“We need a car to get to the hospital. My wife is taking care of it,” he said, as Jaime continued to bleed all over him and the lifeguard handed him a towel, which was instantly drenched with blood.
Zoe had run to the front desk on bare feet. She came back five minutes later with the assistant manager of the hotel, who insisted on escorting them to the car they were providing them. There were signs everywhere that said “Do Not Run at the Pool,” which all of the children and half the parents didn’t observe, including his wife, Austin thought, as he thanked the assistant manager. Austin was barefoot, dripping wet in his tennis clothes, and covered in Jaime’s blood. But she was alive and hadn’t drowned, which was a lot to be grateful for.
As soon as they got in, the car took off and headed to the nearest hospital, as Zoe tried to place the towels so Jaime didn’t bleed on the seat. They were at the hospital ten minutes later, and Austin carried Jaime inside in his bare feet. He hadn’t bothered to retrieve the tennis shoes he’d kicked off near the pool before he jumped in. He didn’t care. They went to the emergency room and stood at the front desk, while Jaime’s chin bled all over the floor.
“We’ll get you in right away,” the nurse on duty told him, “we can get your information later.” She immediately led the way down the hall to a room, while Zoe followed, looking pale beneath her tan, and a lot less glamorous than she had looked half an hour before.
“What in hell were you thinking?” Austin asked her in an icy voice as they waited for the doctor. “She’s three years old and she can’t swim, and you weren’t even watching her. What if she was dead by now, or brain dead because she drowned?”
“I’m sorry, the last time I looked she was sitting on a lounge chair with her friends.”
“And you assumed she wouldn’t move? When I got there, she was racing around the pool at full speed, and she fell in at the deep end.” Zoe shuddered as he said it. Jaime was whimpering by then and had stopped crying. Zoe was holding a towel to her face, and the bleeding had slowed down. Austin was in his wet tennis clothes and Zoe in a bikini.
The doctor came into the room then, and looked at the wound carefully after introducing himself. “It’s a clean slice,” he said looking into it with a light, “but it’s deep. No jagged edges. There will be a scar under her chin, but it won’t show for about fifty years, till her chin starts to sag.” He smiled at them. You could cut the tension between Austin and Zoe with a knife. “We’re going to have to stitch her up, but we’ll numb it, unless you want us to put her to sleep for a few minutes.”
“I’d rather not,” Austin said without consulting Zoe, and she didn’t say a word.
“That’s fine, you’ll have to hold her firmly,” he said to Austin, got his equipment ready and then turned to talk to Jaime, with a shot of novocaine held out of her line of sight. “Young lady, we’re going to make some little tiny pinpricks, they won’t hurt in a minute, and then we’re going to sew you up, and send you home.” She started to cry as soon as he said it and Zoe stroked her hair and spoke soothingly to her, and kissed the top of her head. Austin got a grip on her, and she screamed as they gave her the novocaine shot to numb her face, they let her sit for a while until the doctor was sure it had taken effect. Austin held her face, as Zoe held her hands down, and the doctor put twelve stitches in her chin, and covered everything below her mouth with a large bandage. Jaime was hiccupping with sobs by then, but it was over, and she reached out to Zoe, who picked her up and held her tight.
Austin looked like a train wreck, as they thanked the doctor. He gave them instructions for caring for the wound, and said the stitches should be removed in about ten days. Then Austin went to fill out the forms they had neglected when they came in. They were back in the car an hour after they had