Free Family Practice by Charlene Weir Page B

look.
    *   *   *
    Here they all were, just as Dorothy had told them to be. Ellen toed off her cruddy Nikes, pulled up her socks, and leaned against the arm of the sofa to tuck her feet up under her.
    â€œShe must have said something to somebody.” Willis, with a clink of bottles, slid the crowded tray onto the oak chest against the wall and poured out a splash of bourbon.
    At least I’ve had a shower, Ellen thought. And washed my hair. Life is better, right? Sure. Everything’s the same. I sit here like somebody else’s dog, like I don’t belong, like what am I doing here anyway. Life is the shits. Dorothy’s dead. Nothing’s the same.
    They were in the music room, where they gathered to play Bach or Mozart or Strauss waltzes, Dorothy on piano, Willis with cello, Marlitta and Carl violins. Ellen played the flute, except she usually got kicked out because she never practiced enough.
    The enormous room was crammed with furniture: upright piano against one wall, wing chairs, small tables, two Victorian sofas. Crystal lamps all over the place and all of them lit. The windows were open, and periodically a tepid breeze stirred the lace curtains.
    It was easy to see they were all related: light hair, blue eyes, pale complexions and lookalike features, lookalike mannerisms. Except me. The cuckoo in the nest. Looking like Daddy with dark hair, dark eyes. All by myself too. The others came in pairs. Dorothy and Willis. Marlitta and Carl. Here’s me, long time later, all alone.
    â€œTaylor.” Willis turned to Dorothy’s husband. “Why did she want us all here? She must have said something to you.”
    â€œShe didn’t.” Taylor, in one of the wing chairs, sat leaning forward, elbows on his knees, chin propped in one hand. His face looked stiff and pale. If he resented Willis taking over as lord of the manor, he stomped on it.
    He had to know what the family thought of him, figure he’d be tossed out as soon as decency allowed. He wasn’t that much of a dimwit.
    â€œI didn’t even know she’d asked you to come,” he said.
    â€œScotch, please, Willis,” Marlitta said. She was a younger, softer version of Dorothy; like a photocopy that hadn’t come out quite right. Even her voice was softer, giving an impression of uncertainty where Dorothy always sounded decisive. “And water. Make it weak. She must have wanted to discuss something about the practice.”
    Not so, Ellen thought. Or I wouldn’t have been ordered to present myself.
    â€œThere is no trouble with the practice.” Willis handed Marlitta a glass.
    She took a sip, sat the glass on the side table, crossed her legs, and adjusted the pleated blue skirt over her knees.
    Willis looked fit and prosperous in his summer-weight suit, white shirt and tie, freshly barbered, hair showing a little gray. Without asking Vicky what she wanted, he handed her a rum and Coke.
    â€œThere’s Ackerbaugh fuming and threatening because the baby’s not any better.” Carl got up to fix himself a drink.
    Winslow Ackerbaugh? He was the one putting in all her expensive new pipes. She hoped fumes and threats didn’t seep through into leaky pipes.
    In contrast to Willis, Carl looked rumpled in baggy brown pants and open-collared tan shirt with the shirttail hanging loose. Everything looked loose on Carl, because he was so thin. He had the narrow, ascetic face of a monk in an old book of medieval tales. Or a fanatic. “Whatever the reason, Dorothy was pissed about it,” he said.
    Willis frowned. Decorum, please. Let us not forget we’re Barringtons. He was doing his best to take over as head of the family, but he didn’t have the stuff of which Dorothy had been made. He’d managed to get them all here, but Ellen thought only because Dorothy’d already arranged it. They bitched and griped about Dorothy, but none of them quite knew what to do now she