Court Papers in the Locked Drawer of a Community Doctor
I locked the door and leaned against the sink, my knuckles white against the porcelain.
Was I really losing my grip?
I remembered the grocery store last week, the sudden, brief confusion in the baking aisle.
Had it taken me twenty minutes to find my car, or was that just the story he was writing in his black diary?
The doubt crept in like cold water under a door, slow and heavy.
He was a doctor, respected by everyone in Oak Creek, a man who spent his days diagnosing the fragile and the failing.
Maybe my grief for my father had twisted into something unhealthy, just as he said.
The shame of my own weakness pressed down on my chest, hot and suffocating.
I looked at the mirror, trying to find the schoolteacher who had managed thirty teenagers in a classroom for thirty years.
All I saw was a tired woman with silvering hair and a husband who was watching her slide into the dark.
Pressing my forehead against the cool bathroom mirror, waiting for the trembling in my hands to stop.
