I had a
doctor’s appointment. The only time slot available for the appointment had been
in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, and so I got to miss an
entire school day for it. These were the days when missing school transformed
the world into a place where it seemed like anything could happen. I’d walk
through it, enjoying the elated feeling I got from everything I saw or touched.
Morning cartoons seemed brand new and shiny. I felt invincible. The day was
going to be mine.
I don’t
remember entirely what age I was, but I must have been around twelve or
thirteen years old. I was still seeing the doctor I’d had since I was very
young, Dr. Zabik. I went with my mother to the appointment, and that alone was
something special to me. These were the days when she had started working again.
These were the days when my mother no longer dropped my brother and I off at
school each morning, or picked us up each afternoon. These were the days when she
no longer had the energy and the time to make us pancakes in the mornings, and
to pack our lunchboxes with sandwiches and little “I Love You” notes while the
batter cooked over the griddle.
I felt
lucky and relieved when my mother told me she would be the one to take the day
off from work to bring me to the appointment, rather than my father. I thought
it would be just like old times.
This
particular appointment had been pushed off and pushed off, and finally we
couldn’t put it off any longer. By this time, it had been a while since I had
seen Dr. Zabik and her office – had it been two years, or only one? I couldn’t
remember how long it had been, but I remembered my favorite things about the office.
I looked forward to the bookshelves full of my favorite stories, and to the
fish tank in the waiting room. I remembered how, during previous visits, I had
stared at the tank, watching the fish swim for what seemed like hours. I looked
forward to the smell of the office – so clean, like a basement. I couldn’t wait
– especially – for the lollipops that came with the end to every visit to the
doctor.
I remembered
that the large, rectangular fish tank stood in the corner of the waiting room,
and that it was filled with all kinds of different fish. On this day, as we
walked through the doors, which seemed less heavy than they always had, I
noticed that the fish tank was different. Had they moved it? I thought it was
always visible as soon as we walked through the door. This time, though, it
took me a minute to see it. My mother and I walked into the office, and she
gave the secretary my name.
“Hello,
how are you today? Kaela Bryan is here for Dr. Zabik,” just like I remembered she’d
always say.
I
smiled.
After
the secretary greeted us, she typed something on her keyboard, and then she
told us to wait in the chairs around the corner.
“You can
just wait in the chairs around the corner – the doctor will be right with you.”
I took
my mother’s hand, we turned the corner, and then disappointment hit me hard and
thumped into my gut.
Finally
I could see the waiting room with the bookshelf and the fish tank. But the
world had shrunk. Now that I saw it again, the tank looked much smaller. It was
much more square and squat than I had remembered. I peeked my head around the
corner again to see the secretary.
“Is this
the same fish tank?” I asked.
“Yup,
we’ve had those fish for a few years now.”
How
could it be the same tank? Rather than standing in the corner, it sat
underneath the window. And the fish didn’t look the same either. It seemed like
there were less fish, or maybe they were smaller, too. They didn’t swim around
with the energy they had before. They floated, flipped their fins slightly, and
then drifted through the fake seaweed. The water in the tank was a dull, moldy
green, not the same clear blue I had remembered. It looked dirty. I felt bad
for the fish. I looked for a few seconds, maybe a minute, and then turned away.
I walked
to the bookshelf, and squatted down to select a story. I had remembered that it
was once lined with so many books and children’s magazines. The Bernstein Bears, Goodnight Moon, a relatively large
selection of Highlight’s magazines, and
Corduroy. I loved Corduroy. I looked for all of these, but
I saw that there were so many baby books now. Why was everything so different?
Corduroy was still there, though, and I picked it up and flipped through
the pages, stopping for a moment here and there. The drawings didn’t hold as
much interest for me as they had before, and the size of the words was so big,
they seemed silly. I placed my favorite childhood storybook back on the shelf,
and went to sit beside my mother in one of the chairs. I crossed my legs to
match her.
After a
short wait, I heard my name.
“Kaela?”
a woman called.
“Yes,
that’s us,” my mother called back.
We
turned the corner to see a woman in pale blue scrubs patterned with little
ducks was calling me from the door that defined the separate spaces of the
office: the waiting room on one side, and the hallways and examination rooms on
the other. My mother took my hand, and we followed the nurse into the other
space.
She led
us down the hallway a little, which also seemed narrower than it had before.
And was the lighting always this stark white? After a few seconds she opened
the door to one of the examination rooms, and gestured to us to pass through
the threshold.
“Dr.
Zabik will be right with you,” said the nurse.
Once in
the room, I realized that this was a part of visits to the doctor I had forgotten
about: the examination rooms. It seemed like, for my entire life, I had never
been in the same room twice. In each room, the basics were exactly alike. There
was always that bright, long rectangular light on the ceiling. That light had
always intrigued me, but on this visit I wondered why. I remembered how I used
to like the subtle, quiet buzzing sound that came from it. But now I couldn’t
get past the realization that it was so ugly, and that it was much too bright.
The
other elements of the rooms that were always the same were the vanity and sink
with all kinds of doctor’s tools, the examination bed, the rocking chair where
my mother would sit, and the stool from which Dr. Zabik would ask questions and
tell me “everything looks great.” The color of the walls was always white
speckled with faint spots of lilac and yellow paint, and there was that pale
pink banister running around the entire room halfway down the wall. The one
thing that differed about each room was the picture. Depending on which room I
was led to, I could look at drawings or photographs of cats or dogs; elephants
(my favorite animal) or giraffes; hippos or alligators; jungle trees or
monkeys. This time, I got to look at pictures of giraffes. They were still
interesting, but they didn’t hold my attention for as long as they once had. I
felt no urge to trace my fingers over the outline of the giraffes’ pattern of
golden-brown spots.
Dr.
Zabik seemed to be taking a longer time than usual to get to my mother and I. I
had stared at the giraffes for a while now. I began to grow a little impatient.
Even though I knew I had to wait my turn, I remember wondering why this was
taking so long. It was the middle of a school day – everyone else in the whole
world was obviously in school, so Dr. Zabik should have been able to see me
quickly. I wanted to go home. I felt tired from the sight of the tiny fish tank
and the baby books of the waiting room, and now the repetitive spots on the
giraffes exhausted me even more.
I think
that my mother must have recognized that I was beginning to feel this way. She
had watched me in the waiting room. She opened her arms from her seat in the
rocking chair and she said, “Come, Kaela. Sit on my lap with me.”
I went
over to her to sit lightly on her knees, but she pulled me fully in to her arms
and scooped my legs up so that my body was cradled against her. I let my face
nestle into the space between her neck and her collarbone. As she held me, she
began to rock me. And as she rocked, she began to sing a lullaby that by this
time I hadn’t heard in a few years.
In your
bed, Momma said.
Babies
riding off to dreamland.
One by
one, they’ve begun.
Dance
and prance for little baby…
