“Hey dear, Petie and I bought a house today!” the Doctor had said to her. She’d propped herself up in the hospital bed, newborn Chrissy at her breast.
“You did what?”
“It’s on the lake,” he’d said, sounding pleased with himself. At the time, she’d wondered if she was hearing properly. She’d wondered if giving birth had addled her brain and she was having a small hallucination.
“It was built by a Norwegian doctor,” Petie added. Petie thinks the Doctor is the best man who ever lived. The Doctor’s Wife thinks this too, naturally, and at the time, she hadn’t really cared what the house looked like. All of a sudden she’d had three kids to take care of and so it didn’t matter that she’d loved Cherry Acres, the place they’d rented from the Manning family. Cherry Acres sat at the top of the hill, five acres of orchards overlooking the lake. The Doctor’s Wife is not a person who needs to live on the water. She prefers a long view.