All Fall Down: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

wiping my forehead, then my mouth.
    In Ellie’s doctor’s office, I sighed, remembering how special I’d felt that my mother had shared her special blue thermos, how I’d never have dreamed of grabbing it out of her bag, let alone backwashing, when Ellie’s doctor came striding into the room.
    “Hello, Miss Eloise!” Dr. McCarthy wore a blue linen shirt that matched his eyes, white pants, and a pressed white doctor’s coat with his name stitched on it in blue. Ellie sprang out of my arms and stood, trembling, at the doorway, poised for escape. I gathered her up and set her onto the crinkly white paper on the table, ignoring my back’s protests. The doctor, with a closely trimmed white goatee and a stethoscope looped rakishly around his neck, walked over to the table and gravely offered Ellie his hand.
    “Eloise,” he said. “How is the Plaza?”
    She giggled, pressing one hand against her mouth to protect her single loose tooth. Now that she had a handsome man’s attention, she was all sweetness and cheer as she sat on the edge of the examination table, legs crossed, poised enough to be on Meet the Press. “We went for tea for my birthday.”
    “Did you now?” While they chatted about her birthday tea, the white gloves she’d worn, the turtle she had, of course, named Skipperdee, and how her computer game was “very sophisticating,” he maneuvered deftly through the exam, peering into her eyes and ears, listening to her chest and lungs, checking her reflexes.
    “So, Miss Ellie,” he said. “Anything bothering you?”
    She tapped her forefinger against her lips. “Hmm.”
    “Any trouble sleeping? Or using the bathroom?”
    She shook her head.
    “How about food? Are you getting lots of good, healthy stuff?”
    She brightened. “I like cucumber sandwiches!”
    “Who doesn’t like a good cucumber sandwich?” He turned to me, beaming. “She’s perfect, Allison. I vote you keep her.” Then he lowered his voice and took my arm. “Let’s talk outside for just a minute.”
    My heart stuttered. Had he seen the quiz I’d been working on? Had I done, or said, something to give myself away?
    I handed Ellie the iPad and walked out into the hallway as a young woman, one of the medical students who assisted in the office, stepped in to keep an eye on the patient. “Do you like Broadway musicals?” I heard my daughter ask, as Dr. McCarthy steered me toward the window at the end of the hallway.
    “I just wanted to hear how you were doing. Any questions? Any concerns?”
    I tried to keep from making too much noise as I exhaled the breath I’d been holding. Maybe I’d picked Dr. McCarthy for shallow reasons—he was the first pediatrician we’d met with who hadn’t called me “Mom”—but he’d turned out to be a perfect choice. He listened when I talked, he never rushed me out of his office or dismissed any of my ridiculous new-parent questions as silly, and he provided a necessary balance between me, who was prone to panic, and Dave, who was the kind of guy who’d wrap duct tape around a broken leg and call it a job.
    Dr. McCarthy put Ellie’s folder down on top of the radiator. “How’s the eczema?”
    “We’re still using the cream, and we’re seeing Dr. Howard again next month.” Skin conditions, I’d learned, were one of the treats that went along with the sensitive child—that, and food allergies.
    “And is school okay?” He paged through Ellie’s chart. “How was the adjustment from preschool to kindergarten?”
    I grimaced, remembering the first day of school and Ellie clinging to my leg, weeping as if I were sending her into exile instead of a six-hour day at the highly regarded (and very expensive) Stonefield: A Learning Community. (In my head, I carried out an invisible rebellion by thinking of it as just the Stonefield School.) “She had a rough few weeks to start with. She’s doing fine now . . .” “Fine” was, perhaps, an exaggeration, but at least Ellie wasn’t