"She'd been sick for years," Bonnie told him impatiently. "She had allergies, migraines, a weak heart. She'd been born with some sort of heart defect, so there were a lot of things she couldn't do."

"She spent a lot of time with doctors?" Dr. Greenspoon asked.

"I guess," Bonnie admitted uneasily. "What are you getting at?"

"You don't think it's curious that your mother had all these physical problems, yet you deny yourself even the possibility of being sick? That she spent a lot of time with doctors, yet you won't even consider going for a checkup?"

Bonnie twisted in her seat, her right foot tapping furiously on the floor. She shrugged, said nothing. Why had she come here? He was only making her feel worse.

"How did she die?" Walter Greenspoon asked.

"The doctor said it was a stroke."

"You don't agree?"

"I don't think it was quite as simple as that."

"How so?"

"I'd really rather not get into all that right now."

"As you wish," the doctor said easily. "What about your father?"

"What about him?"

"Is he healthy?"

"He seems to be."

"Are you close?"

"No."

"Can you tell me why?"

"My father walked out on my mother a long time ago. I didn't see a whole lot of him after that."

"And you naturally resent him for that."

"It was very hard on my mother."

"Was that when she started getting sick?"

"No. She'd been sick before. I told you, she had a bad heart. But she got worse after he left, no question about that."

"And your brother? Did he live with your father or did he stay with you and your mother?"

"He stayed with us." Bonnie laughed. "It's ironic when you think about it because now he's living with my father and my father's wife, wife number three, if you're counting, and they're all living in my mother's house. Happy as peas in a pod."

"You don't sound very happy."

Bonnie laughed again, louder this time. "It's really funny how things turn out, don't you think, Dr. Greenspoon?"

"Sometimes."

"Look, why are we talking about all this? It's not relevant to anything."

"How often do you see your father?" Dr. Greenspoon asked, as if she hadn't spoken.

"I just saw him a few weeks ago," Bonnie answered, knowing this wasn't exactly an answer to the question Dr. Greenspoon had asked.

"Before you started feeling sick?"

"Yes."

"And when was the last time you saw him before that?" he continued, refusing to let her off the hook so easily.

"The last time I saw him before that was at my mother's funeral."

Dr. Greenspoon took several seconds to consider her answer. "Do you blame your father for your mother's death?"

Bonnie scratched at the side of her nose, pulled at her hair, rocked back and forth in her seat. "Look, what are you trying to say? Are you trying to tell me that my long-pent-up feelings of hostility toward my-what was it you called it? my family of origin?-that these long-repressed feelings are the cause of my current symptoms?"

"Do you have long-repressed feelings of hostility?" he asked.

"I don't think it takes a genius to figure out the answer to that one, do you, Doctor?"

"Have you ever talked with your father about your feelings?"

"No. What for?"

"For you."

"What possible good would it do? He's not going to change."

"You wouldn't be doing it for him."

"You think if I talked to him, that I would suddenly start to feel better? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"It might prove liberating. But what's important here is not what I think-it's what you think."

Bonnie stopped rocking, sat perfectly still. "In that case, I think I could have saved myself a lot of money if I'd gone to my family doctor for a checkup instead of coming here."

"Probably true. Do you have a family doctor?"

"No," Bonnie admitted. Amanda had a pediatrician, and Rod went for annual checkups, but she had no one.

"Would you let me recommend someone for you?"

"Why? You obviously think my problems aren't physical."

"I think we're dealing with two very different things here," he told her, "one of which we can clear up fairly easily with a visit to the doctor. The other will require more time."

"I just want to start feeling better," Bonnie told him, verging on tears. She hated feeling this helpless, this out of control.

Dr. Greenspoon walked over to his desk, pressing down on his intercom. "Hyacinth, can you get Paul Kline for me on the phone?" He looked back at Bonnie. "His office is just around the corner, and he owes me a favor. He's a nice man. I think you'll like him."

A moment later, the intercom on his desk buzzed. "I have Dr. Kline on line one."

"Paul," Dr. Greenspoon said immediately. "I have someone I'd like you to have a look at right away."

24.

"Take a deep breath. That's good. Now, let it out. Good. Again."

Bonnie took another deep breath, then slowly released it. Again the doctor complimented her on her breathing. Again she felt strangely grateful.

"And one more," Dr. Kline instructed, maneuvering the stethoscope underneath the blue cotton robe the nurse had given her to put on. The metal felt cold against her bare skin. "How long has it been since you had a checkup, Mrs. Wheeler?"

"I can't remember," Bonnie told him. "Years."

"And the general state of your health?"

"Good. I never get sick," she told him with less conviction than earlier such p.r.o.nouncements.

"Do you have a gynecologist?"

"I saw one when I was pregnant," Bonnie said, although, in truth, she'd only availed herself of the woman during her last trimester, and only then at Diana's insistence. "I'm not sick," she'd told Diana, "I'm pregnant," "I'm not pregnant, am I?" Bonnie asked now, surprising herself with the question she hadn't meant to ask. "I mean, I couldn't be pregnant. It's not possible."

"When was your last period?" Dr. Kline asked.

"Three weeks ago. And I'm on the pill. And I never forget to take it."

"Then the odds are you aren't pregnant," Dr. Kline a.s.sured her. "It's a little early to be having morning sickness, particularly such severe symptoms. But we'll do some blood tests and get a sample of urine. That should help explain why you've been feeling so poorly. Turn this way," he said, drawing down on her lower eyelid and shining a narrow beam of light into her left eye.

Dr. Greenspoon was right-Dr. Kline was a nice man, not too tall and a little on the plump side, but possessing a natural grace and dignity. He was about forty years old, had thinning brown hair, and warm hazel eyes. His hands were small and soft, his fingers surprisingly long. When he touched her, it was always gently, as if he understood she was fragile, but firmly, as if to rea.s.sure her of his own strength.

The office, on Chestnut, only a five-minute walk from Dr. Greenspoon's office, was on the ground floor of a three-story brownstone that had been converted into a mini-medical building. Stately old wooden beams mingled with the latest in technology and equipment. Built-in bookshelves filled with giant medical tomes lined the walls. A traditional eye chart was tacked to the wall opposite the window, surrounded by a coterie of impressive degrees: a diploma from Harvard's medical school, another from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and several others she was too tired to read. Pictures of Dr. Kline's family lined the top of his large cluttered desk. Three sons and a pretty, dark-haired wife, the snapshots charting their growth from babies to teens with the wife remaining remarkably the same throughout, give or take a few pounds. Dr. Kline's nurse, a woman about Bonnie's age, with frosted hair and an engaging smile, stood discreetly off to one side of the room, looking eerily like a statue by Duane Hanson, monitoring the proceedings without moving.

"How's your vision been?" Dr. Kline asked, peering into her other eye.

"Fine."

He handed her a piece of black plastic, instructed her to place it over her right eye, then read the third line of the eye chart on the opposite wall. She did. He then asked her to put the plastic cover over her other eye and read the fourth line. She did that too. "Good," he said, pulling gently on her earlobe, examining the inside of her ear with another instrument. "Any earaches?"

"No. Why? Do you see something?"

"A little wax. We can get rid of that easily enough." He moved to her other ear. "Dizziness?"

"Sometimes."

"And you said you were nauseous."

"All the time."

"Vomiting?"

"On a number of occasions. What does that mean?"

"Could be an inner ear infection."

"What does that mean?" she asked again.

"Inner ear infections manifest themselves in different ways. It usually affects your balance, which can result in dizziness, nausea, general malaise."

"And what can be done about it?"

"Not much, unfortunately. It's viral, so antibiotics are of no use. It's something you basically just have to wait out."

"So, there's nothing you can do," Bonnie stated, as if she'd known it all along.

"I didn't say that," he told her, his hands on her throat, pressing on her glands.

"You said we just have to wait it out."

"I was referring to inner ear infections. I'm not sure that's what we're dealing with here. Open your mouth and say 'aw.'"

Bonnie opened her mouth. Dr. Kline stuck a tongue depressor inside it, pressing down against the back of her tongue. "Aw," she said, and immediately felt herself gag.

"You all right?" Dr. Kline removed the tongue depressor, discarding it in a nearby wastepaper basket.

"You're the doctor. You tell me."

"Well," he began, "you don't have a fever; you don't have a cold; your eyes are fine; your lungs are clear; your throat is good; your nasal pa.s.sages are clear, and you don't have swollen glands, at least in your neck. Let's see about the glands in your groin. Could you lie down, please?"

Bonnie stretched back on the examining table. Immediately the doctor's hands were pressing into her stomach and groin. The area felt tender, and she winced.

"That hurt?" he asked.

"A little."

"A few swollen glands here," he said, manipulating the glands in her groin. "Okay, you can sit up now." He handed her a small bottle. "Why don't you give me a urine sample," he said. "Debbie will show you where to go, and when you come back, we'll draw some blood."