by Ann Tatlock
Without a word to the winded messenger, Mother turned to me. "Run next door and ask Mr. Mobley to drive us," she said evenly, as though she'd been expecting the news all along.
Mechanically, I did as I was told. I was so overwhelmed by feelings that I couldn't feel anything anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dr. Hal was waiting for us just beyond the double glass doors of the hospital lobby. With numerous expressions of thanks for giving us a ride at such an hour of the night, we sent Mr. Mobley back home to bed. He offered to stay with us in spite of his sleepwear--when he'd learned that Papa was hurt, he'd grabbed his car keys and flew from the house in his robe and slippers--but Mother assured him we'd be fine. Before he left, he lightly touched the top of my head with his big paw of a hand and said he'd not be sleeping but praying. Mother thanked him again, and I hoped that our neighbor would be better at persuading God down from his throne than I had been.
Dr. Hal led us to an empty waiting room, where, with an abrupt flash of his palm, he indicated that Mother and I should sit. We lowered ourselves onto a couch. Both of us balanced on the edge as we leaned toward Dr. Hal, who settled himself in a chair across from us. It was only then that I noticed one sleeve of Dr. Hal's shirt was missing, torn from the shoulder. His clothes were filthy, smudged with dirt and ash, and like the messenger, he smelled of smoke. His face, too, was dark with soot, and on either side--from temple to jawline--a streak of sweat sliced through the black like a river. What was most unnerving, though, were the splotches of blood that dotted his clothes as if someone had flicked a huge paintbrush at him. Brownish dots, like rust, lay splattered on the white of his shirt, on the tan of his pants. On his right thigh were four long stripes where he had obviously wiped his fingers. He was a macabre portrait of modern art, the creation of a fatalistic artist whose desire was to capture death on canvas.
"How is he, Harold?" Mother asked, her voice trembling with the anxiety she was no longer able to hide.
Dr. Hal pressed his hands together between his knees. "It's impossible to say at this point," he began, sounding less like a relative than a doctor. "He's in surgery right now to remove a bullet from his leg. It shattered his femur--that is, his thighbone."
A shattered thighbone. That didn't sound so bad to me. Lots of people had been shot in the leg or the arm or even the shoulder and had recovered just fine. Now, a chest wound--that was a different story altogether. If a person was shot in the chest, everyone had a right to start worrying. But a leg--pshaw, that would heal easily enough! Papa might be left with a limp, but all the cowboys and the gangsters in the movies that were shot in the leg--
Mother interrupted my mental stream of solace by asking Dr. Hal, "Did he lose a lot of blood?" Her eyes traveled over Dr. Hal's clothes as she asked the question.
"Yes," Dr. Hal replied. "Evidently the femoral artery or the vein, or perhaps both, were involved. But even that isn't our greatest concern at the moment." He paused and took a deep breath. He wasn't quite able to keep eye contact with Mother. "He sustained a head injury, the full extent of which can't be determined right away--"
"A head injury?" Mother echoed, sounding incredulous, not quite believing Papa had suffered such a wound. "Did he strike his head when he fell after he was shot?"
Dr. Hal shook his head. "No, Lillian. I wasn't with him when he was hurt, so I didn't see what happened. Will and I had gone off in different directions once we reached the camp to try to help whomever we could. By the time we got there, more than half the camp was burning. It was absolute chaos--people running, screaming--"
"But what of William?" she interrupted. "What exactly happened to him?" Mother shut her eyes momentarily, as though to keep her patience from escaping.
Dr. Hal sighed. He rubbed his thighs with his open hands, like a public speaker with sweaty palms. "There are indications Will was beaten with a blunt object--a stick of wood, maybe. Or a billy club. Or it could have been the butt of a gun. It's hard to say for sure. But apparently he was beaten after he was already down."
Mother gasped and lifted one trembling hand to her lips. "Who would have--who could have done such a thing?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
"I don't know," Dr. Hal responded morosely. For a moment, he seemed like a relative again rather than a doctor. He looked at me as he confirmed my words to Papa some hours earlier. "We do know it was the sheriff and his deputies who pulled off the raid, just like Ginny said. But as to who actually did this to Will--I simply don't know."
"Just how bad is he, Harold?"
"Again, I can only confess that I don't know. When I reached him, he was still conscious but just barely. Fortunately, in the midst of all that chaos, I was able to hear the cries of the man who came across Will just as his assailant ran off. The man just kept screaming for help, saying Doc Eide was down." Dr. Hal paused and shook his head. He took a deep breath before continuing. "So the good thing is that I got to Will right away. I tied a tourniquet around his thigh with my shirt sleeve to staunch the bleeding, but it was obvious that wasn't the only thing I was dealing with. Will had been beaten pretty badly--he's bruised all over, and there's a possibility that his right arm is broken. X-rays will clarify that. Anyway, the man who alerted me to Will was somehow able to hunt down a blanket"--at the mention of the blanket, he glanced at me to acknowledge my unwitting contribution to Papa's rescue--"in one of the shanties that was still standing, and we used that as a kind of hammock to carry Will to the car. I hated to move him like that, considering the condition he was in. No telling the damage--" He stopped abruptly and stared at his hands. Suddenly he looked very young, almost like a child who'd been caught disobeying and was bracing to accept his punishment.
When he didn't continue, Mother assured him, "You did the right thing, Harold. There wasn't anything else you could do."
Dr. Hal nodded and exhaled so heavily I thought every last bit of oxygen must have been drained from his body. "As I say, our greatest concern is the head wound. There appears to have been just one blow to the head, but it was a hard one. Right about here, running along the right side of his scalp." Dr. Hal ran his fingertips through his disheveled hair to indicate the spot. "Will hasn't been through the X-ray department yet. They wanted to get him into surgery for the bullet wound as quickly as possible. But they did take a few pictures with a portable machine, the quality of which isn't as good as what you can get with the real thing, but good enough to reveal that there is a fracture of the skull. It appears at this point not to be depressed--that is, bone didn't collapse into the brain, which of course is a good thing. What happens to the skull itself doesn't matter very much. Like any other bone the skull can be expected to heal pretty easily, barring infection. What matters is the damage to the brain, and that's what's in question at this point."
Mother and I were silent for a moment, unable to take in what Dr. Hal was trying to tell us.
Finally, tentatively, Mother asked, "Well, when will we know something, Harold?"
"With an injury like this," Dr. Hal explained, "it's impossible to know anything right away. Diagnosing head trauma is always a matter of observation, a matter of time."
Mother moistened her lips with her tongue. She was breathing faster than I thought she should. "You say he's in surgery now."
"Yes."
"What about the anesthesia? What will that do--"
"They'll use a local. It won't have any affect on his brain."
"Oh yes. Yes, of course. I should have realized." Mother squeezed her hands together and pursed her lips. "The man who alerted you to Will--did he see who did this?"
Dr. Hal's eyes hung heavy with regret. "I'm afraid not, Lillian. It was dark. The man--the assailant--was running away. I don't even know the name of the man who called me over to Will. I wish I'd asked for it now, but there was so much confusion, I couldn't think. Anyway, I asked him if he saw who did this, if he had any idea at all, and he said he didn't."
The thought of Papa lying helpless while
one of Sheriff Dysinger's deputies, or maybe the sheriff himself, beat him until he was bruised and broken--the image was more than I could bear. From the moment the young messenger came to our door until now, I had moved in a daze, but talk of Papa being battered by that faceless assailant re-ignited my emotions. They sizzled to life like a flame crawling along a fuse, then exploded into rage. I buried my face in my hands and wept, falling forward into my own lap.
Mother's arm curled around my back as she drew me to her. I leaned my head against her chest, my anger and grief spilling out and leaving moist, salty spots on Mother's plain cotton blouse. How long she allowed me to cry, I can't say. I lost all track of time.
"There, Ginny, hush now," she said repeatedly, stroking my hair. "It'll be all right."
To Dr. Hal, she remarked, "I shouldn't have brought her with me. It's too much. She's too young--"
"Why don't I drive her home--"
"I'm not too young!" I objected, pulling away from Mother and sitting bolt upright. Wiping my wet cheeks with my palms and sniffing loudly, I said, "I want to stay here where Papa is. Please, Mama, please let me stay."
Mother's mouth was a thin line. Her shoulders sagged. "It's against my better judgment, but all right, you can stay. Go find a rest room and wash your face while I call Sally and let her know what's going on."
I did as I was told, then returned to the waiting room. The thought occurred to me that we'd spent much of the past several months just waiting for one thing or another. Waiting around the radio. Waiting for news of the strike. Waiting for word about Uncle Jim. And now, waiting to see what would happen to Papa. We were living out our days in one huge waiting room.
"Did you call Aunt Sally, Mama?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Was she awake?"
"Of course. She was sitting right there by the phone."
"What did she say?"
"That she'd be praying."
"What's she going to tell Simon and Claudia and Molly when they wake up?"
"She'll tell them that your father is going to be in the hospital for a little while but that they mustn't worry."
"I hope Molly doesn't cry."
"Aunt Sally will know what to do if she does."
"Mama?"
"Yes, Virginia?"
"I can't help but to be worried, even if it's a sin and I'm not trusting God."
Mother was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "It's not a sin to be worried, Virginia. We can't help worrying sometimes. But in spite of what we feel, we can still trust God to do what's right."
After that, we didn't talk much. Dr. Hal got himself a cup of coffee--Mother declined his offer, saying she couldn't possibly drink any more coffee that night--and paced the room as he drank. Sometimes he stopped at the window and stared out at the night sky, just as I had done earlier in my room at home.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are....
Oh, God, dear God, up above the world so high, please look down and see us....
Mother pulled a small Bible from her purse and read to herself. The trembling fingers with which she turned the pages were the only evidence of the turmoil in her heart. I lay on the couch, my head on her lap, and drifted in and out of sleep. When I slept, I had wild, disjointed dreams in which I was clubbing a defenseless Sheriff Dysinger with a baseball bat. And when I awoke, I was sorry that my hands were empty and that the sheriff was no doubt by now sleeping soundly in his own warm bed at home.
Papa was on the operating table until almost dawn. With the first dim lightening of the sky, the first faint stirrings of birdsong, a nurse came by the waiting room to tell us Papa was being settled into a special care ward, and that the doctor would be along soon to speak with us. I could read nothing at all in her face, though I tried desperately to discern some sign of hope. Mother tried to ask her how Papa was, but the nurse would only say that the surgeon would answer all our questions very shortly.
We heard his footsteps in the corridor before we saw him. When he appeared in the doorway, a wave of nausea rippled through my stomach. Here he was, the man who had come to tell us about Papa, the messenger of Papa's fate. While we waited at least we had a cushion of time in which we could dream and pray and hope for the best, but now that time was up, and there could be no more hopeful conjecture. The doctor was here, and like it or not, we had no choice but to listen to what he had to say, to hear the truth about Papa's condition. I thought fleetingly of the messengers in ancient Greece who were executed for bringing bad news. Though I had always considered it unfair that they should die for simply doing their job, I suddenly understood the desire to have the bearer of bad tidings snuffed out so he couldn't come around again.
Dr. Hal walked across the waiting room with his right hand extended to greet the surgeon. He introduced Mother and me. The surgeon shook Mother's hand and offered a polite but formal greeting. He was a man by the name of Dr. Rawls, whom neither Mother nor I had ever met before, though we were acquainted with many doctors through Papa's practice. A heavyset, middle-aged, weary-looking man, he was still dressed up in his surgical garb, his mask still tied about his thick neck and dangling beneath his chin like a discarded feed bag. His hair was hidden completely by his white cap, the rim of which was darkened with sweat. His ample gown had a bib of sweat across the front and, worse, splatters of blood. Papa's blood. First there was a little bit of Papa on Dr. Hal, I thought, and now there's a little bit of Papa on this doctor, too. It was strange and disconcerting to see my father's lifeblood where it didn't belong. It had flowed through Papa's veins, and it ought still to be traveling that old familiar route, not adorning the clothing of these two men.
Mother and I had stood to greet the doctor, but he invited us to sit again. When the four of us were seated, Dr. Rawls began speaking in low tones. He assured us that the surgery on Papa's leg had gone reasonably well, but, as Dr. Hal had already pointed out, the head injury was an even greater cause for concern.
"The first twenty-four hours will be critical," Dr. Rawls explained. "Of those patients who die of brain injury, more than half die within the first twenty-four hours. We've already called for a neurologist to conduct a full examination tomorrow--er, later this morning. The results of his exam will give us a better idea as to what we're dealing with here. Of course, it's after twenty-four to thirty-six hours that we may begin to see symptoms of delayed or secondary increased intracranial pressure."
As he talked, I noticed Mother's jaw working, as though she were trying to chew on the doctor's words to make them easier to swallow.
"If there is swelling, it could be the result of hemorrhage or edema, or perhaps both. No doubt the neurologist will want to perform a lumbar puncture as soon as Dr. Eide has stabilized to determine whether there is blood in his cerebrospinal fluid...."
I didn't know what the doctor was talking about, and furthermore, for reasons I couldn't quite pinpoint right at the moment, I didn't like him very much. I only wanted to get away from him and his statistics and his medical mumbo jumbo as quickly as possible. Mother must have felt the same way, because she interrupted the man by asking, "May I see my husband now, Dr. Rawls?"
The doctor denied Mother's request with a shake of his head. "Better if you didn't," he replied stiffly. "Not while he remains in the post-op ward. Go home and rest first, and when you return, you can see him. In the meantime, we'll call you if there is any significant change in his condition."
Mother, stunned by the doctor's refusal, started to protest, but Dr. Hal stopped her by patting her shoulder. "Dr. Rawls is right, Lillian," he said. "Come on, I'll take you home. After Will's had a chance to recover a bit from the surgery, we'll come back and see him."
Mother's mouth closed up like a nutcracker's jaw snapping on a hinge. She stared at Dr. Rawls with steely eyes, a gaze I had learned to fear early in life. But, to my surprise, she didn't argue. Without saying anything at all--without even the pretense of propriety or a single word of farewell--she t
urned to go.
But Dr. Rawls stopped her with one more statistic. "Do keep in mind, Mrs. Eide," he said, "that seventy percent of head injury cases are treated successfully, and a full recovery is made."
He smiled wanly, offering us one small hint of his humanity. But neither Mother nor I received affably his attempt at encouragement. In spite of the fact that the doctor's statistics were in our favor, all I could think about was the thirty percent who weren't so lucky.
As we walked out of the waiting room and down the long white corridor of the hospital, I held on to Mother's hand and felt--in spite of my earlier protests--like a child again, in fact, wished indeed that I were, holding her hand as we walked to the park or to church or to the store as once we had done.
We arrived home a weary lot that morning. Dr. Hal, in spite of his lack of sleep, opened the office and saw patients. Mother let me stay home from school to rest. She put on her apron to prepare breakfast, but Aunt Sally shooed her off to bed, saying she could take care of everything until Mother awakened.
When I crawled into bed, the morning sun was just beginning to peek in through the east window of my room like a candle tentatively taking the flame. I lay awake and watched, knowing I wouldn't see the angels if they came, but hoping they were climbing down the sun's ladder, anyway, to come and help us.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was dark when Mother slipped into my room and seated herself on the edge of the bed. I was only vaguely aware of her presence at first, frowning, I think, as I felt the bed shift to one side under her weight, unhappy at the intrusion into my sleep. The higher toward wakefulness I climbed, the more confused I became. What was happening? Why was Mother slipping into my room like this in the middle of the night? I felt her hand on my arm.
