From the Corner of His Eye

didn't know it myself till I realized I was right in your neighborhood. I assumed your mother and Angel would be here, and I hoped you might be. If I'm intruding-"
        "No, no. I just didn't-"
        "I wanted you to know I'm leaving medicine."
        "For the baby?" asked Grace, her face knitting a worried frown.
        Cupping Angel entirely in his big hands, smiling at her, he said, "Oh, no, Mrs. White, this looks like a healthy young lady to me. No medicine required."
        Angel, as if in God's own hands, stared with round-eyed wonder at the physician.
        "I mean," said Dr. Lipscomb, "that I'm selling my practice and putting an end to my medical career. I wanted you to know."
        "Quitting?" Celestina said. "But you're still young."
        "Would you like a little tea and a piece of crumb cake?" Grace asked as smoothly as if, in The Big Book of Etiquette for Ministers' Wives, this were the preferred response to the announcement of a startling career change.
        "Actually, Mrs. White, it's an occasion for champagne, if you have nothing against spirits."
        "Some Baptists are opposed to drink, Doctor, but we're the wicked variety. Though all we have is a warm bottle of Chardonnay."
        Lipscomb said, "We're only two and a half blocks from the best Armenian restaurant in the city. I'll dash over there, bring back some chilled bubbly and an early dinner, if you'll allow me."
        "Without you, we were doomed to leftover meat loaf."
        To Celestina, Lipscomb said, "If you're not busy, of course."
        "This is her night off," said Grace.
        "Quitting medicine?" Celestina asked, baffled by his announcement and his upbeat attitude.
        "So we must celebrate-the end of my career and your move."
        Suddenly remembering the doctor's assurance to Neddy that they would be out of this building by week's end, Celestina said, "But we've nowhere to go."
        Handing Angel to Grace, Lipscomb said, "I own some investment properties. There's a two-bedroom unit available in one of them."
        Shaking her head, Celestina said, "I can only pay for a studio apartment, something small."
        "Whatever you're paying here, that's what you'll pay for the new place," Lipscomb said.
        Celestina and her mother exchanged a meaningful glance.
        The physician saw the look and understood it. A blush pinked his long, pale face. "Celestina, you're quite beautiful, and I'm sure you've learned to be wary of men, but I swear that my intentions are entirely honorable."
        "Oh, I didn't think-"
        "Yes, you did, and it's exactly what experience has no doubt taught you to think. But I'm forty-seven and you're twenty-"
        "Almost twenty-one."
        "-and we're from different worlds, which I respect. I respect you and your wonderful family… your centeredness, your certainty. I want to do this only because it's what I owe you."
        "Why should you owe me anything?"
        "Well, actually, I owe Phimie. It's what she said between her two deaths on the delivery table that's changed my life."
        Rowena loves you, Phimie had told him, briefly repressing the effects of her stroke to speak with clarity. Beezil and Feezil are safe with her Messages from his lost wife and children, where they waited for him beyond this life.
        Beseechingly, with no intention of intimacy, he took Celestina's hands in his. "For years, as an obstetrician, I brought life into the world, but I didn't know what life was, didn't grasp the meaning of it, that it even had meaning. Before Rowena, Harry, and Danny went down in that airplane, I was already… empty. After losing them, I was worse than empty. Celestina, I was dead inside. Phimie gave me hope. I can't repay her, but I can do something for her daughter and for you, if you'll let me."
        Her hands trembled in his, and his shook as well.
        When she didn't at once accept his generosity, he said, "All my life, I've lived just to get through the day. First survival. Then achievement, acquisition. Houses, investments, antiques… There's nothing wrong with any of that. But it didn't fill the emptiness. Maybe one day I'll return to medicine. But that's a hectic existence, and right now I want peace, calm, time to reflect. Whatever I do from here on… I want my life to have a degree of purpose it's never had before. Can you understand that?"
        "I was raised to understand it,"