The Doctor's Wife by Elizabeth Brundage Page A

important cause. You know how I feel about the issue. And I do think you should do it. It’s just hard for me, sometimes.”
     
     
    “I know.”
     
     
    “When it comes to the rest of the world you’re right there. When it comes to us, it’s take a number and get in line.”
     
     
    Michael put his arms around her. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
     
     
    “It’s true,” she whispered. “I do.”
     
     
    “I’ll call her and tell her I can’t make it,” he said, knowing that Annie would never make him do it. Annie had a fundamentally magnanimous nature. She wasn’t the type to deny anyone who needed help.
     
     
    “No. That’s not the right thing either. She needs your help. I understand that.” She turned and looked at him. “Give it a try and see how it goes. Maybe it won’t be so bad. But you’d better go explain it to Henry.”
     
     
    Michael had given Henry a science kit for his tenth birthday, and since that day the cellar had been renamed the laboratory. Henry had already decided that he was going to be a scientist and not, as he often reminded his father, a doctor. Doctors were never home, he would lecture Michael, whereas scientists needed to look no farther than straight down their noses into a microscope. Henry spent most of his afternoons down here, immersed in some new experiment, and Rosie, who was just a first grader, was often his loyal assistant. Rosie, too, had an interest in science, it seemed, and had concocted a few experiments of her own. Her latest, she excitedly informed Michael, was a new dog-hair dye for Molly made from crushed-up watercolor paints and condensed milk, mixed together and set on the radiator for an hour or two to “cook.” Molly languished away the hours on the cellar floor like a proud mother, and hadn’t seemed terribly concerned when Rosie painted the awful brown mixture onto her fur.
     
     
    Tonight his kids were sitting side by side on stools, fine-tuning Henry’s extraordinary windmill. Michael went over and toyed with the contraption—the tower had been constructed out of Popsicle sticks, the wheel out of tongue depressors and a wire hanger. Henry had set up a small fan to keep the wheel spinning. “Wind-generated energy,” Henry explained, launching into a lengthy description of the project. “When I grow up I’m going to change things,” he said seriously.
     
     
    “I believe you will, Henry,” Michael said. “I wish you were running for president.”
     
     
    Henry looked up at Michael cautiously. “You’re not coming tomorrow, are you?”
     
     
    “Well, actually, Hen—”
     
     
    Henry cut him off. “Actually what?”
     
     
    “Remember I told you about Dr. James and her clinic? She needs my help tomorrow. It’s important. I told her I’d help her out.”
     
     
    “Doing what?”
     
     
    Michael considered lying to him, but then admitted, “Doing what we were talking about before, at dinner.”
     
     
    “I don’t think it’s right,” Henry said directly.
     
     
    This information astonished Michael. “You don’t?”
     
     
    “No, I don’t.” Henry went to the stairs and for a moment Michael grappled for a rationalization to offer him, a way of making abortion seem okay. But then Henry said, “I don’t think it’s right for a father to miss his son’s science fair.”
     
     
    “I know, Henry,” Michael said, relieved. “But sometimes it’s difficult.”
     
     
    “You never come to my school. You never do anything for me.”
     
     
    “That’s not true and you know it.”
     
     
    “Forget it. I don’t want you to come anyway.” He charged upstairs to the second floor and slammed the door to his room.
     
     
    “That’s not nice, Daddy,” Rosie admonished. She crossed her arms over her chest and marched upstairs. “Come on, Molly.”
     
     
    Molly cocked her head and stared at him, then slowly, with her tail between her legs, climbed the stairs.
     
     
    Henry lectured Michael for