The Touch

Alan

Alan drove toward his office in an almost lighthearted mood. He had finally found someone with whom to discuss the Hour of Power. It was like having a great weight eased from his shoulders; there was someone to share it with now.

Too bad it wasn't Ginny. He truly enjoyed talking to Sylvia. Enjoyed it too much, perhaps. He had revealed more of himself than he had wished today. Perhaps the fact that she had seen him crying had opened the door. He had always preferred to leave his feelings for Sylvia unexplored, but he could see the day approaching when he would have to confront them. An intimacy was growing between them, almost in direct proportion to the lengthening distance between Ginny and him. He wished it weren't so, but there was no use denying the obvious.

He knew when it had started. He had almost blurted it out to Sylvia today but had caught himself. It was a private thing, between husband and wife, and he wouldn't have felt right talking about Ginny behind her back like that.

Saying that something in Ginny had died with Tommy had been true enough. But it was only part of the story. There was the guilt and the self-flagellation that had poisoned a part of her forever.

Ginny had smoked during the pregnancy. Only an occasional cigarette—she had been a pack-and-a-half-a-day smoker for years, but had ostensibly stopped when she had become pregnant. Ostensibly. When the house was empty she would sneak a smoke. Only one or two a day, and heavily filtered.

Tommy's cardiac defect had had nothing to do with her smoking. Nicotine had ill effects on the fetus, but this type of heart problem was completely unrelated to smoking. The pediatricians and cardiologists had assured her of that, her obstetrician had reinforced it, and Alan had repeated it like a litany.

It didn't matter to Ginny. She had decided that she was responsible and no one could convince her otherwise. Over the years, she had slowly poisoned herself with guilt and self-loathing. She locked a part of herself away forever and refused to even consider the thought of another pregnancy. She had decided that she wasn't fit to raise a child and that was that. She had walled off the memory of Tommy, too. She never mentioned him, never visited the grave site. It was as if he had never existed.

Alan sighed as he drove. He almost wished he could do the same. Maybe it would ease the pain of the wound that never seemed to heal; the wound that tore open every May 27.

The parking lot was jammed. So was the front entrance. Alan didn't recognize any of the faces. And the way all those strange people stared at him as he drove by on his way to the rear of the building made him glad he had given up his M.D. plates years ago. Having his car broken into and ransacked twice had been enough to convince him that the few prerogatives granted the M.D. plates were not worth the hassle of drug-hungry junkies popping the lock on his trunk.

His nurse, Denise, met him at the back door.

"Thank God you're here!" she said, red-faced and breathless. "The waiting room's filled with new patients! I don't know what to do! They all want to be seen today—now!"

"Didn't they see the sign? 'Patients Seen by Appointment Only'?"

"I don't see how they could miss it. But they've all seen that newspaper, The Light. Most of them have a copy with them, and they ask if you're the Dr. Bulmer in the article, and even when I say, 'I don't know,' they say they've got to see you—got to see you and they plead and beg with me to give them an appointment. I don't know what to tell them. Some of them are dirty and smelly and they're crowding out our regular patients."

Alan cursed The Light and he cursed Joe Metzger, but most of all he cursed himself for letting things get to this point. He should have known, should have foreseen…

But what to do now? This was an impossible situation, yet he shied from the unpleasant decision it called for.

He should say no to these people. They had come to him expecting to be healed, and anything less would disappoint them. To agree to see them and then withhold the power would be unconscionable.

The trouble was, they were looking for miracles. And if he supplied them, they would talk. God, how they would talk! And then the National Enquirer and the Star and all the rest would be knocking on his door. Followed soon by Time and Newsweek.

To protect himself and his ability to practice any sort of medicine, he would have to lie low for a while. With nothing new to fuel it, the controversy would die down and eventually be forgotten. Then he could start using the power again.

Until then he would be just another G.P. Good ol' Doc Bulmer.

He had no choice. He was backed into a corner and could see no way out.

"Tell them I'm not taking any new patients," he told Denise.

The nurse rolled her eyes skyward. "Thank God!"

"Why do you say that?"

"Well," she said, suddenly hesitant and uncomfortable, "you know how you are about turning people away."

"This is different. This is chaos. I won't be able to see anybody with that mob outside. They've got to go."

"Good. I'll tell Connie and we'll shoo them out."

Alan headed for his office as Denise bustled toward the front. As he flipped through some of the morning mail, he heard Connie's voice rise to make the announcement. She was answered by a rising babble of voices, some angry, some dismayed. And then he heard Denise shouting.

"Sir! Sir! You can't go back there!"

A strange voice answered: "The hell I can't! My wife's sick and she needs him and I'm gonna get him!"

Alarmed at the commotion, Alan stepped out into the hall. He saw a thin, balding, weathered-looking man in an equally weathered-looking double-knit leisure suit striding down the hall toward him.

"Just where do you think you're going?" Alan said in a low voice, feeling anger boil up in him.

That anger must have shown in his face, for the man came to an abrupt halt.

"Are you Dr. Bulmer? The one in the paper?"

Alan jammed a finger into the man's chest. "I asked you where you're going?"

"To… to see the doctor."

"No, you're not! You're leaving! Now!"

"Now wait. My wife—"

"Out! All of you!"

"Hey!" someone yelled. "You can't kick us out!"

"Oh no? Just watch! Connie!" His receptionist's worried face appeared around the corner behind the crowd. "Call the police. Tell them we have trespassers in the building interfering with patient care."

"But we need care!" said a voice.

"And what's that mean? That you own me? That you can come in here and take over my office? No way! I decide whom I treat and when. And I don't choose to treat any of you. Now get out, all of you. Out!"

Alan turned his back on them and returned to his office. He threw himself into the chair behind the desk and sat there, watching his trembling hands. His adrenaline was flowing. His anger was genuine and had been effective in confronting the crowd.

His heart finally slowed from its racing tempo; his hands were steady again. He stood up and went to the window.

The strangers were leaving. In singles and pairs—walking, limping, in wheelchairs—they were returning to their cars. Some were scowling and muttering angrily, but for the most part their faces were withdrawn, vainly trying to hide the crushing disappointment of one more lost hope.

Alan turned away so he would not have to see. They had no right to take over his office, and he had every right to send them packing. It was a matter of self-preservation.

Then why did he feel so rotten?

People shouldn't have to feel that way. There was always hope.

Wasn't there?

Their forlorn expressions hammered at him as he sat there, assaulting him, battering his defenses until he felt them crumble. He flung open his office door and strode up the hall. He couldn't let them go away like that, not when he had the power to help them.

I'm going to regret this.

He hated stupidity. And he had decided to do something very stupid. He was going to go out into the parking lot and tell those people that if they went home and called up and said they had been here this morning, his receptionist would make appointments for them.

I can do it, he told himself.

If he was scrupulously careful to swear each of them to secrecy, maybe he could make it work without screwing himself.

It would be like walking a tightrope.

How good was his balance?