The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [62]
“My father was part of a brigade ordered to mount a frontal charge at the rebel lines. Instead, he turned and ran, and was shot down by one of his own officers. The wound suppurated and it was determined that his arm had to be amputated. As a deserter, he did not rate the regimental surgeon. The assistant assigned the task completely botched the surgery. Afterward, my father lay in the field hospital, moaning, loathed, and ostracized. When it was deemed he could travel, he was thrown out of the army and sent home. It was only because the officers felt that the loss of the arm and the agony he was forced to endure from the butchery were punishment enough that he was not shot.
“When he returned, he told my mother and my brothers that he had lost his arm in a heroic action, in which he had charged an enemy position to save his comrades. He was lauded and we had more callers at the farm than my mother could remember. A collection was even taken up in the church. It was only when one of the neighbors from the same troop returned home two months later with the genuine version of events that my father’s deceit was revealed. From that point on, our family was reviled.
“My father descended even deeper into bitterness, drink, and abuse. My brothers became responsible for almost all the chores, and my mother’s main task seemed to be to try and deflect his rage. After he died in ’76, I found out that I was the product of a night of whiskey and violence, which ended with him forcing himself on my mother.”
There. It was out. I sat, waiting for the look of revulsion. Reverend Powers, however, seemed completely at ease. He merely took a sip of port, rolling the stem of his glass between his fingers. There was no sound in the room, except the muffled ticking of the clock.
“So you chose to become a physician yourself in retribution?” he asked.
“Perhaps,” I admitted. “Of everyone, my father held the most antipathy to the doctors who had treated his wound. ‘Robbers,’ he called them, as if it were they who were responsible for the loss of his limb, rather than his own cowardice.”
“But how could you make your ambition a reality with your family destitute?”
“I was always bookish. My mother decided that having a learner in the family was desirable, and sent scrawled notes to the schoolmaster, Reverend Audette, asking for help. He agreed to tutor me. I spent hour after hour in his study or on walks in the woods. He was the most educated man I’d ever met.
“After my father died, he encouraged me to join a seminary, but once he realized that my calling was in science, offered to help find the right place to study. He said that the finest medical colleges were back East, but eastern schools were costly and attracted students who would look down on someone from an Ohio farm. A boy like me, from the West, he said, should look to the West. The country was opening up and every new town would need a doctor. He suggested Rush Medical College in Chicago and I agreed.
“There remained the question of cost, of course. One day, Reverend Audette asked me into his study and offered to endow my education. When I protested, he told me that I would be doing a service to him by accepting. He was childless and widowed and said that he had more money than he needed to last out his days. To aid me in pursuing such an honorable career would provide him with posterity.”
“You must have been very grateful,” said Reverend Powers.
“I have never ceased being grateful,” I replied.
“So it seems you have done him a great service as well, then, by justifying his trust. What has he had to say of your great achievements?”
“He died just before I left Chicago.”
“I’m sorry. And your mother and brothers … they must be extremely proud.”
“Yes … well … I send them money.”
“Ah.” Reverend Powers thought for a moment. “Which do you think is the greater need, then,” he asked, “to justify