charles A. Vacanti, M.D., professor of anesthesiology and chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Worcester, MA; and William F. Doyle, M.D., chairman of the Department of Pathology, Franklin Medical Center, Greenfield, MA.
I received information from Esther W. Purinton, R.N., Director of Quality Management at Franklin Medical Center, and from midwife Liza Ramlow, CMW. Susan Newsome of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts talked with me about abortion; so did Virginia A. Talbot, R.N., of Hampden Gynecological Associates and the Bay State Medical Center, Springfield, MA., and Kathleen A. Mellen, R.N. Polly Weiss of West Palm Beach, FL, provided reasoned insights about the anti-abortion movement.
As usual, I found help in my hometown. Margaret Keith furnished anthropological information about bones; Suzanne Corbett talked with me about horses; EMTs Philip Lucier and Roberta Evans refreshed my memories of a hilltown ambulance service; and Denise Jane Buckloh, the former Sister Miriam of the Eucharist, OCD, provided insights into Catholicism and sociology. Farmer Ted Bobetsky and Don Buckloh of the U.S. Department of Agriculture told me about husbandry. Don Buckloh also made available to me the books on bee-keeping that had belonged to his father, the late Harold W. Buckloh of Coldwater, OH. Attorney Stewart Eisenberg and former Ashfield Police Chief Gary Sibilia advised me about prison sentencing, and Russell Fessenden provided information about his late grandfather, Dr. George Russell Fessenden, an early country doctor.
Roger L. West, DVM, of Conway, MA, talked with me about bovine obstetrics, and dairy farmer David Thibault of that town allowed me to witness his delivery of a calf.
Julie Reilly, objects conservator at the Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, DE, provided details about dating old ceramics, and I received help from Susan McGowan of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Old Deerfield, MA. I am grateful also to the Memorial Libraries at Historic Deerfield, and to the staffs at the Belding Memorial Library in Ashfield and at the libraries of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
For their advice and support I thank my literary agent, Eugene H. Winick of McIntosh & Otis, Inc., Dr. Karl H. Blessing of the Droemer Knaur Publishing Company in Munich, and Peter Mayer and Robert Dreesen of Penguin Books USA.
Last, I thank my family. Lorraine Gordon is skilled at fulfilling multiple roles—wife, business manager, literary guide. Lise Gordon, my valued editor as well as my daughter, lived with this book before it was delivered to my publishers. Roger Weiss, computer maven as well as son-in-law, kept my technology current and working. Daughter Jamie Beth Gordon generously allowed me to share with my characters and readers her creative passion for heartrocks (the term Heartrocks is legally protected by her and may be used only with her permission). Michael Gordon, my son, offered valued advice on several levels, and when emergency surgery kept me from accepting the James Fenimore Cooper Prize in person, he attended the awards ceremony in New York and delivered my remarks.
This book is theirs, with my love.
Matters of Choice is the third book of a trilogy about the Cole family of physicians. The first two novels in the series, The Physician and Shaman, have won literary prizes and are international best-sellers. The trilogy has occupied my life for thirteen years, and it has taken me from the eleventh century to the present day. I’m grateful I was able to go on such a fascinating voyage.
—Ashfield, Massachusetts
February 16, 1995
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Noah Gordon has had outstanding international success. The Physician, soon to be a motion picture, has been called a modern classic, and booksellers at the Madrid Book Fair voted it “one of the 10 best-loved books of all time.” Shaman was awarded the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for historical fiction. Both of these books, and five of the author’s other novels—The Rabbi, The Death Committee, The Jerusalem Diamond, Matters of Choice, and The Winemaker—are published in digital formats by Barcelona eBooks and Open Road Integrated Media. Gordon’s novel, The Last Jew, will also be published digitally in the near future. He lives outside of Boston with his wife, Lorraine Gordon.
