My doctor looks like Abraham Lincoln. I see him once a year exc ept when something happens. Like when I get
sick or like the time I broke my pinkie when Daddo threw me a football too hard. He felt bad about that.
Dr. Smith is tall. He wears a white coat. He has a beard that goes just around the bottom of his face.
The wallpaper is all a bunch of ducks and geese chasing one another. It smells like medicine in here. There’s a
little sink and a jar with green lollipops and I sit on the gray cushion with the white paper on it. This is where I
always sit.
Dr. Smith has a stethoscope in his coat pocket and one time Mommy and Daddo couldn’t stop laughing about that
on the drive home. They said he looked like a “living cartoon.” A drawing of a doctor.
But he looks serious now.
Bela, he says.
Dr. Smith is good at talking.
Tell me what happened, he says.
She fell, Mommy says. Backward down the slide.
I’d like Bela to tell me, Dr. Smith says.
Mommy makes a little face, but Dr. Smith doesn’t notice. He’s looking at me and wants me to answer.
I st epped back too far and fell down the slide, I say.
Uh-huh. And why were you walking backward?
I was backing up.
Uh-huh. Did you experience any disorientation before then?
I look to Mommy and Daddo.
Were you dizzy? Dr. Smith says. Did you feel strange? Did you think you saw something strange?
I think of hairy fingers in the doorway to that little wood room. I think of Daddo’s phrase, “It’s only a matter of
time.”
I want to tell them because maybe I need to warn them. But if I tell them, will she ask them instead?
I say to Dr. Smith, No.
Okay, he says. Nothing at all?
What are you getting at? Mommy says.
O, I don’t know, Dr. Smith says.
Well, I was watching her the whole time of course, Mommy says.
I think of Mommy and Carly talking on the bench. I think of Mommy with her head in her hands. I guess we both
kinda lie to Dr. Smith.
I’m only wondering how Bela felt prior to falling, Dr. Smith says.
That’s fine, Mommy says. But I said I was watching her.
Urs, Daddo says. He wants to know if Bela had a dizzy spell. I mean... she fell.
That’s it, Dr. Smith says. That’s it exactly.
Fine, Mommy says.
Mommy is like this when she worries. She talks a lot and fast.
Bela, Dr. Smith says. Any dizziness before you fell?
No.
Okay. And no... shock or scare?
I think about it, and Mommy nods for me to answer.
Yeah, I was a little scared.
Ah, Dr. Smith says. And what scared you, Bela?
The geese are chasing the ducks on the walls. The geese look so mean and the ducks look so scared.
Other Mommy, I say.
It’s a pattern, they’re all the same, but when you look at one goose and one duck, you think the other geese are
catching up to the other ducks. You think some of the ducks have already been caught. Are bleeding.
Dr. Smith is looking at Mommy and Daddo.
Really? Mommy says.
Bela, Daddo says, you haven’t used that name in... He looks to Mommy.
She said that name maybe a couple years ago, Mommy says.
And who is Other Mommy? Dr. Smith says.
He’s asking them. Not me.
We don’t... We don’t know, Mommy finishes Daddo’s sentence.
I like when they do that. People in the romantic movies finish each other’s sentences too.
It’s a kid thing, Mommy says. Then, to Daddo: We should cancel the party tonight.
Dr. Smith looks at me.
You thought you saw an imaginary friend at the top of the slide? he says.
It wasn’t like that, Mommy says. It’s a whole jungle gym.
Bela? Dr. Smith says.
I don’t know, I say.
I don’t want to be talking about this.
How did you know to ask if she’d seen something? Daddo asks Dr.
Smith.
Well, because Bela here is as coordinated a child as they come. She’s strong. Sure of foot. She bounds right up
onto the examination bed and she skips her way out of the office. She loves to dance. For the little I know of your
Bela, she’s not the type to fall down a slide without reason.
Accidents happen, Mommy says.
They do, Dr. Smith says. They sure do.
But he’s still looking like maybe he thinks there’s more to what I saw.
Well, let’s check on your head, he says. Though I don’t see any signs of a concussion in your eyes and your speech
isn’t slurred and nothing is broken.
He pulls the stethoscope from his pocket and says, Just watch the geese and the ducks, if you like, Bela. They’re
more interesting than they let on. Sometimes I think I see a goose catch a duck... out of the corner of my eye.