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"Now don't be obstinate, Johanna," he said to her. "Here's a nice young man come to visit. Say hello,
dear."
He said it in such a positive tone that Andrew almost expected her to do it. For a second, it even looked
as if she was trying. He took her hand and waited, but after a few minutes, she was gone again and he felt
like a fool.
Andrew had crazy, frustrated moments when he was convinced that she was only doing this because she
wanted to, out of some whim that she could cast off in a second just by changing her mind. He didn't see
that Johanna might have wanted to talk, wanted it desperately at times, but she had either forgotten how
or was terrified that talking would force her to reenter a world with which she couldn't cope, and in which
she felt she no longer belonged. Who needed her there? Walter was gone, Andrew was grown and
starting his own life, independent of her. And Johanna had always been a woman who needed to be
needed.
The man shrugged, sighed again, and said, "All right. Spite me. But tomorrow for sure."
Andrew followed the man out of the room, still feeling surly.
"You want to tell me where my mother's nurse is and who you are?" he said, rather curtly.
"Nurse Jackson is having a short nap. The afternoon nurse had a nasty cold and Nurse Jackson has had
to work a double shift, poor thing." He didn't sound as if he noticed Andrew's tone of voice.
"I don't like this. Mother isn't supposed to be alone."
"She isn't alone. I'm with her."
"Yes," he said, as if explaining things to an idiot, "but who are you?"
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Oh, good Lord! Sorry. I thought your uncle wrote you. I'm her
doctor, Simon Spencer. Been treating her for two months, actually."
"I thought Dr. Justin was her doctor. He's the family doctor, Uncle James arranged it."
Spencer looked reflective. "Well, Justin wasn't doing much for your mother. Oh, he's a nice enough old
boy and all that, but he's too satisfied with the status quo. As long as your mother is physically healthy, he
thinks he's doing a bang-up job. Your uncle contacted me because he wasn't convinced that nothing
could be done for her, and I agreed to see her."
"At this hour?"
"She does keep awful hours, doesn't she? But then, so do I. I like to see her every day; I'm still building
her trust. And I'm trying to wean her off this terrible habit of staying up all night and sleeping all day. I
have the feeling that Johanna is awake at night because she's watching for something, or someone. But
she needs to go outside, she needs more light and exercise."
"Why wouldn't Uncle James have told me this?"
"I'm a psychiatrist. If you want mind reading, it costs extra. Ah& here's our Nurse Jackson!"
"Am I late?" the nurse said, a little out of bream. "You did say I could have an hour, didn't you, Dr.
Spencer?" Her plain little face brightened. It was obvious that she had a crush on this aristocratic doctor,
something that he was probably used to.
"You're fine, dear," he assured her, "but you can brew Mrs. Marley some hot tea, if you will. Chamomile.
I'd like her to sleep and she'll stay up all night if I let her."
"Of course," the nurse said. "Any medication?"
"Let's just try the hot tea first."
"Hot tea?" Andrew said in a nasty, condescending tone that sounded boorish even to himself. "You
certainly use all the state-of-the-art medical miracles, don't you?"
The little nurse regarded him with indignant scorn, but Spencer seemed unaffected, maybe even amused.
"If you'll just do that for me right now, Nurse Jackson?" he said.
She scurried downstairs, happy to be of service.
"Shall we talk now, Mr. Marley, or would you prefer to come to my office tomorrow?"
"Right now is fine with me," he said tightly, leading him to Walter's study.
"Mr. Marley," he said, settling into one of Walter's deep leather chairs, "I've had no trouble diagnosing
your mother's problems. Would you care to tell me yours?"
This frankness took Andrew so by surprise that he suddenly realized that he didn't know what his
problems really were. So he just said the first things that popped into his head. "Very well. You're too
young. You're too arrogant. I don't think I like you and I'm not sure you're good for Mother." He knew
he sounded superficial and spiteful, like a defensive child, but he was unable to stop it.
"Hmm," he said, considering, "You left out the part about your uncle engaging me without your consent."
"You can add that. Thank you."
"Let's see if I can put your mind at ease. I'm a qualified psychiatrist, graduated at the top of my class at
Johns Hopkins" he ticked off each point on his fingers "I was on the Tulane Medical School faculty
and now I have a select private practice, though I still lecture infrequently. It's true that I probably hold
too high an opinion of myself, and whether you like me or not means absolutely nothing. I'd rather you
did, but it won't keep me up nights. As for your mother, what do you want for her?"
That left Andrew at a loss. He wanted his mother to be normal again, but he was afraid to hope that that
would even be realistic. Still, medical miracles happened just often enough to delude him into thinking his
mother's case was special.
"Let me tell you what I want for her," Spencer said. "I think that mere maintenance is the worst thing for
her. It amounts to letting her give up. My patients are never allowed to give up. I don't."
"Dr. Justin said she'd never get better. Everybody said it, and believe me, I've asked every doctor in the
field."
"I think she can."
"Why are you getting involved with this? Why would you want to take a hopeless case?"
Spencer smiled. "Why are you a priest? If you saw someone in spiritual pain, wouldn't you try to help? I
don't like to see people in pain, either, and the mind's pain is the worst of all. It's insidious. It poisons the
soul and the body."
"When your uncle started looking for another doctor, someone on the staff at New Orleans Psychiatric
recommended me. I had heard about the lady: some of my colleagues knew your father. I was challenged
and I started treating her. That's about it, I suppose."
"Can you cure her?"
He shrugged. "Who knows? Psychiatry is like marriage; you're never certain how it will turn out until the
two of you have been at it a while. I will tell you that I think she has a much better chance with me than
she had with Justin."
"Because you're a better doctor?" He was beginning to lose his angry edge. The man was a sincere
charmer.
Spencer knew when he'd won Andrew over, he could spot it in a minute and he was a man who knew
how to expand on an advantage. "Well, there's that, of course. And I really want to help her. I can't stand
to see the waste of a person like your mother. From everything I've been told, she's a witty, bright, loving
woman."
The memory of Johanna as she had been and so very recently still hadn't been dulled by distance. It's
odd how time can do that, Andrew thought, wear away at the sharp blade of pain until it's so blunt you
feel it only vaguely.
"She was that," he said.
"She still is. All we have to do is restore her. It's like restoring a painting: get rid of all the dull layers of
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