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One little goat, one little goat That Father bought for two zuzim. One little goat, one little goat.
chapter one
Rebecca
Tuesday, March 27, 1979
Every time Rebecca drove to the office that first week back she saw David’s face in the rear-view mirror. At first it alarmed her, seeing a dead person’s face. But then she realized it wasn’t his face at all. It was the reflection of his face in her own eyes she was seeing. An image she carried around with her like other people carry photos in their wallets.
The sun floated pale in the sky after the long winter as she drove David’s Jaguar coupe to the medical building. Spring was ironic this year. What good was the stirring of buds on maple branches to her, or the pointed daffodil shoots reaching through the soil? David would not come back this spring. She would have to stop looking in the rear-view mirror.
She turned down Beverley Street, luminous and still, in a haze of Victorian manor-houses built in the 1870s. Immigrant semi-detached homes had sprung up in between. She always felt like she was coming home when she turned down this street. She’d spent her happiest years as an undergrad at the University of Toronto barely two blocks away. In her second year she’d met David in an art history course she’d chosen as a breadth requirement for science students. Lanky and red-haired then, he attracted her notice with his irreverent ongoing commentary about the slides of famous paintings the professor was projecting on the screen. It wasn’t till he graduated that he took his art seriously. By then she was in medical school. Their lives had stretched before them then like a landscape — she thought of the muted colours, the Impressionist attention to light in his early work. If only she’d been paying attention. Maybe he would be alive. If only she’d noticed the change in his palette, it would’ve been a clue.
Through her windshield she could see Beverley Mansions, a series of pale brick double-houses, once grand, now renovated by the city into flats. Second Empire they were called, trying to make an impression. Their sculptured ornamental style captured the air of optimism and ambition for money in the time following Confederation. The cladding was cream yellow brick topped with mansard roofs.
The sun warmed her through the window as she pulled into the little parking lot behind the building. April was the month that bred lilacs out of the dead land. It should’ve been a time to re-invent herself, like the season; they had both gone through a death. The earth was accustomed to rising from the debris of winter; she didn’t know if she had the strength.
In February, the Eglinton Avenue building that housed her former office had been evacuated for extensive renovations. Instead of relocating to a temporary office where she could continue to see her patients, she closed up shop altogether. It was a sudden decision that surprised everyone — including her. She had always put on a strong face, didn’t show her pain, often denying it herself. But she knew she had come to the end of her rope. Her stamina and concentration were gone and she worried about making a mistake. She wouldn’t jeopardize the welfare of her patients. She would have to concede that she, too, was human and couldn’t always cope.
She found the vacancy on Beverley Street with her last ounce of energy, then retreated into herself, leaving Iris to set up the new office. Rebecca had never been good at that sort of thing; she’d always let David worry about colours and design. She knew she could trust Iris, who was more than an office assistant; a friend. She’d left Iris few instructions apart from some aesthetic comments about her deep loathing of the colour orange and the flat industrial paintings of Fernand Léger. Other than that Iris had had a free hand, and she’d done well.
During that first week in the new office, the languid smell of paint, the surprise at the high ceilings and wood mouldings had faded comfortably into a suggestion of fresh beginnings, perhaps a wary hope. She had the whole second floor of the building. The waiting-room, decorated in designer shades of mauve and grey, never held more than a few patients. People had probably found other doctors in her two-month absence. Iris had spent the last few weeks sending out notices of Rebecca’s imminent return to practice, but her former patients were not knocking down her door. That was fine. Rebecca needed to ease into real life again. The eight weeks she had given herself seemed like eight months. She was starting her days at one, and found herself finished at six.
Behind the partition, Iris’ round face broke into her usual welcoming smile when she saw Rebecca. “How are you today, love?”
Rebecca slid into the upholstered chair beside Iris, who handed her the x-ray and other test results that had come that morning. The phone rang and Iris’ mother-hen voice comforted and made an appointment for a patient with a problem. Rebecca looked up to watch her. Iris was one of the constants in her life. Tall, unrepentantly bulky, Iris carried her extra fifty or so pounds with such authority under richly tailored suits and dresses that her size became an advantage. Her short blonde hair defied gravity, swept up and away from her neck in shiny controlled waves. Rebecca had been lucky to find her at that point in Iris’ life when her children were grown and her divorce pending. Rebecca had been enchanted by the verve and energy manifest in the amplitude of the hips, the direction of the hair.
Apart from her parents, Iris had been the one Rebecca had leaned on the most during David’s final months. Iris was the one who had done double duty in the office, arranging for other doctors to cover for Rebecca while she ran back and forth from the hospital. That last time in the office, when it became clear that all hope had run out, Iris had taken her in her arms and let her cry, gently explaining that she would have to leave her tears there because David needed her strong.
Iris was wearing a mauve suit today, matching the decor. “You start at one with Mr. Bellini,” she said handing Rebecca a file. “Oh, and Mrs. Kochinsky called for an appointment tomorrow.”
“Is she still seeing Dr. Romanov?”
“She said she prefers you. She not only wants the one o’clock tomorrow — she wants her old slot back, every Wednesday.”
Rebecca allowed herself a momentary smile. Dr. Romanov had covered for her during her absence. Apparently he had done fine with stomach ailments and skin rashes, but had no knack for psychotherapy. She had hoped Mrs. Kochinsky would return for her weekly sessions. Though Rebecca practiced general medicine, she had realized over the ten years of treating patients that a handful of them needed to talk out their problems more than they needed sedatives or painkillers. A certain rapport with her patients was required but the decision to conduct psychotherapy always grew out of Rebecca’s concern for their physical well-being. Mrs. Kochinsky refused all medication but had eagerly arrived for therapy each week like clockwork since coming to Canada from Argentina one and a half years earlier.
Rebecca stood up to retrieve Mrs. Kochinksy’s file from the wall unit, leaned over to sniff the vase of daffodils Iris had arranged on the counter near her desk. Their fluted yellow centres emanated a sweet vapour filled with hope and mute possibility. Incomprehensible spring. She felt it creeping into her shrunken heart in those sudden moments when the fading fragrance of new paint wafted through the air.
She took the file and stepped into her office. A new print of Monet’s Lilies hung on the wall. She had removed all of David’s sketches and watercolours from the old office and put them into her basement. Maybe one day she would be able to look at them.
She sat down in her new grey leather chair and opened Mrs. Kochinsky’s file. “Severe anxiety and insomnia. Very agitated. Rx: mild sedative. Patient refuses meds. Worries that somehow they can be tampered with. Consistent with persecutory thinking. Recommended psychiatrist, but patient reluctant.”
