Detective Nance tries to peer around the doctor’s shoulder. “Don’t you want to find the man who did this?”
I have never felt a panic attack, but my mother had shown me plenty of them—her lip sweating, her skin losing color, as she begged me to save her. In one moment, my empathy grows for her as my heart pounds. “He’s still alive?”
“Leave . . . now,” the doctor warns the detective.
“What makes you think he wouldn’t be alive, Willow?” The detective does not relent.
“He killed him,” I try to convince myself.
“Who killed who?” The detective is intrigued.
Finally, Dr. Richards physically forces the authorities out. “I said give her room.” Then he looks at the nursing staff, “Everyone out.” Ian stands by the window with his arms crossed, until the doctor looks at him with a raised eyebrow, “You too.”
“What?” Ian laughs.
As though the doctor knows our history, his face stays serious, “Give her a moment.”
Ian looks at me, but it is quite possible that Ian has something to do with my anxiety and so I nod. With a growl he leaves the room. When the doctor begins to leave, I call his name. “Dr. Richards. Can you stay?” I nearly whisper.
“Are you sure?” His compassion nearly makes what is left of my strength disappear.
I nod.
He carefully sits in the chair beside the bed.
“You must have daughters?” I ask.
He hesitates for a moment before answering. “I used to. One. But she passed.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “How did I get here?” A flash of memory comes back to me. Where is the man who brought me in? I look into Dr. Richards’ blue eyes. He is quite a bit older with salt and pepper hair. There is something protective about the way he looks at me. “Did you see him?”
“Who?” he asks.
“The man who brought me here?”
Again, he is careful about what he says. “I did. He waited for a while,” he explains, “but when I went out to find him, he was gone.”
“Did you get his name?”
“Arek.”
“Arek,” I whisper. Would it be enough to memorize his name? “He saved my life.”
“I know,” he smiles. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get more information for you.”
I lift the hospital gown from my arm revealing bandages all over my skin. There are wounds everywhere, surrounded by bruises and dried blood. My body is wrecked.
“It will all heal,” Dr. Richards assures me.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next morning, the hot water sprays from the overhead nozzle of the shower. The flow turns red by the time it splashes onto the white tile under my feet and swirls down the drain. My skin puckers when I turn up the heat to nearly scalding level. I’ve always loved the severity of intensely hot water and even more so now, perhaps with the idea that it strips me free of what happened. I take in one deep breath, feel it spread my lungs like balloons, my rib cage expanding, then loudly breathe out. Steam fills the room, fogging up every glass wall and mirror.
I have been awake most of the night and finally climbed out of bed before dawn—the last time I felt this exhausted was in college. Although hospitals are meant for healing, it’s apparent that they aren’t meant for sleep. Every hour a nurse opens the squeaky door, an alarm bell sounds, or they turn on the lights.
So even standing here in the warm bathroom, the lights remain off—tempting me to go back to sleep. In the darkness, the water burns my skin but I don’t care.
My good hand roams my slippery stomach and feels the glue left from bandages, however, for the first time in days there is an absence of pain. I push a bit harder but still it feels okay. When I blindly fumble for the white soap, it slips from my fingertips and out of pure reflex my left hand catches it. I freeze.
“What?” I whisper.
For a moment I just let the slippery soap sit comfortably cupped in my palm. Then slowly, after putting the soap down, I methodically make a fist, in and out. Without trouble my long fingers open and close as though nothing has ever happened to my ulnar nerve.
Thank God.
After drying off, I stand in front of the long mirror in my room and flip on the light switch. My skin is still shiny, but the bruises that had—just the day before—covered my body are now gone. Where the bandages had collected blood from stitches, there is nothing left but red lines and sutures that are now unnecessary. On my wrist, I search for a thirty-year-old scar from a fall in the yard when I was a child. That scar is bigger than any of the others from the attack. There is no red line and no bruising under my arm, where my ulnar nerve was sliced. It is as though they stitched uncut, untouched skin, yet the cut had been there the day before.
Minutes later, Dr. Richards’ voice is on the other end of the phone. “Willow, are you okay?”
“Can you come soon?” I just don’t know how to explain.
Twenty minutes later, Dr. Richards knocks before entering. He is in scrubs but looks refreshed.
“I don’t mean to bother you . . . it looks like I bothered you.”
“No, never. I just got here. Are you okay?”
“This isn’t possible, right?” I point to my face. Yesterday it had been disfigured and discolored. Presently, my cheeks aren’t swollen, my eyes are back to white, and the split on my lip is nearly invisible. “I shouldn’t look like this, right?”
