The Doctor's Wife Read Online Free PDF Page A

bizarre elaborate magic trick, only it’s no trick, it’s real.
     
     
    Michael, she whispers to him in her head. Forgive me.
     
     
    “We will take a look, then?” Singh says, but it is not really a question and without waiting for her reply he jerks back the sheet. And then the shock: Michael’s face burned beyond recognition, completely featureless, his limbs charred black, like a tree, she thinks, like a dead tree. She jumps back as if she too has been burned, her eyes tearing from the smell. Bascombe hands her a handkerchief as her tears flow out.
     
     
    “I know this is difficult for you, Mrs. Knowles,” Dr. Singh states. He takes her arm, leads her away from the body, because that is all it is, no longer her husband, and she sits down in one of the metal chairs. “It is a most unpleasant experience.”
     
     
    She nods her head, trying not to cry. Trying not to come apart.
     
     
    “We believe your husband was on drugs at the time of the accident. In fact, it may be what killed him. We’re waiting on the blood work to confirm our suspicion of a morphine overdose.”
     
     
    “Morphine?”
     
     
    “When a person dies under these kinds of circumstances, we are required to do an autopsy.”
     
     
    “Of course,” she whispers. “Of course I want an autopsy.”
     
     
    “Generally, in cases like these, suicide may prove to be the ultimate goal.”
     
     
    “No,” she says. “No, he wouldn’t do that.” But the memory of their last night together floats up like something ghastly. The cold look on his face as he went into the study and shut the door. Still, she can’t believe Michael would end his own life. “This was not a suicide,” she says quietly.
     
     
    The doctor shrugs. “We have seen cases where doctors indulge in drugs because they can, and it often gets the better of them.”
     
     
    “Not in this case,” she spits. “My husband didn’t do drugs. He was on his way to the hospital to save someone. There was an emergency and he got called in. He wasn’t even on call but he went in anyway because that’s who he was. Do you understand me? That’s who he was.”
     
     
    Bascombe and Singh exchange a look. “There was no emergency, Mrs. Knowles,” the detective tells her.
     
     
    “We’ve looked at the log,” Singh confirms. “There was no OB emergency last night.”
     
     
    The room begins to float. The bright lights. The vicious metal instruments. They are talking to her as if through a long tunnel, their voices muffled, undetectable. She shakes her head, gasping for air. “I’m sorry, I’m not feeling very well.” The detective grips her under the arm and rushes her upstairs and out into the courtyard, where she sits on a cold stone bench among the looming statues. She brings the air into her lungs, tasting the new snow, the promise of winter.
     
     
    “You all right, Mrs. Knowles? You want a cigarette?”
     
     
    Annie shakes her head. “He didn’t kill himself,” she says. “And he didn’t do drugs.”
     
     
    “Are you sure?” He looks at her so hard she has to look away. “Tell me, Mrs. Knowles. You and your husband. Were you close?”
     
     
    “Excuse me?”
     
     
    “Your marriage. Was it a good marriage?”
     
     
    Was it a good marriage? She wants to ask the detective what her marriage has to do with her husband’s death. She wants to scream that he has no business asking her personal questions. But she says none of these things because she isn’t sure, she doesn’t know. “I’m sorry, Detective, I can’t answer that right now.”
     
     
    He studies her face. His eyes soften a little. She can tell he is trying to estimate the depth of her intelligence, the hues of her emotions. “I’ll leave you alone,” he says finally and hands her his card. “You want to talk, call.”
     
     
    Annie sits there for a long time in the company of the saints, who glance down at her with pity as she cries her heart out. The gray sky opens