Sleeping Beauty (40 page)

“What’s his prognosis?”

I turn around, relieved (at least for the moment) to see Rev. I don’t know if Lucinda’s information on Davin’s “non-visitor” status is true or not, but I don’t want to risk it. Since they think I’m his sister, I figure another white lie couldn’t hurt.

“Dr. Ferguson, this is my brother, Rev.”

I’m not surprised in the least when Rev goes along with the ruse without missing a beat. After all, the guy’s day job is high-level deception.

“Dr. Ferguson,” he says on cue, giving the guy’s hand a firm shake.

“Pleased to meet you. As I was getting ready to tell your sister, your brother spent ten days with us in our intensive care before we moved him to his room here on the med-surg floor.

“Keep in mind we couldn’t even operate on his leg at first due to the pulmonary contusions, collapsed lung, and the severity of his dehydration, so we packed the injury with gauze, covered it with a loose dressing, and immobilized it until he was stable enough to survive the anesthesia.”

I gulp, thinking of the bones and muscle hanging out of Davin’s leg on St. Clemente, like a piece of meat in a butcher shop.
They “covered it with a loose dressing?”
I think.
I could’ve done that on the island by throwing a paper towel over it. God, this is worse than the skull in the freezer.

“Our orthopedic surgeon stabilized the fractures two days later. She used a muscle flap to cover the bones, and a split-thickness skin graft to close the wound. The leg’s immobilized now by an external fixator. They took out the drains that were removing the excess fluid buildup around the surgical site, but the leg is still extremely swollen.

“Fortunately,” he goes on, “he’s young and physically fit, and if it weren’t for the severity of his pulmonary contusions and the sepsis in the open fracture, we’d probably send him home in another few days. But I think you’re going to have to accept that he’ll be with us for another two to three weeks until we’re sure he’s off the supplemental oxygen, and the orthopedic surgeon feels confident that the fractures are set and there are no signs of other secondary infections or compartment syndrome.”

“What about recovery time for the leg?” says Rev.

What Rev really means is “How long ‘til he’s back on the stick?”

The doctor sighs and rolls his eyes to the ceiling, thinking. “You’ll see the swelling decrease in the next week or so, but it’ll take many, many months before his leg looks anything like normal. We’ll start him on some light physical therapy in another week or so, but it’s going to be a long road. I’d say at least eight months to a year before he’ll be able to resume his previous activities.”

“A
year
?” I say.

“His injuries were severe, and frankly he’s lucky the surgeon was able to save most of the soft tissue in his leg. He’ll have to wear the fixator for a few months. Once the swelling has gone down significantly, he’ll be fitted either with a cast or a walking boot until the leg is able to bear one-hundred percent of his weight.”

Rev and I look at each other in shock.

“You’re more than welcome to go in and talk to him, but I’m warning you that he’s on a lot of pain medications and will probably tire easily.” He steps out of the way of the door to Davin’s room. “Would you like to go in?” he says to me.

“No. I mean–I mean, yes,” I stutter.

“I’ll wait out here for you, dally,” says Rev.

I pretend like I don’t hear him. If the doctor weren’t standing there, I would’ve flipped him the bird; he’s the reason Davin’s in the hospital in the first place. I turn away from them both and push the door open, steeling myself for the awfulness inside.

It’s awful alright; I make it about four steps before the smell of blood, bandages and rubbing alcohol hits me. I make an abrupt detour into the bathroom on my left and vomit into the toilet until I see spots in front of my eyes. I emerge with a wet paper towel over my mouth, just in case.

Davin looks every bit as bad as the doctor’s medical gibberish foreshadowed. When you’re hale and healthy, you don’t use words like “pulmonary contusion” and “external fixator.” I expect to see him on his back, like in the movies. Instead, he’s on his side, the back of the bed slightly elevated, as is his broken leg, making him look like he got stuck doing a leg lift in an exercise class.

Fortunately for me, most of his body is covered by a blanket. Unfortunately for me, his leg is almost entirely exposed, encased by lengths of black rods that seem to levitate over his skin. As I get closer, I see the rods are attached to metal hoops around his thigh and foot. The whole thing is held in place by large screws drilled directly through his skin, like amateur acupuncture gone horribly awry. I’m only guessing, but I assume the screws go straight down into the bone.

Cue the retching. I hold onto the back of the chair beside the bed, and close my eyes until the world stops swinging from side to side like an Earth pendulum.

Just look at his face,
I think.
Don’t look at anything else.
This seems like good advice until I actually
see
his face. His eyes look like they’re swollen shut. A mask covers his nose and mouth, but I can see a crust of dried blood on his lips through the clear plastic. His blonde hair is matted in tangled clumps.

“Davin?” I say, very softly. I want to hold his hand, but I have no idea where to find it under all the tubes and wires running from underneath the blanket.

His eyes open a sliver, like he’s guarding them from bright light or something. Then I realize that’s probably all they
can
open which is just as well, because they’re still wall-to-wall red with burst capillaries. Out of his catalogue of injuries, his eyes are probably the least of his worries, but they’re so grotesque that it’s hard not to look away.

He doesn’t say anything when he sees me, and I’m wondering if he even
can
see me through all that red when a hand twists free from under the blanket. I pull the chair next to the bed and hold his hand on top of the mattress.

“Can you talk?” I say. The mask doesn’t look like it’d get in the way of speaking, but what the hell do I know?

He sighs, fogging up the mask on his exhale. It clears away immediately. “I can talk,” he says. His voice is hoarse and muffled a little by the mask, but other than speaking really slowly and sounding like a Navy seaman pensioner, he’s just regular ol’ Wib. He even smiles a little. “Might fall asleep. Don’t take it personally.”

“I won’t.” I pat his hand. “I won’t.” I wait a few more seconds. “Davin, I want to talk to you about–”

“I know,” he says. “But you don’t.”

‘
But I don’t?’
I think.
What’s that mean?

“I went to your apartment,” I say. Then I start feeling like the world’s biggest burglar, so I try to explain. “Rev gave me the key. We–we all thought you were–”

“Claire?”

“Yeah?”

“Run into any doctors outside?”

“Yeah, why?” I start to get to my feet. “Are you in pain?”

He pulls the mask away from his face. “Yeah, I’m in pain. I was in a lot of pieces when I got here. ‘All the king’s horses, all the king’s men’ and all that.”

“Should I get someone?”

“Yeah, get someone so they can tell me for the millionth time that I can’t have any more drugs. I want to hear it again.”

I sink back into the chair, not sure what to say. “I’m sorry.”

He closes his eyes and smiles. “You don’t even know what you should be sorry for, so shut up.”

“Shouldn’t you put the mask back on?”

“Not if you plan to have this conversation. Sounds like I’m underwater.”

I go to the bathroom and get a washcloth. When I get back, he’s snoring gently against the pillow. I try dabbing at the blood, but it’s too thick, too dried-on, so I try rubbing.

“Ow!” Davin moans, turning his head.

“Sorry, sorry!” I say before remembering how he responded to apologies last time. Not well. “Are you awake?”

“Mmm.”

“Can we talk about this?”

“Sure,” he says in a sleepy voice. “Sure we can.” He still hasn’t opened his eyes again. “Last time I’m gonna tell you we
shouldn’t
. Go home, enjoy life, your guy, baby…” He starts to trail off, like he’s falling asleep, then he rallies. “Your call, gidget.”

Now I’m angry. “Well, I can’t really do that, can I, Davin? ‘My guy’ is going on trial for sexual assault in two days, remember?”

“All taken care of,” he mumbles. “Anything else you want me to do while I’m clawing my way back from the brink?”

I take a deep breath and barrel ahead with one, long, run-on sentence. “I watched the footage from the Sentinels and if Brendan’s a rapist, then he’s the skittish, fourteen-year-old virgin of rapists.”

He starts laughing. At least, I
think
he’s laughing. His chest hitches and jerks, and then he starts coughing. He rolls further onto his side, clutching his chest and grimacing in pain. His face turns red as he holds his breath. Something behind me starts beeping, and I jump up.

“Pulse-ox,” he says as he exhales and takes in a slow, unsteady breath. “It’ll stop in a sec, just need to catch my breath.” He puts the mask over his mouth and inhales deeply.

Sure enough, it does stop. I’m too scared to sit down. If a little sarcasm can hurt him this bad, I’m frightened to think of what will happen when I get to the
really
meaty topics.

He opens his eyes and pulls the mask away. “You can sit down,” he says. “I’ll try not to die.”

“Sor–” I start to say. I close my mouth so hard my teeth click together, and I sit down.

“You didn’t come here to talk about Brendan,” he says. “So either say what you want to say or leave.” He watches me as I think about how to respond, then he adds: “My advice: leave.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

I pull the chair in even closer, take his hand, and lean over until my face is almost touching his. “Because I still care about what happens to you. When I left your apartment, after I saw the–the– ” I stop, feeling embarrassed and furious all over again.

“Notice anything missing?” he says.

I lean back, away from him. “Yeah, really nice of you to edit out all the boring parts. It made it a lot easier to get to the really good stuff.”

He smiles. “I’m not talking about the other cameras. I’m talking about the same thing you’re talking about. Anything missing?” Without waiting for me to answer he says, “Aren’t you curious about what happened
after
?”

“Not even remotely,” I say. “I was madder than hell after I saw the edited version. I probably would’ve shot you if you’d been standing in front of me.” I bend towards him again. “And you know what? Even then, all I could really think about was finding out once and for all if you were dead or alive.” My eyes well up, and I turn my face away as the tears spill over.

“Claire…” He tugs on my hand, trying to pull me towards him.

I shudder with the effort of fighting back a sob, and bury my face in his neck. I inhale, expecting the smell of bandages and antiseptic and oozing pus to mask his scent, but it’s not like that at all. I turn my head so that it’s resting on his chest. His skin through the hospital gown is warm on my cheek, and he feels more real than ever as he plays with loose strands of my hair. “Whatever happens after this,” I say, “I just want you to know that I–”

I feel his chest rise sharply, a strange sound coming from his lungs like someone stomping through fresh snow in the winter. “Yeah, I love you too, Claire,” he says, gasping for breath. He pushes me off of him. “Don’t say it though.”

And then it happens: a sort of time dilation and the feeling of everything growing dim, like at a theater after the trailers are done and the movie’s about to start. I haven’t exactly gotten inured to this, my strange ability to play “head home movies”–me starring in events I don’t actually remember the normal way–but it doesn’t bother me as much as it did before, mostly because it’s a sign that some missing piece is about to fall into place, usually something from those first “blank weeks” with Brendan.

Suddenly I’m somewhere else…

“
I have to go, Claire,” says Davin.

My face is buried in his shoulder, my fingers playing with the water and salt-weathered blonde strands of his hair. I inhale, trying to lock all of this sensory information away in a secret box, one I may or may not be able to open again. I can’t bring myself to look at him.

“
Why?” I say, sounding as miserable as I feel. “What’s the point now?”

“
I have to talk to West. I can’t do this anymore.”

I freeze. “You can’t do that, Davin. It’d kill him if he knew.”

“
I’m not telling him about this. I’m telling him about what happened on the couch. Give me a good excuse.”

“
To do what?”

“
To get lost.”

I feel panic, the way I do whenever I know Davin’s going away.“Why?”

He pushes away from me and gets up to retrieve his clothes from the floor. “Because both of us are assholes, but I’m the asshole who always gets to remember this for the both of us.”

“
What are you talking about?”

“
I don’t care what they’re giving you, Claire. You’re still in the middle of an episode, and when you wake up you won’t remember that this ever happened.” He pulls on his shorts. “Which is probably a good thing. It’ll save you from taking any of the blame. It always does.”

I cover my face with my hands and rock back and forth. “I’m just as much to blame as you,” I say, my voice shaking.

He snorts. “No, you’re even
more
to blame.”

I pull one hand away, forcefully blinking away a tear to clear my vision. He throws a shirt over his head. “Me? Why?”