I opened my eyes to see Tam talking with Dr. Dan in the doorway. There was a wheelchair parked just behind them. I had hope of leaving this god-awful place. They both turned to look at me at the same time. Tam tried to smile but Dan didn’t. Instead, he sauntered over to my bed, hit my leg lightly with his clipboard and asked the question, “How are we today?”
I grimaced at the proverbial “we” and tried to be as nice as I possible could.
“Fine. What time is it?”
“Around 3. You’ve been out for just a few hours. I think we gave too much morphine in the drip this morning. Do you have any pain now?”
I grit me teeth. “No more than normal.”
“I’m giving you a prescription to have filled on the way home. It will help take the edge off of the pain. Take it with food but do not drink alcohol with it. Ok?”
“Ok. Hey, how’s my face look?”
“It’s fine. The swelling is down, just two stitches here and one here,” he pointed to my mouth and eyebrow. “Other wise you look great.”
“Are you flirting with me?”
“Oh, yeah, flirting…” he said with a deadpan tone. He rolled his eyes. “I’ll see you later. Let me know if you need anything,” he started talking to me, but finished the sentence by turning to Tam; he nodded. Dan handed Tam a clipboard, whispered something to him, gave me a little wave and stepped out of the room. Tam tapped his thumbs on the board. He walked slowly to me.
“You need to sign these before we can go.”
I nodded, and then tried to sign my name with my left hand. It was slightly legible, and completely legal. I hoped. It was then that I noticed that the wires and tubes were gone from my arm and that I was free to move about the left side of me.
“When’d they do that?” I asked the air as I moved my left arm up and down like a newly freed puppet. Tam ignored me. He took the board and the papers and left the room. Without a sound, without a word; I looked after him in complete confusion, especially when I heard a little whisper in my left ear. I was about to swat at when I glimpsed the face of Kat inches away from me.
“What the hell?” I let slip as I turned my head to face her. She just smiled at me. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you want?”
“Why are you so pissy with me? He’s the one who virtually ignored you,”
“You saw that too, huh?”
“What’s going on?”
“Hell if I know. I just woke up. It’s as though I have the plague or something”
“The word around the hospital... is that...”
“What?”
“I shouldn’t tell you. You’ll get upset.”
“What are they saying?”
She sighed. So did I. I knew what they were saying. “They think I’m lying about my arm, aren’t they? They think I’m holding a secret and that somehow, all this mystery could be lifted if I would just confess.” Her look said it all. I fell back into the bed and turned onto my left side. Kat pulled the chair up to the bed to be closer to be. We looked at each other.
“Is there something you want to confess?”
“Um, I stole a piece of candy from the grocery store when I was five...”
“Can’t you be serious for one minute?”
“Seriously? You want seriousness? I am serious, I can’t remember what may have happened to cause fractures in my arm. Christ, how did I become the bad guy?”
“You were the last one to be alone with a little girl who is now dead,”
“What are you saying?” My question was interrupted with Tam pounding back in, running the wheelchair into the door jam, and then shoving it through the doorway into my room. I grimaced. I hoped he doesn’t do that when I’m sitting in it. That would really put a sour note into our relationship.
“Let’s go.”
“Uh, ok. Can you help me up?”
Tam let out a labored sigh, then moved around the wheelchair to fetch my clothes in the closet. Kat held my arm from behind me and helped me stabilize until I was able to get to edge of the bed. I slowly sat up, swung my feet over the edge. Tam met me there and helped me dress. Slowly, we finished, but my jacket wouldn’t fit over my cast, as my shirt barely did, so we hung it over my shoulder. We proceeded to leave the room without notice. We quietly slipped out and disappeared through the sliding doors. Tam helped me into his truck and then wheeled the chair back to the lobby. Kat slid into the second row seating and sat back. She was quiet for the entire trip. I wanted her to say something, to break the tension, but perhaps she was just as overwhelmed by it all, just as I was. Tam slammed his door shut and started the roaring engine. It wasn’t a long drive back home, but it seemed like it took forever in the silence. He didn’t even look at me. He was too fixated on the road. I watched his eyes. They darted back and forth across the road, into the trees, across the fields, and glancing up at the mirror. I felt like screaming ‘What the hell is going on with you?’ but I didn’t. He was up to something. And knowing him, it was best not to interrupt him. It was like when I’m “off somewhere,” as Kat had said. It was always best not to interrupt me. I liked to snap at people, and so did Tam. I decided to just watch him. With this realization also came a sense of relaxation. With this realization, it meant that he wasn’t angry with me; he was preoccupied. Granted, he could have expressed it better, and not be so rough around me, but I was getting used to it. This is the work part of our relationship, and he never ceases to surprise me.
After twenty minutes of complete silence, a sound circulated in the air. “Damn it,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
I lost my patience. “Oh, no you don’t. You tell me what the hell is going on.”
He pulled the truck over onto the side on the road. “Wait here.”
I was dumbstruck. “Excuse me?”
He yelled into the cab before he slammed the door, “Stay here!” The sound of his voice threw me back into my seat. I watched him walk across the road and disappear into a thin stand of trees just back off of the road.
“Where is he going?” asked Kat. I had forgotten that she was still there.
“I don’t know.” I prepared myself to jump out after him, but the seat belt stuck and then my cast whacked against the door and I couldn’t get the handle to release. Kat snickered. “You could help me.”
“Tam said that you should stay here.” I looked at her in shock.
“Since when do you do anything anyone tells you to do?”
She shrugged. I turned around in my seat to see Tam emerging from the trees. I could see his breath in the air. He had been running. He jogged back to the truck, hopped in and started the engine. Within seconds of his return, we were back on the road. He kept looking back at where he had come from.
“Did you find anything?”
“No.”
“What were you looking for?”
He said nothing.
“I’m still on this case, you know. I’m still your boss...”
“This has nothing to do with you,” he snapped.
I shut my mouth to keep my lips from trembling.
A few minutes later he pulled up into my parking lot. He got out of the truck and moved quickly to my side and opened my door for me. He helped me out and then again up the stairs to my apartment. The door was open; I rarely lock it. He took my coat and hung it up and said that he realized that he forgot to get my prescription filled. He kissed my forehead and ran out of the door. It happened so fast that I didn’t have time to object. I stared after him and watched him drive away. He’ll be back, I tried to reassure myself. He must come back, right? He’s bringing me my pain pills. I sighed. I turned around and heavily sat on the couch next to Kat. She turned to look at me.
“Don’t say a damn thing,” I scowled at her.
“Not a word will cross these lips. Want a donut?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think he’ll be back?”
I started to cry. Kat put her hand behind my head and helped me to lay down on the couch. She brushed my hair out of my eyes and said in a soothing voice, “Just think happy thoughts.” Her words were like melted chocolate. I drifted off wishing I had a candy bar.
I woke about an hour later to Tam trying to be quiet in the kitchen. Kat was gone. I sat up and saw a wrinkled note lay on the coffee table, slightly draped over my journal. “Gone to get Donuts. Be back soon. XO Kat.” I tucked the note in the journal and slowly steadied myself for the trip to the kitchen. Tam’s back was to me. It looked as though he was cooking. Ah, he does love me.
“Hi,” came a scratch from my throat.
He spun around with the knife still in his hand. “Hi, How are you feeling?”
“Ok.”
“I got your pills. They’re there on the counter.” He pointed the way with the knife.
“Thanks.”
“You’ll want to use them. I’ve broken many bones in my day, and boy, the pain can sure be a bitch.”
I was surprised that he swore. He never swore, not any of the big ones anyway. I was the one who had the sailor mouth.
“Are you hungry?”
“A little. What are you making?”
“Your favorite.”
“My favorite favorite? Or just my favorite?”
“Your favorite favorite.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
I took a whiff and immediate sucked in the scent of meatballs in tomato sauce and buttered mashed potatoes. Oh god, I was in heaven. It was the modified version of stuffed peppers without the peppers. Peppers make me burp. I like them, just can’t eat them.
“I want to apologize...” Tam started to say. He kept looking down at the pot of potatoes he was mashing. “I didn’t mean to get curt with you. I just...was preoccupied. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll accept you apology if you tell me what was going on.”
He sighed. “I think we may have a rabid coyote on the lose.”
“Is that all?” I nearly laughed, but tried to keep it in.
“It’s enough,” he said calmly. “You don’t need to be worried about something like this. I can handle it.”
“I know you can, and I appreciate it, but seriously, you could have told me that!”
“I wanted to get you home first. I just got the news about it this morning and when we were driving home, I thought I saw a dead animal in the field. Turned out to be nothing. Just a pile of brush.”
“Oh,”
“Anyway, I’m sorry. Here, taste this.”
Tam’s food was like an elixir; one taste and all of your cares and worries melted away. I had to forgive him. This was delicious.
“Mmmm. Fantastic.”
He smiled. “I was going to make spaghetti, but I thought that would be cruel.”
We both laughed as I wiggled my cast in the air. My laugh was not really a funny-ha-ha laugh but rather a sardonic ironic laugh. “Yes, that would have been hard.”
“Can you mange to get some plates?”
“Sure.” I tried to find the humor in my cast, but it just wasn’t there. I really did rely on my right arm for so much. I laughed to myself thinking that Tam was like my right arm man. I secretly hoped that he would never get broken.
After dinner, Tam helped me dress for bed. I told him I was going to have to learn how to do it on my own, and he said something that stunned me more than his swearing. “Maybe you should move in with me.” And then he added, “For a while. Until you feel more stable.” I didn’t give him an answer, not even with the amended part. I turned off the light. I couldn’t cuddle up to him sleeping on the left side so we fell asleep on the opposite side of the bed of where we usually slept. It felt strange at first, but I fell asleep too fast to really begin to care.
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