Her voice sounded both loud and soft, like she was yelling into a tunnel. “You fell and hit your head.”
I closed my eyes and struggled into my murky memory. The happenings of the previous two days filtered in through the fog. I reached to touch the injury, but it was hard to pinpoint, because the pain was a moving target. Before I made contact, Luann snatched my hand and held it down near my side.
“Hang tight, champ,” Glen said, pressing a stethoscope to my chest. “Once they get you stitched up, you’ll be good as new.”
Please, I prayed, let him be right. Stitches meant surface wounds. It meant the damage went only a few layers deep. It meant the muffled siren fading in and out on its way around wasn’t the Simmons anthem, playing just for me.
“Good as new?” Luann teased, speaking to Glen like I was knocked out cold. “This guy’s eightysomething.”
“Now see,” Glen said, sounding casual too, “that’s why I’m just a deliveryman.”
* * *
* * *
Twelve stitches in all at the hairline above my right eye. After the doctor dressed it, he left me alone in the room with the promise it would heal up fine. I could hear the patient next to me through the baby blue curtain dividers. By the sound of his ongoing complaints, I diagnosed him with either severe indigestion or an ulcer. I could also hear his concerned wife. Did he need a glass of water? Was he warm enough? Where were the doctors, and why did things take so long?
She annoyed the hell out of me with all her fussing. The curtain wall kept ballooning on my side every time she walked past on hers, and she did this a lot. I tried my best to tune it out, to ignore the encroachment on my already pitiful square footage, but then this man, the one who had probably eaten too much or worked too much or slept too little—there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with him in my humble opinion—this man got visitors. A son, a daughter-in-law, and two small children who found a great game in poking the curtain and climbing underneath. My mood soured considerably at their arrival. When I’d had enough, I pressed my call button.
It took fifteen minutes, but a wisp of a nurse appeared. She stood at the computer and typed, her feathery fingers making no sound at all. “How are we doing?”
“I’ve been better.” The family reunion next door had quieted, but I signaled toward it anyway and shook my head. “It’s noisy.”
“Welcome to the ER, Mr. Sinclair.” She kept typing. “Transport should be here soon with your wheelchair. Luann has your discharge papers, and she’s gone to find you a ride home.”
I grunted and looked down at my hospital gown. I remember seeing my ruined shirt in the ambulance. By the looks of it, you would’ve thought I’d bled out. “I’m a mess,” I muttered to myself.
The nurse glanced over her shoulder. “Could be worse. Heard you hit your head on a dresser before you hit the floor. You’re lucky you didn’t break any bones. That’s what usually happens.”
“Hips?”
“And wrists.”
“We’re that predictable?”
On her way out, she said, “There are always people like you who don’t live by the rules.”
Which was true enough, but when I imagined myself dropping lifeless to the ground in my room, my arms and legs falling at odd angles, bending but not breaking, this version of events seemed off. The nurse was right; I should’ve shattered something.
I weeded through the misconstruction, drawing myself back to the moments after Josie hit me upside the head. I’d managed to stand for a few dazed seconds, wondering what had happened, and then Josie caught me on the way down; I was sure of it. At some point, my head lay in her lap; I could feel the soft cotton of her new dress around my cheeks and saw red, be it her skirt or my blood. A drawer opened. A shout for help. Shoes. Many shoes, a surprising number, an odd number. I remember thinking someone must have only one leg.