Free After the Fire by Belva Plain Page B

the thing. He's a tremendously successful man who did a residency here ten ortwelve years ago. He's got a crazy name. Listen to this: Jack Arnold Ritter-Sloan. Anyway, he's a very nice guy, Grump says, good-natured, easy to get along with, a real business-getter besides being a top-notch surgeon, bit of a spendthrift but that's his business. In short a very bright guy. Grump wanted to keep him here, but he just suddenly decided he wanted to leave, and he up and left. Now he's so busy back east that he needs an associate. Top-quality only, Grump says, and I might be just the right man.” Gerald paused. “Let me tell you, Hy, Grump doesn't often give compliments.”
    Her mind went back to the day when she had given a lift to a forlorn young man alone on a hill in the driving rain. New mothers tend to be overemotional, and I, she thought, was overemotional to start with. She had to smile at herself.
    The months rolled around the calendar, and things happened as things do, while big changes loomed ahead like tumbled summer clouds in a blue sky. Jerry laughed, rolled over, sat up, crawled, and stumbled on two feet. He was strong, vigorous, and sweet. He throve. When his eyes flashed mischief, as they often did, he was more than ever a duplicate of his father. Often Hyacinth, as she watched over him, reflected on what his advent had done for his parents. She had never thought that, except for some minor vexations and a few crucial hours in the past, she and Gerald could ever know greater harmony in marriage. But this tiny boy, this life that was half his and half hers, had brought it about.
    Gerald was comical. He bought every conceivable toy from age six months, up to a bright blue three-wheeler that Jerry would not be able to use for at least two years. He bought a cowboy hat and western jeans the size of a dinner napkin. For Hy's birthday, he surprised her with Jerry's photograph in a handsome old frame. And for Jerry's first birthday, he corralled every doctor who had a toddler for a cake-and-ice-cream event on a great lawn in the park.
    “I want him to have everything I didn't have,” he said.
    The apartment was cramped. All their fine presents, from Granny's handmade rugs to Francine's ornaments, were put away for safety's sake. One could barely move around without stubbing a toe or bashing an elbow. And it was all wonderful.
    Somehow Hyacinth was still able to do a little painting while Jerry napped in the afternoon, or in the evening after his bedtime. Far from being worn out, she was exhilarated. She painted cottonwood trees, with a distant skyscraper rising alone on the vast flat land, and she made a pen-and-ink sketch of the apartment house so Jerry might have a memento of his first home.
    She even sold some paintings. The best of her work was a copy of the photograph, the gift of her friends at the museum back home, of Ernest Shackleton's stranded ship in Antarctica.
    It was Gerald who had urged her to take it to the gallery where, although she no longer worked there, she had a warm relationship.
    “Somebody's going to buy this,” he said. “You've done it right to a T—the dark ship tilting, about to fall into smashed ice and white waves. It's great, Hy.”
    It hung in the gallery for less than a week before a boy bought it for Father's Day. The price was almost a pittance, but as Gerald said, that was not the issue.
    At the start of the final year in his residency, acting on his own advice, he flew back east to meet Dr. Ritter-Sloan. There was no sense in waiting until they moved to the area; supposing then that the two men should be incompatible, too much time would have been wasted.
    When he returned, he was enthusiastic. It had gone well. Long into the evening, they sat talking across the supper table. “We liked each other at once. Arnie started right out with first names. He's very friendly and, considering his position, unusually modest. You'll like him, Hy. The practice is larger even than Grump