The Peach Doctor

I had come to find that I dozed off again. Time now was 9:15am and she, for a second time, woke me up with the usual cup of black coffee and a plate of sliced peaches. Rubbing my face and failing to locate my glasses, I searched for her in the morning light hearing shuffling about my office.

“So you do fall asleep wherever you lay. Are you sure you aren’t narcoleptic, Doctor?”

Annabelle had found yet another book to steal completely from under my nose. Clutching the novel to her chest as if to say final farewell, my nurse placed it back on the bookshelf-in its original spot I’m sure. I had to smile at the brown and blue figure before me. Just like me, she was a lover of books be it fact or fiction.

“I surely hope I haven’t succumbed to such a thing otherwise I might have to lock up all my possessions. Yet somehow I believe you’d find a way to swipe them all. Uh, like my glasses for example.” I patted my desk in search of the gold spectacles feeling rather embarrassed that I couldn’t even remember what I did with them.

“Your breast pocket, Doctor.” My book thief sighed with bit of humor in her voice. As always, she was correct.

“Ah! And there you are.”

The lightest of giggles escaped her full lips. “Hm. Not only are you narcoleptic, you are also blind and suffer from short term memory loss.” I loved how she counted my illnesses on her slim little fingers. I leaned forward resting my chin in my hands.

Anna had finally decided to wear the sky blue dress I had purchased during a business trip through Spain. She also tied a white ribbon in her braided hair now growing past her shoulders.  Never one for gifts, she always had the most difficult of times when distinguishing between a handout and an act of affection.  Or perhaps, she never wanted either from me. I was after all a white man.

“Then what is my verdict, Nurse Annabelle? Am I dying?”

She leaned on the corner of my desk looking over her shoulder at me. Devastatingly cute  “No. Just getting very, very old.”

10 years back, I found my dear Annabelle on the side of the road between a field of yellow tulips and a straight shot to Albany. At the time I was a fresh out of college medical doctor and started my practice with a fellow classmate named Phillip Schoppe. We were on our way to a patient’s home when my eyes met with hers. She was a scraggily little thing and terribly bruised having been the victim of Confederacy sympathizers. I remember the word “Free” had been burnt into her little brown legs and she was covered in scratches and dirt. Her beautifully round black eyes stared up at me emotionless until I opened the carriage door. Before I could even introduce myself, Annabelle collapsed into the mist of that gloomy day in October. I took one look at her frail little frame and I knew I had to take her in.

The first few weeks of raising her as my own proved daunting. Most days I did all of the talking with her glancing at me obviously struggling with her pride and possibly the danger a strange white man might bring. I was not ignorant to the differences between us but I wanted to help her. Understandably, she didn’t go outside much and was hesitant with every doll or dress I bought her. When it came to food, she was a nibbler, and a rather picky one at that not liking any sort of produce but peaches.

Of course I also played the role as her teacher fascinating her with mathematics and science. She was however quite interested in fairy tales and loved to recite poetry to me while I wrote my reports.  Surprisingly, she had a knack for cooking and when she was tall enough to reach the counter I took a step back whenever she needed knives or the oven. Annabelle brought a level of sunshine to the house that I never knew was needed. But she did have her critic.  

Schoppe, my black haired business partner, played a very small role in her life-mostly an antagonist.  Having been raised in the wealthiest part of society, his nose was up too high for him to see compassion. He didn’t understand why Annabelle hated being touched or cried whenever someone raised their voice.  Though he denied it, there were times Annabelle would crawl into my lap and point to the fresh bruises on her arms and legs.

Whenever he could, Schoppe kept her locked up in her room until we finished with a patient. He would call her a slave or a maid never our child as I saw her. I remember the night I came home to the office covered in papers with Annabelle on the floor and Schoppe with his black cane raised high above his head. I never took a swing at another man before but that night we fought like animals. To him Annabelle was a problem. Perhaps I was a problem as well.

“Everytime we are this close to something big you have a moment of weakness and you know what that bleeding heart does to our business,hm?” He tapped my chest with his cane. “It spoils it. Empties all our pockets and I’ll be damned to allow you to continue like this. Now, are we seriously going to waste our time on this?”

“This has a name. Annabelle is a human being that deserves a life in this country. ”

“Annabelle is an unnecessary expense!  A charity case. But fine, dear boy. If you feel you need such filth in your life, then I’ll take the higher road.”

Schoppe’s bigotry was part of the reason we split, he taking up his own practice farther west I believe.  The division wasn’t much of a blow to my business and after his departure my so called charity case blossomed.

As years passed on, Annabelle grew into sort of an assistant understanding quite well the human anatomy and surgical equipment.  Unlike Schoppe, she identified with my feelings towards the poor and often our patients were victims of bar fights, mobs or the awful acts of tar and feathering. Annabelle remained strong and dutiful through all of it and showed me just how beautifully intelligent she was. She didn’t flinch at the sight of blood or bone, had a gentle wittiness about her, and remembered every lesson I taught.  Sometimes, if she was up for it, she even companied me on house visits.

The last I had seen of Phillip Schoppe was in the later afternoon one summer’s day. Annabelle and I were walking home from the bakery when we happened to make eye contact with him on West 23rd street. He was dressed in all black, having grown a beard and had a giggling woman at his side. Since Schoppe had no interest in marriage, I assumed she was just a mistress.

“Dr. Benjamin Orwell, still holding up well I see. I was sure you would have went under by now.” He truly hadn’t change. His black mustache was still oddly thin and shaped his pale smirking lips. His eyes were like coal burning into me before shifting to Annabelle. “And do my eyes deceive me or is this our little dirt child all grown up.”

The derogatory term amused his mistress who covered her mouth with a silk glove. Philip unlinked arms with her and took a step closer bending slightly to meet Annabelle’s unwavering gaze. There was a dead silence between them. Possibly each was remembering the jagged past they once shared. The slamming doors, the insults with Annabelle being thrown like a rag doll or, far more hilarious, Philip’s shoes being glued to the floor.

My former partner inhaled slowly and his smirk grew in a toothy grin. “You have become rather buxom since our last encounter Annabelle. Puberty has been very good to you.” He looked back at me. “How ever did you manage her menstruations? And you must have looked like such a pervert buying her undergarments.”

“Is that really something necessary to discuss?”

Phillip chuckled placing an arm around my shoulders. “Walk with me for a bit, hm?”

We only strolled a few feet away from the ladies. I remember how rigged I became as Schoppe spoke of the brothel his mistress was opening and how perfect Annabelle would be for it. He was unashamed in telling me the price I could sell her for based off her looks, her age, and her rarity on this side of town.

“Do tell, is she a virgin?”

I took a swing at Phillip, missed, and received a jab in the gut. I went down instantly hitting the pavement hard. I would have received much worse if it wasn’t for Philip’s mistress screaming. The four of us went our separate ways before the police could get involved.

Back at the office, I stretched out on the leather couch I imported from Spain and rested my head on Annabelle’s lap. She patted my head with a bag of ice.

“Somehow you managed to do more damage than Phillip did.”

“I was trying to defend your honor.”

“Well you picked the wrong match. He is a boxer now after all.”

“And a damned sneaky one at that.”

“Nevertheless, thank you doctor.” She removed the bag of ice so we could look at each other.  “Not just for standing up to me out there but everything. All the way up to when you first saved me.”

“No. No. Annabelle. You just mean the world to me. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. A mother hen has to watch over her chicks.”

She giggled. “Why are you a woman in that metaphor?”

“I. Well. No one ever talks about a male animal protecting his young. I’m sure that exists in the animal kingdom somewhere but I never have time to research such things.”

That late afternoon, in my office, on that Spanish leather couch, was the first time Annabelle kissed me. Her small hand pressed against my chest, my heart beating wildly with every stroke of her fingers made through my hair. Perhaps it was merely her way of saying thank you or at the time maybe she was just trying to shut me up. But I could no longer see Annabelle as a child. She had just turned 20, a woman ripe to marry.

From that day on, I watched her determined to receive another kiss, another quiet moment of affection. I had offers from patients to wed their daughters and even a few ladies I passed on the street looked my way but I had made up my mind. I’d wait an entire century for Annabelle.

“Doctor.”

I blinked having fallen asleep yet again. This time my lovely nurse was seated before me on my desk bare legs crossed, her head tilted slightly. She held my glasses in her hands and smiled down at me. My fingers were incredibly shaky but somehow met her knees. Up until that moment, Annabelle always shied away from my touch. I wondered if she could hear my heart.

“Annabelle?”

“Yes, my sleepy doctor.”

“Why don’t you ever call me Benjamin?” Her perplexed eyes only tempted me and I moved closer to her, her legs nestled between mine. “You’re an exceptionally astute woman.  You must have noticed my feelings by now. Why don’t you ever call me by my first name?”

“Doctor, you’re blushing.” The humor left her voice.

“Do you still see me as a father figure? Am I not your type? What is it? Why do you want to remain so professional with me? Are you teasing me? If so, why be so cruel?” I was embarrassed hearing the desperation in my voice. But I loved her. Yes, this was undoubtedly love.

“I’m…cruel?”

“Please don’t answer my questions with a question. Don’t pretend to be so naive. Don’t insult your greatness so sloppily. Tell me what you’re thinking. Tell me you have feelings for me.”

After a moment of fiddling with my glasses, she set them aside. “Feelings, dreams, maybe a bit of hysteria too.”

“In all honesty?”

“Yes.” She chanced looking at me.

“Without a doubt.”

“You taught me to never lie about such things. To speak from my heart. Besides you think I haven’t noticed the way you look at me? I only wonder if you ever noticed that I look right back. I’m fully aware that you are a man, you know.”

Annabelle’s breathing turned shallow when I kissed her cheeks; the pulse in her neck in fierce competition with my own. I couldn’t decipher what she was trying to tell me when I laid her over my desk but she held my head against her.  My ink pens and books fell to the floor along with my tie and glasses; her ribbons and blue dress. The plate of sliced peaches shattered and echoed throughout the office.

She had somehow managed to buy a corset behind my back housing the softness of her exquisite body. Every old scar and scrape was loved unconditionally and I took great care in unraveling the ribbons stretched tight along her back. Our eyes met when I caught her was reaching for my belt buckle and I pressed by hips against her fingers.

“Please.”

Tomorrow was definitely uncertain but at that moment, in the brightness of the morning sun, I wanted to hear her call my name.