* * *
She stared reflectively at the parking lot beyond the tinted window, where the blinding August sun bounced off windshields and bends of chrome, throwing starbursts of acid-white light into her eyes. When it became too insufferable to bear, she squinted and looked away. It seemed the world would be offering her no safe haven today, not from the son in the room or from the sun in the sky.
But they were both one and the same, the sun and her son. Poetically, she knew it to be true, and since there was no sign of the doctor being anywhere close to walking in, she allowed her mind to run with the idea…but not at first.
They are always late, doctors. A million dollars says it’s something they’re taught in medical school. "Make them wait a bit. Studies have shown that anticipation increases heart rate, which in turn increases the likelihood of diagnosing congenital heart defects, blah-blah-blah…" Doctors are the worst. While they possess the ability to cure, the worry that accumulates from waiting inside their cold, sterile boxes for hours on end sow the seeds for God knows how many future illnesses and phobias. They think they know it all, those smart men and women in their pressed white lab coats, with their stethoscopes dangling from their necks like thin, metal snakes. But they don’t know it all, do they? Not by a long shot do they come close to understanding what it truly means to be human. When it comes to the soul and the power inherent in it, they’re the most ignorant bastards on the face of the earth. Let them try to explain beauty away through genetics, or the feeling of triumph one gets playing a sonata through the physiology of the human brain. Let’s just see how far they get. Those poor people—those scientists—deserve pity, not praise, for dedicating their lives to turgid, left-brained pursuits—pursuits that make your mother proud and put a wad of dough in your pocket but ultimately starve the soul. The world’s worst doctor is still regarded as a mini-god for the mere fact that he, at some point in his young adult life, graduated from medical school. But try auditioning for Juilliard, getting rejected, then auditioning five more times and getting rejected after each successive attempt, and then…well, then you’re what people call a failure. Lose most of your musical abilities after a nervous breakdown at the age of twenty-five, raise a mess of a son, and by the time you’re thirty-six, you get the pleasure of sitting in a freezing cold emergency clinic waiting room on a Sunday afternoon while some dying pervert stares at your spider vein-ridden legs. Jesus Christ, what a fucking life.
What was I thinking? Oh, yeah: the sun and my son—how they are both alike. Funny how the mind wanders when it’s given the opportunity. Before I started rambling on about doctors, I was thinking about that old saying: you are the light of my life. I guess it holds true for the light in the sky as well as my flesh and bone. I can’t believe what went through my mind yesterday, about Hector standing on an auction block and no one bidding on him. Because I would. I would bid on him every time.
Hector deserved better. His daddy walked out on him (and me) when Hector was six, so any chance of a normal upbringing was out of the question. As a child—a young child—he had been energetic, bright, and skinny. But that all changed, beginning that late November day when a family of three instantly became a family of two. I should have noticed the onset of the transformation when, two months later, I caught him adding cup after cup of sugar to the Kool-Aid pitcher. I didn’t scold him then (I hate raising my voice), but looking back on it now, I guess I was having problems of my own. By that point, I had given up on Juilliard, had allowed my dreams to drift away—sink is probably the better word for it—and had nearly forgotten there was a six-year-old wandering around my house that I was supposed to raise. As a result, Hector sort of raised himself for a while. Parking himself in front of the TV when he got home from school and getting into the chips and cookies that I had bought to feed my chronic depression became a way of life for Hector that quickly supplanted his love for playing piano and reading books. And it was all my fault. He ballooned up so fast (I never gained a pound) that the school nurse called one afternoon to ask if Hector had a medical condition. I was so embarrassed, I hung up on her. By then, I had acquired a reputation of being crazy to go along with my reputation of being a slut, so I’m sure the nurse thought nothing of my rudeness.
But what the nurse said that day awakened me. I realized it wasn’t just my life and reputation that I had to worry about, but also my son’s (sun). I couldn’t throw my life away without throwing his along with it. I can’t explain it with words, but I woke up that day and saw that the sun (son) was bright. I enrolled him in etiquette classes, Cub Scouts, piano lessons with Mrs. Trippitt—you name anything a normal seven-year-old does and I had him doing it. I thought he was getting better, losing weight, becoming more sociable. He had even dropped some of the foul language that he had picked up from God-knows-where. Then one summer evening, when he was twelve, I came home from work to find a large, dead rabbit lying on the porch steps, its light-brown fur streaked maroon with blood. Moving closer, I noticed that the poor thing’s head dangled over the bottom step on a thin hinge of flesh. Ants crawled in and out of its gaping windpipe. And the ears. I still remember how those floppy ears rested on the tramped-down grass: one ear flipped inside-out, like the letter C, the other laying flaccid over the animal’s face, like a pall.
I sure as hellfire yelled at him then. I even spanked him—something I swore I would never do. It felt downright shitty hitting a child, but I did it anyway. Truthfully, I didn’t know if I was doing it right. He’s just a kid, he’s your kid, and he’s cryin’ I told myself as I reigned blow after blow on his dimpled behind. The gorge rising in my throat told me to stop, but once you start something like that…
[There’s more to it than that, Debbie. What did he say before you started beating him?]
I didn’t beat him.
[Yes, you did. That’s exactly what you did. You whipped his bare ass with a spatula until it was beet red. Or are you choosing to forget that, too?]
Stop!! I remember. Just stop talking. He said, "I thought you could cook it." Are you happy now?
No answer.
Under the air vent, partially hidden behind a magazine, a pair of slate gray eyes began to shimmer. A hand moved up to conceal them, or perhaps to wipe them should they well up too much and spill over. It was such a dainty-delicate movement, pretty beyond all hope. Graceful as a stroke of a dove’s wing, yet disguised to look like the automatic grooming of an errant eyelash. Hector didn’t notice it, and you wouldn’t have either, you voyeur.