eight

Dr. Grovit’s office at Huntington Hospital was jam-packed with medical journals. Stacks of files, stuffed with papers so ancient they appeared yellowed at the edges, littered surfaces. This was a world where the term “carbon copy” still had meaning and the faint smell of bluish inky mimeographed paper refused to dissipate. It looked nothing like my father’s office, which would have served as an ideal location for an Anal Retentives Anonymous meeting. I sunk back into Dr. Grovit’s nubby couch. My sketchbook, half filled with pictures of my maybe-baby and now sprinkled with Marissa’s recollections of Bob’s conversation with an unknown man, lay on my lap.

“I’m sorry about your friend Bob,” Dr. Grovit said. He came out from his desk and handed me a box of tissues. “Tragic, actually.” Dr. Grovit shook. He’d been around a long time, but I assumed being crushed to death by garbage was a first even for him.

I blew my nose hard.

“It’s not a consolation,” Dr. Grovit sympathized, “but Katrina is fine. False labor. You can bring her home within the hour. She’s got a good two weeks ahead of her.”

“Thanks for seeing her,” I said, and then added, “I know she’s not your patient.” He wasn’t even an obstetrician, just an old-school doctor who believed the Hippocratic Oath preempted health care protocol. The type of doctor who responded without hesitation when a stranger yelled, “Is there a doctor in the house?” Based on the account from Charlie, who seemed to be channeling Sissie from Gone with the Wind, Dr. Grovit still had a few tricks up his sleeve. Apparently he examined Katrina right on his office couch, bypassing any form of hospital registration.

Dr. Grovit reached for his prescription pad. “Of course, Charlie might require sedation,” he said, smirking.

I honked through a laugh. “I think he’s got that covered on his own.” I tossed my soggy tissue in the basket.

“You two aren’t still dating, are you?” Dr. Grovit asked.

“No, but nice recall.” Dr. Grovit’s memory impressed me. Charlie and I hadn’t dated seriously since college … with a few hook-ups along the way. Most recently, after Teddy died. Charlie was a tough habit to break.

“I do remember when you were about sixteen and you asked me for birth control.” Dr. Grovit raised an eyebrow. “We had a nice long talk.”

“Now you’re embarrassing me.”

“Then I guess there’s no harm in asking if there’s someone new in the picture?”

Had someone else asked, I might have balked, but Dr. Grovit was like family. He had also been connected professionally to my brother and father, since they had all been employed by the Sound View Labs. Dr. Grovit took Teddy’s death hard. He felt terribly responsible for the dysfunctional environment my father had created at the labs. Dr. Grovit and Teddy had worked together, peers and pawns in my father’s twisted world of DNA manipulation.

I appreciated Dr. Grovit’s concern for me and my family. I had been an especially difficult teenager, and it amazed me that after years of my antisocial antics, he remained surprisingly neutral toward me. Unfortunately, I’d tested every boundary as a teen, single-handedly driving my parents bananas. Once I had mastered the standard teen fare—staying out past curfew, skipping school, and drinking—I cranked it up a notch. My adherence to Freeganism, a philosophy that elevates garbage to God status, seemed insane at the time, but Dr. Grovit never failed to interpret my actions with an eye to the big picture.

“She’s got character,” Dr. Grovit reminded my parents after they’d considered the possibility of an Outward Bound program that required more vaccinations than I had available skin on my arms. “Let her express herself.”

“I am seeing someone,” I admitted. A bit of blood surfaced on my injured finger. I reached for another tissue. “It’s a little complicated.”

“Try me.”

Without hesitation, I fessed up. “I’m dating Detective Frank DeRosa.”

Dr. Grovit’s mouth remained open until I spoke again.

“I don’t disappoint, do I?”

Dr. Grovit’s face struggled between disappointment and mild amusement. It’s the look a parent gives a child when the child curses inappropriately at exactly the right moment. “Mommy said you left the fucking sprinkler on all night.”

“You realize that if we play out your father’s original intent seventeen years ago, you may actually have a child out there.” Dr. Grovit leaned across his cluttered desk, clearing a narrow path. He tilted his nose forward to peer through smudged glasses.

Bring it on Doc, I thought. And while you’re at it, take my sketchbook filled with children’s faces and burn it.

“Tell me about it. I still can’t sleep,” I confirmed. “It’s killing me.”

Dr. Grovit lowered his head. “It’s my greatest professional regret. I was there. I should have asked more questions.”

“It’s not your fault. No one could have stopped my father.”

“Just to be clear,” Dr. Grovit said, “Frank does understand that your father removed your egg and Teddy’s sperm against your will, and that the result of that procedure is unknown?” Dr. Grovit removed his glasses. “We have no proof, but given your father’s objective to conduct a long-term DNA study, there is a possibility that your egg was fertilized with your brother’s sperm. If that, in fact happened, Frank would be the child’s uncle.”

The only saving grace in this insane scenario was that Teddy and I were not actually related. If there were a child, at the least I was comforted by the fact it wouldn’t have two heads.

“Does Frank understand this?” Dr. Grovit repeated.

“Only in the context of a story. It’s not real for him.” I swallowed hard. Specks of blood were staining my tissue. “He never met Teddy. At this point, he can’t grasp that Teddy was his brother. I feel like he has to come to terms with his own story before I try to change the ending by throwing a kid into the mix.”

“How would you categorize your relationship?”

Before I could stop myself I said, “Tense.”

“That doesn’t sound like much fun.”

“Scratch that,” I corrected. “I think we jumped in too fast.” It was true. We both fell hard and without thinking twice, Frank transferred from a county police position to the Cold Spring Harbor local force. Suddenly, he was around all the time. “We realized there was baggage, it started to get in the way, and now we’ve stepped back.” I stopped speaking. I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to tell Dr. Grovit.

“You’ll feel better when you finish your sentence.”

“I really love Frank and he loves me, but we were intimate too quickly.”

“Then I think stepping back was a very mature decision.”

“We’re trying.”

Dr. Grovit wobbled his head like a turkey until he caught my evasive eye. “It’s devastating to lose a sibling,” he counseled. “For many people, it’s more damaging than losing a parent, because a parent’s death is expected. However, discovering after his death that you were not genetically related to your sibling might break some people.”

Oh, I’m pretty sure I’m broken, I thought. And now that Bob was dead, my mobility was also in question.

“Constance.”

I looked away.

“I know you’re thinking of witty comebacks, but I need to ask you something: is it possible your attraction to Frank is a case of transference?”

Nothing like having your psyche called out on the carpet. Dr. Grovit’s suggestion was more than possible. The idea that I inadvertently transferred the love for my brother to Frank was entirely credible. In fact, when I wasn’t bogged down by thoughts of potentially having a child I’d never met, I was hitting my mental rewind, dissecting the night I’d met Detective Frank DeRosa. It was unforgettable, being
the same night I learned of my brother’s death. Frank came to Harbor House in his capacity as a police officer to deliver the tragic news.

Like the scene from The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy’s house is tossed into the air, Harbor House had exploded into chaos. Charlie, my brother’s best friend, had passed out upon hearing the tragic news. Katrina and Jonathan were hysterical. My father appeared to have a sudden onset of Asperger’s. My mother was soused and not even in attendance. The only two people forming coherent sentences had been me and Frank. My feelings toward him were instantaneous. I hated him, this cold, logical bearer of bad news. Come to find out, love and hate hold the same intensity for me, just at opposite ends of the spectrum. Maybe cupid was posing as the devil that night a year ago.

I offered Dr. Grovit my full face. He deserved it. “All I can tell you is that I had strong feelings for Frank before I knew he was related to my brother.”

“You’ve had a long day, CeCe,” Dr. Grovit said. “Get some sleep.”

It had been a long day. One moment I was selling jelly in a parking lot, and the next I was hurdling into a mound of garbage in search of a body. Dr. Grovit was right. I needed sleep.