Mona Lisa My Love

Chapter Nineteen

Doc met me at the door when I drove up his drive. If I had an actual friend left in town Doc would be it. He was a kindly man in his 60s whose life had not been kind to him. He had settled here after med school and had an excellent practice going. Then the damn war started. Patrick, his older son, had gone off to war and was killed, on the next to last day of the war.

Mary was Doc's only daughter, and she became ill around the same time Patrick died killed in action. She died about six months later of aplastic anemia. They had decided to try a bone marrow transplant, but complications set in and she could no longer fight it. Doc tried to be a rock through it all, but in his opinion, he failed.

He didn't fail; it was just too much for everyone in the family. Doc's wife Rose left Doc and Bobby and headed for the West Coast. I never knew if he heard from her again.

Bobby was Doc's youngest son and was in my class. He was kind of an outcast like me, so of course, we found each other. Bobby was messed up after losing his older brother, his sister, and his mother, all in about a year.

I would come to learn all about being messed up over losses the hard way. During school, Bobby and I would hang out quite a bit, riding motorcycles, fishing, exploring. We would skip school often as neither of us wanted to be there.

I was called "Simple Simon" most of the time by the kids in school. Some would have said I was slow, maybe even retarded. I never thought I was. I would learn much later that I am an introvert. I liked to be by myself and didn't fit in, with any of the cliques in school.

My freshman year I weighed all of eighty-seven pounds. It didn't go well for me when they put me into the senior's gym class. That was where I first met Chris.

I knew who he was, of course -- everyone knew the great Chris who lettered in all the sports. The seniors were brutal to me in gym class. Once they even threw me up onto the basketball rim like I was a basketball. Everyone chuckled at that; I was glad no one had a picture of it.

Other times while walking down the halls of our school, Chris or some other upperclassman would think it great fun to put me on top of the lockers and hold me up there until the bell rang. Then they would let go, and I would fall to the floor. Assholes. No, high school wasn't fun for me.

I dated some but never seriously. I grew quite a bit during those four years. When I graduated high school, I weighed one eighty and stood nearly six feet tall.

The girls thought I was cute, so getting first dates was easy, but second dates came much less often. I was never sure if I had done something that they didn't like or if I hadn't done something that they had wanted me to do. Sis and I had many conversations about just that topic. She would always end the discussion with a mischievous smile and say, "Girls rule and boys drool." I would try to respond with something intelligent, but I don't ever remember winning. She did help me to understand girls and maybe helped me to understand myself better, as well.

It is confusing enough being a boy that age. Then things happen, and you don't know what to do. Once, I was walking to class, and this new girl walked up to me, in the hall, and planted one on me. I mean kissed me hard, then skipped away as if nothing happened. I went to class, not knowing what else to do. I didn't even know her name. When I got home, I told Sis about it, and she asked what I did. When I said nothing, she called me clueless and went to her room. I never did go out with that girl, but when I think about it, I feel I might have missed an opportunity. High School was like that for me. Very confusing.

When I arrived, Doc had a huge grin, on his slightly pudgy face when he saw it was me. He gave me a big hug and opened the door wider to let me in. "How are you, son?" he asked. " I have thought about you so many times, but when you left, I knew you needed separation. How is Jenny? Come, sit down, and tell me everything."

I was itching to get to the point of why I was here but felt it was only polite to chat for a while. I did like Doc, and any other time I might have enjoyed just sitting and having a cup of tea with him, but now, I had a plan and wanted to get going. "I don't get many visitors out here, as you might expect," I heard him say. I smiled as I sat down. He was putting the kettle on for tea. "Still drink tea?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "Any kind is fine, but I prefer chamomile if you have it."

"Chamomile, yes, I think I do have some, just let me look." Doc found it and set a few bags on the table and finally sat down to wait for the water.

He looked at me, over the stack of mail and other stuff that had found its way onto the table that most of the time had only one person sitting at it. As I looked around the kitchen, I realized just how lonely it must be for Doc living way out here.

"How come you never moved closer to town? It must be lonely out here," I asked.

Doc thought a minute and said, "Because of Bobby, I guess."

"Do you see him much?" I asked.

Doc looked sad at the question. "I haven't seen him since he left, but he calls. His calls are getting regular too, almost once a week now. He says he is doing well. Bobby's out in Utah, of all places. Says he likes it out there." Doc got real quiet and looked at the table. I could tell he wanted to say more, so I just waited. "I wanted to say thank you to you."

Now I was surprised, "To me? Why?"

"For saving Bobby's life," I gave him a puzzled look, which wasn't hard because I didn't know what he meant.

He looked me straight in the eye and said, "I know you bought him that pickup truck. I knew back then it was you."

I laughed, "That old truck. Bobby did love it, didn't he."

He nodded and said, "He still does."