Angels Fall

another, family shot. The whole brood. Then a vouns Mr. and Mrs. Doc holding a toddler. Various graduation pictures, wedding pictures, grandparent pictures. The life and times. Brody thought, of a man and his family.
    What was that like?
    He didn't have anything against marriage, Brody mused as he kept pacing. It worked for some people. Obviously it had worked for Doc Wallace. It had worked, and was still working, for Brody's own parents
    It was just so… absolute, he decided. This is it, for the rest of your natural life. just this one person unless you want to go through the hellish combat of divorce.
    What if you changed your mind, or things just went wrong? Which they did, half the time. Even if you didn't, and they didn't, there was all that adjusting and making room and compromising. A man couldn't just do what he wanted when he wanted.
    What it he wanted to move back to Chicago, for instance? Or hell, Madagascar? Not that he did, but what if? There was no pulling up stakes on a whim when you were married. You weren't just a man anymore, you were a couple. Then maybe you were a father, and now—wham—you're a family. And there was no turning back. No editing it out and going in a different direction in the storyline.
    He probably wasn't in love with her anyway, any more than she was with him. It was just… involvement. Involvement was different, and the levels and intensity of it came and went. 
    He turned when Doc came in.
    "'Sorry, ran over on the last couple of patients. Appreciate you coming, Brody."
    "Why did you want to see me?"
    "Come on back to the kitchen. I'll rustle us up a little lunch while we talk. Won't be what you're used to lately," he added as they started back. "But it'll fill the hole."
    "I'm not fussy."
    "I heard about what went on with Reece yesterday."
    "Have you talked to her?"
    "Not today." Doc got out some turkey, one of the hothouse tomatoes Reece disparaged, a halt head of iceberg and ajar of sweet pickles. "I did talk with Mac. He's worried about her." He took a partial loaf of whole wheat out of his bread bin. "I wondered if you were."
    "Why?"
    "Trying to get the full picture. I can't tell you anything she told me as a patient. You may feel you can't tell me anything she discussed with you as a… friend. But it you feel otherwise, I wanted to ask if she's told you anything you find troubling."
    "She told you she came back to her apartment one night and found all her clothes packed up?" Brody nodded when Doc glanced over from slicing the tomato. "That she didn't remember packing. I don't think she did the packing."
    "Who else could have?"
    "The same person who wrote all over her bathroom with a red marker and dumped out all her pills, moved her stuff around. And other similar tricks."
    Doc set down the knife. "Brody, if Reece is having memory lapses and episodes, she needs to be treated."
    "I don't think she is. I think someone's screwing around with her."
    "And you perpetuating her delusions only deepens them."
    "They're not delusions if they're real. Why does she only have these memory lapses and episodes when she's alone?"
    "I'm not qualified to—"
    "Why did they start  after  she saw a woman murdered?" Doc blew air out of his nose, then went back to building the sandwiches. "We can't know, absolutely, there weren't other episodes before that. But if they began at that time, there could be a couple of reasons. One, what she saw triggered the symptoms."

    Doc put the sandwiches on plates, added two pickles and a small handful of potato chips each. Then poured two glasses of milk.
    "I've been spending a lot of time with her. I haven't seen any symptoms. Not like you mean."
    "But you have seen something."
    "I don't like the position you're putting me in."
    "I don't like the position she may be in," Doc countered.
    "Okay, here's what I've seen. I've seen a woman fighting her way back from the abyss. Who trembles in her sleep most nights, but who gets up every day and does whatever needs to be done next. I see a survivor who gets through on spine, on heart and humor, who's trying to rebuild a life someone else shattered."
    "Sit down and eat," Doc suggested. "Does she know you're in love with her?" Brody's stomach jerked but he sat. And, picking up the sandwich, bit in. "I didn't say I was in love with her."
    "Subtext, Brody. Being a writer you'd know about subtext."
    "I care about her and what happens to her." He could hear the defensiveness—and was that a little fear?—in