Chapter 45 #2
I shake my head, my mouth groping for words I don’t know how to communicate.
“No. She went into labor,” Nolan says.
The healer looks around. “Is there a child in this house that needs to be seen to as well?”
When Nolan and I don’t answer, just stare blankly at the floor, the healer grunts awkwardly. “Very well. I’m sorry for your loss. For the pain you’ve endured tonight.”
The words mean nothing to me. Slip right over my icy heart. The healer, Nolan, and I file back into the living room so he can examine me on the couch.
The process of examining me is clinical, violating, but I don’t have the energy to argue. And besides, it’s not the healer’s fault that processes like these feel perverse to me.
When he has decided that I need no stitches, he leaves me and pulls Nolan aside, whispering something to him. If it’s anything like the way the healer used to speak to my father whenever my mother fell sick, I imagine he’s talking about me as if I’m a child.
But who am I to argue with that notion at this point?
I catch a few words here and there—warnings to Nolan. That he’s to watch for signs of me breaking. Of my mental state unraveling.
I wonder what it’s like for Nolan to hear this after he, too, has lost his child. I wonder what it’s like to be told to be the strong one when it was my weakness that got us into this situation in the first place.
Eventually, the healer leaves. Nolan lies on the floor on a pallet beside me. Throughout the night, there’s no evidence that either of us sleeps.
When the healer returns in the morning, he informs us that Charlie’s condition is stable enough for him to operate. He lets none of us remain in the room except for Maddox, as he assumes Maddox is Charlie’s husband.
Maddox goes to argue, but Nolan just shakes his head, and Maddox clamps his mouth shut.
After the procedure, Nolan and I are called back in.
Maddox is holding a cloth in his hand. Inside is the bullet that had pierced Charlie.
I would’ve expected it to be spherical, like it was when she loaded the pistol.
Instead, it’s bent, dented, and there even seems to be a part that splintered off.
“I don’t see the splinter,” I say.
“He wasn’t able to remove all of it,” explains Maddox, still staring at the marred bullet.
“She’s lucky,” says the healer, cleaning the blood off his hands into a water basin.
I look at Charlie, who doesn’t look lucky at all. There’s still a sheen of sweat on her forehead, and her clothes are drenched through.
The healer tells me he has assistants waiting outside who will help change her. He doesn’t want us disturbing the wound by moving her too abruptly.
“She’s going to be all right?” I ask.
The healer dries his hands off from where he’s been washing them in a basin, then rubs the back of his neck. “It’s difficult to say in these situations. The bullet—as you call it—skimmed past any vital organs. I can’t say whether she’ll face infection. That’s our main concern at the moment.”
He hands Maddox a set of vials.
“This one twice a day. This one three times. This one, just as needed,” he says, indicating each with a pointed finger. “They should help with the infection—or at least attempt to.”
I don’t like the lack of confidence in his voice.
“And this one’s for pain,” the healer adds, grabbing another vial from his kit.
“Can you overdo that one?” asks Maddox.
“Depends on how much pain she’s in. And whether infection sets in,” says the healer.
The three of us exchange grim looks, understanding the healer’s unspoken sentiment.
“I’ll be back to check on her tomorrow,” says the healer.
“What if she needs you before then?” says Maddox. “What if she convulses, or her stitches break open, or?—”
“I’ve done what I can,” says the healer. “Like I said… sometimes the best I can do is wait. I’m not a miracle worker. I’m not fate.”
Nolan’s and Maddox’s faces drain of color.
On the way out, the healer pulls me aside.
Nolan looks hesitant, but I reassure him that it’s okay.
“Last night,” says the healer. “That was blasting powder on your hands, was it not?”
I nod.
“Again, I ask you,” says the healer. “Do I need to speak to the authorities?”
“Is there anything I could say that would make you not?” I ask.
He looks at me, sympathy in his eyes. “I don’t get the sense that you’re a killer at heart.”
Just a killer at my hands, I think to myself. Oh, how little this man knows. My frailty—he assumes it’s harmless. But it’s the frail blade, the dull knife in the kitchen, that’s the most dangerous.
Someone stronger wouldn’t have hurt Charlie. Would’ve been able to resist.
“You just lost a child,” says the healer. “Things like this happen sometimes, in situations like yours.”
Again, this man sees only the best in me. Assumes that what I did to my friend was born of a fit of hysteria.
“What do you want me to say?” I ask.
“Just that you won’t hurt anyone again. That’s all I’m asking. That’s all I need to sleep tonight with a good conscience.”
“No. I won’t hurt anyone again.”
He nods and bids me farewell.
But as he leaves, I glance up. Something moves in the shadows, just at the corner of my vision.
When I turn to look, all I see is Maddox, pacing angrily away from us.