The Doctor's Wife by Luis Jaramillo

front door, demonstrating where it sticks.
    â€œIt’s so wet here in Washington. It must expand because of the moisture and then it sticks,” Carlos says. He wants to impress his future father-in-law.
    â€œSo what do we do?”
    â€œWe take the door down and adjust the hinges. It’s more work, but that’s the only long-term solution.”
    â€œCome look at this,” the Doctor says.
    Carlos follows the Doctor into the kitchen. The Doctor opens and closes the spice cabinet.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” the Doctor’s Wife asks.
    â€œWe probably ought to work on these hinges too, isn’t that right, Carlos?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œProbably that’s what’s the matter with the upstairs shower door. Isn’t that right, Carlos?”
    â€œAre you going to finish the front door first?” the Doctor’s Wife asks.
    Carlos and the Doctor take the door off the hinges, walking it down the stairs, around to the big basement door. Gretel follows the two inside the basement, parking herself next to the table saw.
    â€œOil-based paint is a whole lot messier and a pain to deal with, but water-based paint doesn’t stick to wood,” says the Doctor. “Isn’t that right, Carlos?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI recently repainted the south side of the house with anti-spider formula. Reduced the number of spiders by a lot. I don’t know of any formula for spiders that I can put into water-based paint. For my money, I feel more comfortable with the oil-based.”
    Carlos gets ready to answer in the affirmative.
    â€œIsn’t that right, Gretel?” the Doctor asks.
    Gretel examines her undercarriage.

Ann
    The Doctor is on the phone. It’s 1974 and Ann is pregnant.
    â€œYou need to go get tested, you and Carlos.”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œTo make sure your baby doesn’t have what John had.”
    What John had? All Ann can remember is that John had bright eyes, was smart, smart, and then he didn’t let go of the coffee table when he was supposed to. She remembers he was healthy and then he was dying. She doesn’t remember the in-between.
    â€œIt’s a genetic disease. There’s a test now.”
    Ann and Luis drive up to the Stanford Medical Center where they have plugs of skin taken out of their arms, the fleshy part at the back of the bicep. The plug has a depth of four millimeters to get down to the subcutaneous fat so that the doctor can look for unmylenated nerve fibers and to check for the production of Asulfaditide (A). Both parents have to be carriers. If both parents are carriers, their offspring have a one-in-four chance of getting the disease.

Variety Show
    The handle of the badminton racquet is my microphone. I’ve arranged everyone in the living room after dinner. The curtains are open to the lake. My mom holds my little brother, a baby, on the low couch on one side of the bone table. Petrea and her new husband, who happens to be Jewish and from Los Angeles, sit on the other. The Doctor sits in his moss green Danish recliner. My dad and grandmother lean forward as I give the order to the Doctor to dance around the room like an Indian. The Doctor has a tremor and even I know his health isn’t good, but that will not excuse him from his act. He dances in a two-step shuffle, circling the room as he whoops with his palm in front of his mouth.
    Everybody else nearly dies laughing, but I don’t appreciate the hilarity. The Indian Dance is supposed to be solemn.

Toys
    I’m four, my brother is two and our parents have gone away to Europe for six weeks. For the first three we stay in Lake Stevens. On the wall of the upstairs hallway, my grandmother hangs up a large world map. We jab pushpins in where our parents are expected to be, and then connect the pins with pieces of colored string. They are now supposedly taking an overnight train from Rome to Paris.
    â€œThey sleep on the train?” I