Good Medicine

by Bobby Hutchinson

  “Back to the village, I’d say.” She deliberately misunderstood him, because she absolutely didn’t know. “It must be getting late.” She squirmed out of his embrace, rummaged in her pack. Yanking on her panties and cutoffs, she said in a phony chipper voice, “At least my cell phone hasn’t rung.”

  He was watching her, not moving. The man had a gift for stillness. It made her nervous. The sheer raw force of their joining made her nervous.

  “So that’s how you want it, huh? Mindless sex.”

  She pulled her blue sports bra on and then let her shoulders slump in defeat.

  “No,” she said with a sigh. “That’s not what I want.” But maybe it was. All of a sudden she was so confused she couldn’t figure anything out.

  “L-look,” she stammered, trying to work it out as she went along, “I haven’t been with anyone for a long time. No dates, no one-night stands, nothing. Before I was married, I wasn’t exactly a party girl. And even when I was married, sex wasn’t—well, very satisfactory. I have to say, this—” she waved a hand at him, at the blanket “—this totally blew me away.”

  Helen wouldn’t have let her get away with that. She would’ve forced her to examine her emotions.

  Yes, but how does that make you feel?

  Not the sex, but Silas himself. How did Silas make her feel?

  Confused came to mind. Overwhelmed. “Like you said, the energy is powerful between us. And I guess it sort of…the truth is, it scares me, Silas.”

  “Sex with me scares you?”

  “No.” She gave an impatient wave of her hand. “Not just sex. This whole complicated thing, the whole man-woman thing. I’m not good at it.”

  “Maybe you just need some practice.”

  His matter-of-fact assessment made her laugh. “It’s a lot more complicated than that.”

  “It doesn’t have to be. The only thing we have to bring to each other is honesty. How long were you married?”

  “Two years.” He’d told her what she’d wanted to know about his life. She owed him some insight into hers in return. “Garry was a lawyer, I met him when a patient decided to sue the E.R. staff for negligence. His firm was hired to represent the employees.”

  “And you fell in love?”

  She hesitated. “I thought so at the time. Although it was probably as much Garry’s family as him. His mother and father welcomed me with open arms, treated me like a daughter.” She shuddered, remembering how they’d accused her of not trying hard enough when they found out she’d left their son.

  “Garry was—weak.” Even now, even though she knew he’d understand, she couldn’t bring herself to tell Silas about the drugs. She was too ashamed—she still couldn’t believe that she’d written Garry prescriptions for drugs for as long as she had. It showed such poor professional judgment on her part. She knew Silas would think so, too—and above all she didn’t want him to think her a fool.

  “He had a car accident. He…he got better physically, but emotionally he never really recovered.”

  “And so you went from being wife to being caregiver?”

  That damned, unnerving focus of his made her uneasy.

  She nodded. “Pretty much.” It was so much more than that, but for the moment, it was as much as she felt comfortable talking about.

  “How long have you been divorced?”

  “Not long enough.” The truth would require an entire new set of explanations.

  “Do you still have feelings for him?” His voice was so casual. She glanced over, gauging his expression. It was neutral.

  She struggled to put her complex feelings into words. “I feel sorry for him. I pity him, I guess.” And she was angry with him. Angry? Hell. She was bloody furious. She resented the things he’d done, the scenes he’d created, the private and professional embarrassment he’d caused her. It had taken some time for her to unearth that rage, but with Helen’s help, it had surfaced, frightening Jordan with its magnitude.

  Helen said it was healthy. Jordan, on the other hand, hated feeling so out of control. Anger frightened her, it always had. Again, she didn’t feel she could tell Silas about it.

  “And now you’re afraid to trust someone again?”

  God, the man was worse than Helen, picking away at her psyche.

  “I wouldn’t say that.” But she wasn’t sure. “I’m just a lot more cautious than I used to be.”

  “That’s probably a good thing.”

  He got up and started pulling on his clothes. Pants first, no underwear. Then he thrust his arms into a gray T-shirt, pulled it down over his head, scooped his dark hair out from under it. She watched, fascinated. She’d seen more than her share of naked male bodies, but not one of them had been this perfectly formed.

  “Do you trust me, Jordan?”

  “You ask really tough questions, you know that?”

  “Being honest is something that was hard for me to learn. I try to practice it so I never forget how it goes.”

  “Trust is a complex thing,” she said slowly. “It has a lot of layers. For the most part, yes, I do trust you.”

  “But there are gray areas?”

  She hesitated and then nodded. “It’s because I don’t know you that well yet, I suppose. It takes time to really know someone.”

  “Ahousaht’s a small place, and I’m not going anywhere. You say you’ll be around for a year. I’m available if you want to know me better. While you’re here.”

  He reached out a hand and pulled her up. “Let’s get back to the boat before the tide changes. And then I’ll show you where I live.”

  “I’d like that.” She understood. He was offering what he had to offer, what he was willing to offer, a place to be with him away from the village, a friendship that included sex. A time limit so she knew exactly what the rules were.

  It suited her, she decided. It suited her very well.

  SILAS’S CABIN, like the man himself, was fascinating. A little mysterious, multifaceted.

  It was built from logs in a small clearing amid tall evergreens. The main floor consisted of one large room, with a tidy corner kitchen that contained the inevitable wood-burning cookstove and a small refrigerator. There was a bathroom with a sink, a shower and the strangest looking toilet she’d ever seen. There was no flushing mechanism, and amazingly, no odor, either.

  “It’s a composting toilet,” Silas explained when she asked. “I don’t like to be dependent on anything. It doesn’t need water, and it’s environmentally friendly. It does need electricity, but I use solar collectors on the roof to provide and store enough energy for the toilet, my hot water—and to recharge the battery for my laptop.” He pointed to a corner opposite the kitchen where an old door on two sawhorses formed a large desk. It was cluttered with books, loose papers, a computer and printer. “I have a generator for backup, but I don’t use it much. Only when it rains for days on end in the winter.”

  Upstairs was a sleeping loft with a homemade king-size bed of rough logs, set squarely in the middle of the room right under a skylight. The bed was covered with what Jordan considered a museum-quality handmade comforter. It was a patchwork scene, and the workmanship was exquisite, depicting a stylized hawk and bear against the background of the village.

  “This is truly beautiful,” Jordan said, running a hand over it. “It’s a work of art. Who made it?”

  “Grandmother designed it. A group of her friends helped her put it together.” He sat on the comforter and wrapped his arms around her waist. “You could stay here tonight, sleep under the blanket, watch the stars through the skylight.”

  “I’m tempted.” She put her hands on his hair, loving the rough texture, the thickness, the shape of his skull. “But I can’t,” she finally decided. “Everyone will know we’re sleeping together if I stay, and it’s too soon for that. For me, it’s too soon.”

  He gave her a look and then he laughed. “I hate to disillusion you, but I’d bet everyone is jumping to conclusions this very minute. We went off in
the boat and we were gone all afternoon. Eli and Michael waved us off. Harold saw us at the dock when we got back. And Sara Smith and her sister passed us on our way here. Sorry, Doc, but I’d say we’re so busted.” He rested his head on her breasts. “So what d’ya think? Will you stay?”

  She reached down and unhooked his hands from around her waist. “You must have quite a reputation, if everyone assumes it only takes you one afternoon to get me in the sack.” She felt suddenly irritable.

  He took her words literally.

  “I’m no stud. The last woman I was involved with moved away seven months ago. And I haven’t wanted to form an intimate relationship with anyone here, so I’m celibate. Or I was, until today.”

  She bristled at the implication. “Why’s that? Why’s it okay to have a sexual relationship with me, but not with someone who lives here?”

  “Because there’s no one here I’m attracted to this way.”

  “Oh.” He was attracted to her. “Don’t you mind everyone gossiping about your personal life?”

  “I value my privacy, that’s why I live away from the village. But I’ve accepted that people are curious, and that very little goes on that everyone doesn’t know about. It’s not malicious gossip, at least not usually.”

  “I hated the gossip that circulated at St. Joe’s,” she admitted. “In most cases, it was destructive.” She had reason to hate it. Garry’s actions had been the fuel for plenty of talk, and so had her breakdown. How many times had conversations stopped abruptly when she came in, and whispers followed her on the way out? It had made her final days at St. Joe’s painful.

  “There’s two choices around here, Jordan. Either you put a lot of time and energy into trying not to let people know what’s going on, or you live your life freely. Gossip never stays fresh long, there’s always something new to talk about.”

  She knew he was right. But she needed time to get used to this whole idea of having a lover.

  “If I don’t stay tonight, do I get a rain check?”

  “Absolutely. Like I said before, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I should be getting back, then. It’s going to be dark soon.”

  “I’ll walk with you.”

  “Thanks, I’d appreciate that.” She hesitated, and then confessed, “I have dreams about that bear from the other night.”

  Silas narrowed his eyes. “What kind of dreams?”

  “Weird ones. I’m alone in the clinic, and the bear walks in. I scream, but it never seems to be threatening me. It wants me to go with it, of all things.”

  “Why don’t you do that? Next time, see where the bear leads you.”

  “I’m too scared. I wake up sweating, with my heart hammering.”

  “Next time, try to follow him. Maybe he wants to show you something.”

  “And maybe he wants to eat me.”

  “I don’t think so. He could have done that already.”

  She was still thinking about that when, nearly back to the village, Jordan’s cell phone rang. She dug it out of her pocket, amused. She was so relaxed that for a moment she hadn’t known what the strange noise was. But her smile faded when she heard the tension in Christina’s voice.

  “Jordan, come to the medical center right away. Hurry. My brother Patwin just tried to hang himself.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  JORDAN STOPPED ABRUPTLY, her heart rate accelerated. “Is he breathing?”

  “He’s having a rough time. My dad found him and the ambulance brought him here. If Silas is with you, can you tell him to come, too?”

  “We’ll be right there.” She turned to Silas.

  “It’s Patwin,” Jordan said. “He’s alive, but he attempted suicide by hanging.”

  Silas swore and grabbed for her hand, helping her move as fast as her injury allowed, the rest of the way. Silas had much longer legs, and Jordan was winded when they burst through the door. Her brain was going over the various potential injuries caused by neck trauma.

  The most serious were permanent spinal-cord damage and brain injury, but there was a horrible list of other things such as laceration of the jugular and perforation of the larynx, trachea or esophagus.

  She could hear Patwin straining to breathe the moment she came through the door. The ambulance drivers had used an oxygen mask and put him in a C-spine, but he was fighting the restraints. Peter Crow was trying to calm him down.

  Rose Marie hovered close, her hands over her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks. The two volunteer medics were also standing by.

  “Okay, let’s have a look here.”

  Straining hard against the restraints, Patwin was making a horrible guttural choking sound. His throat was black, bruised in a circle around his neck.

  “He’s panicking because he’s in pain and he can’t breathe.” Knowing he had a history of drug abuse, she still had no choice except to use morphine. Jordan gave the injection, and then turned to Peter.

  “Tell me exactly what happened and where you found him.”

  “He was in my workshop, in the basement,” Peter said. The big man’s hands were trembling, as was his deep voice. “I was working on my boat and I forgot some tools. I came back for them, thank God.” He wiped his forehead with the tail of his shirt. He was sweating profusely.

  “He strung a rope over a beam, stood on a toolbox and kicked it away just as I came in. The rope had some give to it, so his feet were barely off the floor. I cut him down. I was gonna give him mouth-to-mouth, but he was breathing. He was awake.”

  Jordan put a comforting hand on Peter’s arm. “Do you know if he lost consciousness at all?”

  Peter shook his head. “I don’t think so. Like I said, I came in just as he kicked the box away.”

  “Good.” She turned back to Patwin. “By struggling, any spinal damage is going to increase,” she warned him in a stern tone. “Dying is one thing, but going through life in a wheelchair is quite another. So try your best to lie still, okay?” The morphine was already having an effect, and as Patwin gradually relaxed, she did a quick but thorough assessment.

  From the way he’d been moving his body, it was a pretty fair bet that at least there hadn’t been any damage to his spine. Patwin’s eyes were swollen and bloody looking because the strangulation had caused tiny blood vessels to burst.

  “He’s going to have to be medevaced to Tofino for X-rays,” she told the family, and Christina hurried away to make the emergency phone call.

  “My guess is he’s escaped without major or permanent damage to the spinal cord, but we have to make absolutely certain. He’s going to need to be on oxygen support for a couple days, and he’ll need painkillers.”

  As Jordan went on with the examination, she thought that the young man must have a busy guardian angel. Somehow, against the odds, Patwin seemed to have escaped paralysis, suffocation and major neck hemorrhage.

  As far as Jordan could determine without X-rays, there seemed to be only bruising to the spinal cord. There were no discernible breaks, and no other damage that she could find. She left the ambulance men to watch over her patient, and took Silas and the Crows into an examination room and closed the door.

  “Physically, it seems as if he’s come off very lucky,” Jordan told Patwin’s family. “The X-rays need to confirm it, but I don’t think there’s any serious damage to his spine. Too early to tell if he’s permanently harmed his larynx or suffered brain damage. I’ve had to give him morphine, despite his history of drug use. He may have to go through detox all over again.”

  “Thank God he’s alive.” Peter put an arm around his wife, and the other around Christina. “Thank God he’s okay.”

  Jordan met Silas’s look. They both knew that Patwin was a long way from okay.

  “The question now is what to do next,” she went on. “I need the family input here. I can request that he’s taken from Tofino to Nanaimo and committed for psychiatric assessment. Attempted suicide is a clear call for help.”

  “He hates being
confined,” Rose Marie said. Her voice was steady, but tears were still rolling down her cheeks. Peter dug a red handkerchief out of his pocket and tenderly mopped her face. “If we send him away, he’ll find a way to escape, and then who knows what he’ll do?”

  “Do any of you have any idea what might have precipitated this?”

  “It’s my fault.” Peter Crow’s face twisted with anguish. “I gave him hell this morning—I told him he had to get a job or move out of the house.”

  Peter’s broad shoulders slumped. “I found out Patwin’s been hanging around with that no-good Johnny Swann again. He’s trouble, that Swann kid, everybody figures it was him and his friends who broke into Mabel’s last month. Stole the float from the cash drawer and went on a rampage in her kitchen.” He turned to his wife. “Patwin got in trouble before, hanging out with Swann. I’m sorry, Rosie. I didn’t want Patwin in trouble again.”

  “I know.” Rose Marie patted her husband’s arm. “I got after him, too. He’s been drinking a lot and not coming home. I bawled him out this morning, I was really mad at him.”

  “You can’t blame yourselves.” Christina’s face was flushed, her voice angry. “It’s time Patwin smartened up. It’s not like he hasn’t had support from everybody, the little shit.” Her face fell. “I can’t believe he’d do such a stupid thing.”

  Silas put his arm around Christina’s shoulders and turned to Jordan.

  “I’d like to go with Patwin to Tofino. Let me talk to him alone, before you make any arrangements to send him to Nanaimo. If he’s willing, maybe I could help him this time.”

  Jordan said, “You’ve tried before?”

  Silas nodded. “It didn’t work, because Patwin didn’t really want help. Maybe this time it’ll be different. Will you agree to let me go with him?”

  Ordinarily, Jordan would have accompanied her patient.

  “Absolutely. I’ll phone the Tofino hospital and speak to the doctor who’ll be treating him. But I need Patwin to give me a no-harm commitment, an assurance either verbally or in writing that for twenty-four hours he promises not to harm himself.”