Authors: P.D. Workman
She knew she couldn’t stay there for too long. It wasn’t an abandoned house, just an empty house. Unoccupied for now. The Realtor could be through at any time, preparing for an open house or touring potential buyers through. It wouldn’t be surprising if there was a security company checking up on things too.
But it was good enough for now. For now, it gave her a quiet place to think, and helped her to calm down and feel comfortable in her own skin. The chaos of the day went away. All of the little things that had bothered her throughout the day. Any stress from confrontations with Em. She could put it all away when she was alone in a house all to herself. Except her own house, of course. Em’s house. Justine could never be comfortable there.
* * *
Nurse Babcock manned the triage desk efficiently, handing out forms, evaluating injuries and stories, and passing the pertinent details on to the medical staff so that everyone could be treated in the most efficient and least frustrating way. Sometimes people did get frustrated with the system, but mostly that was the people who were using the emergency room as their primary care doctor, and coming in to have colds, flus, and mild infections treated there. They could sit in the emergency room for hours, all through the night, it didn’t matter to her if they complained about it. It was her job to make sure that there wasn’t anyone in critical condition, that there weren’t any emergency room deaths while people sat and waited for treatment. She prided herself in the fact that there hadn’t been any emergency room deaths on her watch, and that most people were satisfied with how long it took to get in to see the doctor.
She looked up as the electric doors whisked open, and then closed again. A young woman walked in. She was clutching one arm against her body with the other hand, and she staggered as she walked in, looking around with wide, vacant eyes. She was wearing a black sweater over her outfit, and it camouflaged her wound, but as Nurse Babcock hurried around her counter toward the half-fainting girl, she could see blood dripping down the hand of the injured arm.
“Orderly,” she called in a loud voice, putting an arm around Justine to support her and assess the injury. One of the support staff stepped up quickly, grabbing a wheelchair. He and Babcock maneuvered the girl into it. Babcock searched her arm for the injury and saw the gash in the shirt, with the raw flesh behind it.
“Severe laceration,” Babcock barked. She grabbed the cuffs of the girl’s sweater and pulled it off quickly. Then they could see her blood-soaked white shirt underneath. The orderly swore. Nurse Babcock grasped the girl’s arm above the wound tightly. “You,” she told the orderly, “hold here. Firm pressure.”
He took over her position. Babcock pulled up the blood soaked sleeve, exposing the long, deep laceration.
“What’s your name, honey? Can you tell me what happened?”
The girl’s face was white and pinched. She looked at them blankly.
“What’s your name?” Babcock repeated loudly.
“Justine,” she said faintly.
“How did you hurt your arm, Justine?”
Justine looked down at it. Her eyes turned up briefly and her body slumped.
“Fainted,” Babcock muttered. She shook Justine briskly. “Wake up, Justine. No sleeping on the job,” she said with a humorless chuckle. “We have questions for you. Wake up!”
Justine roused again, looking around in confusion.
“How did you hurt yourself, Justine?”
“Fell down.”
Babcock looked for any other signs that she had fallen or been in an accident. Her clothing was not torn or dirty. There were no other apparent injuries. Just a gash on her arm, one long, clean cut.
“Where did you fall down?”
She made a vague gesture toward the door she had come in through. Nurse Babcock caught sight of one of the interns.
“You, come here and help. Now.”
The intern came over obediently, and looked Justine over quickly.
“Get her into exam two,” Babcock ordered. “Clamp that off. I’ll call vascular to have a look at it. Stay with her in case she needs anything. She’s already fainted. Evaluate for any other injury.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the young doctor said wryly. He and the orderly took Justine off. Babcock paged the appropriate doctors, and began to write up a chart.
Justine had been shocked by how much the cut hurt. She had barely made it into the emergency room, her brain going haywire with the shock of it and her body searing with pain. She was used to the minor injuries that she sustained regularly skating, and hadn’t expected that this would be any different. She had a high pain threshold and thought she’d be able to handle it a lot better. But apparently her arm had been hurt a lot worse than she’d thought. It was very deep, and it hurt more than anything else she’d ever felt.
The young doctor who’d joined them in the emergency room was shaking her and talking to her in a loud voice.
“Justine. Stay with me. Did you hurt yourself anywhere else?”
Justine shook her head giddily.
“Do you have any allergies?”
“No.”
“Where’s your mom? Do you remember her phone number?”
Justine tried to remember through the fog, but couldn’t put the numbers together.
“Uh
…”
“What’s your last name, Justine?”
There was a growing pain in the middle of Justine’s belly. She held it with her uninjured arm.
“Uggh
…”
“Your name?”
“My stomach.”
“What’s your last name?” he questioned insistently.
Justine doubled up over her stomach, pulling away from him, and threw up.
“Get housekeeping,” the doctor choked. He grabbed a basin and held it in front of Justine.
“You okay, Justine? Can you hold onto this with your other hand?”
Justine held onto it, though she wasn’t sure if she could coordinate holding it in the right place and throwing up at the same time. Someone put a cool cloth against the back of her neck. It felt good. Justine continued to hold her stomach while they worked on her arm, but the sickness seemed to be fading. There was a buzz of activity around her.
“Got a vascular consult coming.”
“Cut the shirt off and clear the field.”
“Is she still conscious?”
Someone shook her uninjured arm.
“Stay with us, Justine.”
Justine was barely aware of them. They seemed far away. She tried to stay focused on the conversations, on how they were taking care of her, giving her what she needed.
“Pressure is down.”
“She’s shockie. Get a warming blanket on her. Load some Demerol.”
“Do you have any allergies, Justine?” the voice was very insistent, right beside her ear. “Are you allergic to Demerol or any opiates?”
Justine tried to shake her spinning head.
“No.”
“I’ve got a vein. Loading Demerol.”
A warm feeling spread up Justine’s uninjured warm, up to her heart, and then radiated out over her body. The pain from her cut faded.
“Oooh,” she murmured.
“That’s better, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Keep the IV port. We may want to load some fluids.”
Gradually the action spinning around Justine started to wind down a little. She focused in on the nurses and doctors still attending to her. A couple of doctors were discussing the cut and the best way to treat it. The younger one gave Justine a reassuring smile when he noticed her watching him.
“Hi, Justine. Starting to feel a little better?”
Justine nodded. She looked down at the deep cut on her arm, and felt faint again, wobbling in her seat. He moved in and covered the wound with a blue cloth.
“There, you go. Don’t look at it. You’ll feel better. Can you tell us how to reach your parents, Justine? We should get in contact with them before going too far here.”
Justine shook her head slightly.
“You don’t know how to reach your parents? Are you a runaway?”
“No,” Justine rubbed her forehead vaguely. “I can’t remember the number
…”
He smiled understandingly.
“Between the shock and the Demerol, that’s understandable. Can you tell me your full name?”
“Justine
…
Bywater,” Justine’s lips formed the words, but they didn’t feel right. She shook her head in irritation, trying to shake off the cobwebs.
“Okay. I’m sure we’ll be able to track down some contact information for you. What’s your mom’s name?”
“Em
…
Emily.”
“Great. And Dad’s?”
“I
…
don’t know him.”
“And does your mom go by Bywater or something else?”
Justine nodded.
“Bywater.”
“Great. I’ll have someone track her down for you. Where would she be right now? Would she be home? At work?”
Justine looked around for some sign of what time it was. The hospital lights were bright, and she couldn’t see any windows. She couldn’t remember what time it had been before she had hurt herself. She couldn’t remember anything.
“It’s evening,” the young doctor told her, “about
…
nine o’clock. Where would your mom be now?”
“At home,” Justine said with a sigh.
“But you don’t remember the number?”
She paused, trying to remember again, but shook her head, laughing slightly in embarrassment.
“Don’t worry,” he reassured. “We’ll have the police track her down for us. It will only take a few minutes. Then we can talk to her about this cut and what we need to do.”
Justine looked down at the blue cloth.
“I really cut it badly,” she said vaguely. She considered moving the cloth to look at it again, and the doctor shook his head.
“No, don’t look at it. You want to tell me how this happened?”
“I just
…
slipped and cut it.”
“Slipped how? Walking down the street? Carving a pumpkin?”
Justine frowned.
“I don’t remember.”
“Are you sure that you didn’t have a fight with someone? That’s a pretty deep cut for a simple accident.”
“No, it wasn’t a fight,” Justine disagreed.
“Did you fight with your mom?” he sat down on the nearby bed to get down to Justine’s level. She was still sitting in the wheelchair that they had dumped her into in the emergency triage area. “Sometimes it can be kind of embarrassing to admit if there is abuse or something like that going on in our own family. Are you sure that you didn’t have a fight with your mom? Maybe things got out of hand. There was a knife on the counter, she just picked it up, in a fit of anger
…?”
“No. It wasn’t Em. It was just an accident.”
He raised his brows and looked at her questioningly for a long minute. Justine didn’t change her story.
“Okay, then. We’ll give her a call and get her in here. In the meantime, why don’t we get you onto the bed here? You can rest until she gets here. Get yourself back together.”
Justine started to rise from the wheelchair. He quickly moved in and helped her, which was a good thing, because her legs were like jelly and she almost ended up on the floor.
“Whoa, there. Hang on. Just a bit too quick on the draw. Let me help you out.”
He held her firmly, and walked her over to the bed, helping her to lie down. He arranged her so that her arm was stuck out away from her body, still covered by the blue cloth.
“Okay, there you go. Stay put so you don’t get your lines crossed
…” she had some kind of monitor on her fingertip, and the IV in her arm. “Just get some rest.”
Justine nodded.
“Okay. Thanks.”
It seemed like a long time had passed. Justine had dozed and awakened a number of times. There was a nurse looking at the chart at the foot of Justine’s bed.
“You’re Justine Bywater?” she said briskly.
“Uh, no,” Justine said, raising an eyebrow. “My name is Katie.”
The nurse looked down at the chart again, her brows drawing down, and looked up at Justine in consternation.
“You’re not Justine Bywater?”
“No. Someone must have mixed up the charts.”
The nurse looked around for the misplaced chart. She left the room, and Justine imagined that she was walking through all of the examination curtains looking for the fictional Katie’s chart. It was some time before she reappeared at Justine’s bed and looked at the chart again. She studied Justine, eyes narrowed.
“Are you telling me that there is another patient with a left arm laceration walking around here somewhere?” she challenged.
Justine shrugged.
“How would I know? I wouldn’t think it was that uncommon a thing. It would explain why they got the charts mixed up.”
The nurse nodded at this and left again. The next time she returned, her face was beet red.
“There are no other patients with arm lacerations being treated right now. And there are no patients named Katie checked in. So just what are you trying to pull here? Why are you making my life so difficult?”
“I don’t know what you mean. You said you were looking for Justine, and there is no Justine here.”
“You are Justine.”
“No, I’m Katie.”
“How did you hurt your arm?”
“I slipped and fell.”
“And you came in through emergency.”
“Yes.”
“You are Justine Bywater,” the nurse insisted.
Justine closed her eyes, nestling back in her pillow comfortably.
“No,” she said simply. “I’m Katie. Justine isn’t here now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” the nurse questioned suspiciously. “Justine isn’t here now?”
Justine shrugged.
“Do you mean that Justine was here?”
“I suppose she might have been. I don’t remember.”
Justine opened her eyes a slit and watched the nurse grapple with this idea. The nurse shook her head and walked away, muttering to herself.
The next time, it wasn’t the nurse that came back to talk to her. It was a doctor. An older man, graying hair, whose security card said ‘Alexander Michelin.’ Justine read his tag with a giggle.
“Does that mean you’re the Michelin man?” she questioned.