Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas Read Free Page A

to change everything.
     
    Nicky,
    I arrived on the island of Martha’s Vineyard like an awkward tourist, lugging the baggage of my past, not knowing what to
     do with it yet. I would spend the first couple of months filling cupboards with wholesome, farm-fresh foods, throwing out
     old magazines that had followed me to my new home, and I would also settle into a new job.
    From the time I was five until I was seventeen, I had spent summers with my grandparents on Martha’s Vineyard. My grandfather
     was an architect, as my father had been as well, and he could work from his home. My grandmother Isabelle was a homemaker,
     and she was gifted at making our living space the most comfortable and loving place I could begin to imagine.
    I loved being back on the Vineyard, loved everything about it. Gus and I often went to the beach in the early evening, and
     we sat out there until the light of day was gone. We played ball, or sometimes with a Frisbee for the first hour or so. Then
     we huddled together on a blanket until the sun went down.
    I had negotiated for the practice of a general practitioner who was moving to Illinois. We were switching lives in some ways.
     He was going to Chicago just when I was exiting city life. My office was one of five doctors’ offices in a white clapboard
     house in Vineyard Haven. The house was more than a hundred years old and had four beautiful antique rockers on the front porch.
     I even had a rocker at the desk where I worked.
    Country doctor
resonated with a wonderful sound for me, like recess bells of an old country school. I was inspired to hang out a shingle
     that said as much: SUZANNE BEDFORD —COUNTRY DOCTOR —IN.
    I began to see a few patients in my second month on Martha’s Vineyard.
    Emily Howe, seventy, part-time librarian, honored member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, hard, steadfast, and
     against everything that had occurred since about 1900. Diagnosis: bronchitis; Prognosis: good.
    Dorris Lathem, ninety-three, had already outlived three husbands, eleven dogs, and a house fire. Healthy as a horse. Diagnosis:
     old gal; Prognosis: will live forever.
    Earl Chapman, Presbyterian minister. General Outlook—always his own. Diagnosis: acute diarrhea; Prognosis: possible recurrence
     of what the Lord might call getting even.
    My first patient list read like a who’s who of a William Carlos Williams poem. I imagined Dr.Williams walking the streets
     of the Vineyard on his appointed rounds, an icy wind blowing from the distant hills, milk frozen on every landing, the famous
     wheelbarrow soldered into the winter mud. There he’d be, making a late-afternoon call on the boy who fell off his sled and
     broke an arm along with his pride.
    This was for me. I was experiencing a fantasy that was a million miles away when I lived in Boston.
    But, in fact, it was just down Route 6 and across the water.
    I felt I had come home.
     
    Nicholas,
    I had no idea that the love of my life was here— just waiting for me. If I had, I would have run straight into Daddy’s arms.
     In a heartbeat.
    When I first arrived on Martha’s Vineyard, I was unsure about everything, but especially where to settle. I drove around looking
     for something that said “home,” “you’ll be okay here,” “look no further.”
    There are so many parts of our island that are beautiful, and even though I knew it in some ways, it sang out differently
     to me this time.
    Everything was different because
I
felt different. Up Island was always special to me, because this is where I had spent so many glorious summers. It lay like
     a child’s picture book of farms and fences, dirt roads, and cliffs. Down Island was a whirl of widow’s walks, gazebos, lighthouses,
     and harbors.
    It was a turn-of-the-century boathouse that finally stole my heart. And still does. This truly was home.
    It needed to be fixed up, but it was winterized, and I loved it at first sight, first smell, first touch. Old