The Doctor's Perfect Match

“Sure, why not?” she replied, taking a seat in one of a pair of armless chairs placed at the opposite end of the tea table from...Magnolia?

Silk-and-Pearls reached for the heavy silver teapot. “Brooks, dear?”

“Please,” he said, taking the chair beside Eva, “and thank you, Hypatia. I seem to have missed my dinner.”

“Hypatia,” Eva mused, “wasn’t she a Greek mathematician?”

“Why, yes,” the current Hypatia said, passing Eva a cup of tea, “as well as a philosopher and astronomer, though very few people seem to know it. How is it that you know about her?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” Eva admitted. “I remember some things and forget others.” She helped herself to several spoonfuls of sugar and looked to the wiry one. “Magnolia is self-explanatory, but I find that names often portend personality and outcomes, so what’s your story?”

“Oh, Magnolia grows things,” the flamboyant one supplied. “Flowers especially.”

“Really?” She waved a spoon at the large, colorful arrangement standing on a small table in the center of the room. “Did you do that?”

Magnolia inclined her head. “I do all the flowers around here.”

“Excellent balance and composition. I’m sort of an artist, I know these things.”

“Why, thank you.”

Eva sipped her tea, made a face and looked to the third sister. “Odelia means wealthy.”

“It does,” said Odelia, beaming wide enough to set the parrots swinging from her earlobes.

“And are you? Wealthy, I mean.”

Odelia glanced around helplessly for a moment, but then she blinked and said, “I think we’re all wealthy, really.”

Eva wagged a finger. “But you’re the real deal, aren’t you? You’re all quite comfortable, I imagine, but you...” She lifted an eyebrow at Kent. “You married deep pockets there, didn’t you? Eh? Mr. Money Bags?”

Hypatia and her sister gaped at the Easter egg, who flushed a deep red, cleared his throat and said, “I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’ve done quite well. I paid for the wedding, the remodeling of the upstairs, the pool...” He patted Odelia’s hand, where an enormous diamond rested. “Whatever my darling desires.”

Odelia giggled like a girl.

“Awww,” Eva crooned, “that’s so sweet. At your ages people are usually sick of the sight of each other.”

Beside her, Dr. Leland choked on a swallow of his own tea. “Tell them,” he croaked.

“What?”

“Tell them or I will.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Eva has a medical condition,” Leland said, “and if she’s going to stay here you need to know about it.”

Hypatia handed cups to her sisters. “We assumed that was the case.”

“Duh,” muttered Eva. “The doctor calls—someone’s sick.” Brooks sent her a stern, almost sullen glare. “Just saying.”

“One of the symptoms of her condition seems to be a lack of an internal monitor.”

“That’s a nasty thing to say!” Eva squawked. “It’s not like I blurt inappropriate words or things that don’t make sense. I’m just honest. What’s wrong with that?”

“Not all honesty is socially acceptable,” he snapped. “If you were thinking normally, you would recognize that fact.”

“I’m perfectly normal,” she shot back, “except for the brain tumor!”

Three cups hit three saucers. She heard a gasp and a tiny moan. Looking around, she saw that the Chatam sisters were all staring at the doctor with looks of utter dismay.

“Oh, Brooks,” Hypatia said.

He shook his head. “It’s not like Brigitte’s situation.”

Brigitte? Eva glanced around. Who was Brigitte?

“I deal with things like this all the time,” he went on. “You’re not to worry about me.”

Him? They were worried about him?

“What is it with you?” Eva asked, slumping. “I’m the one with the brain tumor, and they’re all worried about you? What’s a girl got to do to catch a break around you?”

“You don’t understand,” Brooks began.

At the same time, Hypatia said, “Oh, my dear, we’re concerned for you, of course. We’ll be praying for you diligently.”

“Swell,” Eva drawled.

Odelia sighed, a hand going to her cheek. “You’re not a believer?”

“No way. I’ve had that church stuff thrown at me my whole life, and what good has it ever done? None.”

The doctor bowed his head, murmuring, “Ladies, I’m so sorry. Our acquaintance has been short. She’s my patient. I never dreamed she’d be so difficult. I just didn’t know what else to do with her.”

They all started talking at once.

“No, no.”

“It’s all right.”

“You always do what’s best, dear boy.”

“It’ll be fine. You’ll see. God has a purpose.”

“It’s just that she hit her head while I was in the grocery store and while I was stitching her up her van was repossessed, and she’s so broke that she hasn’t even been eating.” He shook his head. “She won’t stay in the hospital. She wouldn’t even tell me her name. I had to find out from the police.”

“Are you done?” Eva demanded indignantly.