Chapter 19 Drew
Brecca had the medical tent ready at oh-six-hundred.
I came in at oh-five-fifty-five.
The medical tent had been the medical tent for eleven years.
The medical tent had been Brecca's tent the entire time.
The medical tent had a long table, three cots, the small wash basin with the salvaged hot-water tap that Cora had fixed in year five, the medicine cabinet that locked from the outside, and the small wooden stool by the door where the patient sat while waiting.
I sat on the small wooden stool.
Brecca came in. She had Sebastian on a sling at her shoulder.
Sebastian was asleep. Brecca was Brecca.
The two-week-shorter haircut Brecca had given herself the morning we had left for Urbana had grown out to a manageable shape.
The clinical posture was the posture I had seen for nine months. The face was the face.
She said: "Drew."
"Brecca."
"You're early."
"Yes."
"Good."
She put down the small instrument case she had been carrying. She took Sebastian out of the sling and laid him on the small cot at the south wall. Sebastian made a small noise and went back to sleep.
She sat across from me.
She said: "I have been waiting nine months to teach you. You have been waiting nine months to learn. I am not going to make a thing of the wait. I am going to start. Are you ready."
"Yes."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"Before we start. One thing."
"Yes."
"The bandage in year two."
I waited.
She said:
"You handed me the bandage. I was bleeding from my own table.
The gauze was on the wrong side of the room.
You handed me the bandage. I bandaged my own thigh.
I survived. I have been thinking about that moment for two years and four months.
I have not said anything to you about it because you did not want anyone to say anything.
I am saying it now because today is the first day of you and me working together and I want the thing to be said before we start. "
"Brecca."
"Yes."
"What did you want to say."
"I wanted to say thank you."
"You said thank you. The day it happened. I heard you. I left before I could respond."
"You left because you did not want the moment to become a thing.
I understood. I let it not become a thing.
For two years and four months I let it not become a thing.
Today is the first day of you being inside the camp.
Today the thing becomes a thing. I am saying thank you.
The full thank you. Not the small thank you at the time.
The full thank you. You handed me the bandage.
Two years ago. I am saying thank you now.
The full thank you. The handing of the bandage saved my life.
Thank you for two years and four months ago.
Thank you for the moment. Thank you for the giving. Thank you."
I said: "You are welcome."
She nodded.
She said: "Good. Now. We start."
She picked up the small instrument case.
She began.
She taught me suture-tying. The way Brecca tied a suture had three steps and the third step was a small twist that the medical books did not have because Brecca had developed the twist herself in year four when the standard sutures had been failing on the half-Vampyren bodies that had come through the camp in year four.
The twist held in tissue that had cooler-than-human surface temperature.
The twist was Brecca's. The twist was what Sylvia had been using on the road, on my wrist and on my side, both times, and I had been on the receiving end of Brecca's twist twice on this trip without knowing it.
I learned the twist.
I tied seven sutures on a piece of pig-leather from the kitchen-salvage.
Brecca inspected the seven.
She said: "Six of seven. You are missing the small angle at the entry. The angle goes ten degrees forward, not five. Try again."
I tried again.
Seven sutures.
She said: "Seven of seven."
I nodded.
She said: "Good. We move to needle-handling."
I learned needle-handling. Brecca had three needle-grips.
The first was the standard surgical grip the pre-invasion medical schools had taught.
The second was the modified grip Brecca had taught herself in year three when the standard needles had run out and she had been working with salvage-needles that did not balance the way surgical needles balanced.
The third was the half-Vampyren-cool-tissue grip that Brecca had developed in year five after she had treated her first half-Vampyren wanderer, a man named Theo from outside Phoenix who had come through Mojave with a knife wound to the thigh and had died of the wound because Brecca had not yet figured out the grip.
The third grip was now the grip the camp used for any half-Vampyren patient.
The third grip was the grip Brecca had used on me when I had been unconscious on the Hess gap and Sylvia had been doing the field work.
I had not known about Theo.
I asked.
Brecca said: "Theo was the half-Vampyren-wanderer Cora's salvage team brought in in year five.
He was twenty-three. He had come from Phoenix on his own legs.
He had a knife wound that had been on him for nine days.
The wound had clotted wrong because the standard needles did not work on his skin.
I tried for four hours. He died at midnight.
I cried for an hour. I have not told anyone about Theo in five years.
I am telling you now because the grip I am teaching you is the grip I developed at midnight that night.
The grip is Theo's. The grip is named for him in my notes.
You are the second half-Vampyren I have used the grip on.
The first was Theo. The second was you. The grip worked on you because I had spent five years getting the grip right.
The grip working on you is the grip having earned its name. "
I sat with that for a moment.
I said: "Brecca."
"Yes."
"Thank you for the grip."
"You are welcome."
"Brecca."
"Yes."
"Thank you for Theo."
She looked at me.
She did not say anything for a moment.
She said: "You are welcome."
By noon I had learned the suture-tie, the needle-handling, the basic cut-care for a clean cut, the basic cut-care for a contaminated cut, the wash-basin protocol, and the Theo-grip.
I had tied twenty-eight sutures total on the pig-leather.
Brecca had checked them all. The last seven had been seven of seven.
The cohort-count of suture-mastery was seven-of-seven across four sets. I had hit the count.
We stopped at noon.
Brecca said: "Lunch. Come back at fourteen-hundred. We do antibiotics. Veron is coming in for the integration physical at fifteen. You assist."
"Veron."
"Yes."
"Brecca."
"Yes."
"Veron is Lucian."
"Yes."
"You have a Lucian husband and a Lucian-half-blood baby and now a Lucian patient and you want me to assist."
"Yes."
"Why me."
"Because you are also a not-Vampyren-not-human person who came to this camp asking to be inside.
Veron is going to come into the integration physical with the same posture you came into the medical tent with this morning.
Veron is going to be apprehensive. Veron is going to be polite.
Veron is going to be doing the not-cost-anyone-anything thing.
Veron is going to be doing what you did for nine months.
I want Veron to see you assisting. I want Veron to see that the not-cost-anyone-anything person is now inside the camp.
I want Veron to know it is possible. I want Veron to see that the half-Vampyren who walked into the medical tent at oh-six-hundred this morning is the model. You are the model, Drew."
I sat with that.
I said: "Brecca."
"Yes."
"That is a lot."
"It is."
"I am not sure I am the model."
"You are. Rael told me last night. Rael came in from his Veron-mentoring shift and said Drew is the model for Veron's first month at Mojave.
Veron is going to be doing what Drew did at the perimeter for nine months.
Veron needs to see Drew on the other side.
Veron needs to see Drew doing the medical work.
Veron needs to see that the inside is possible.
Rael said that. I am repeating it to you.
I am repeating it to you because Rael does not say things like that lightly and because I want you to hear it from me, not from him. "
"Brecca."
"Yes."
"Okay."
"Okay."
"Fourteen-hundred."
"Fourteen-hundred."
I went out.
I went to the kitchen tent.
Cora was there. Cora had been at the kitchen-tent helping Tess with the morning prep.
The camp was running a feast-style lunch today, the day after Easter, the day after Mara's funeral, the day the camp ate together at the long table the camp had pulled out only twice a year.
Cora was at the long table. Tess was at the stove.
Crystal was at the rosemary bed, harvesting a small bunch of the trimmings for the lunch.
The rosemary that would go into the lunch was Mara's rosemary now, formally, and Crystal had decided this morning that the rosemary would be in every camp meal from now on as part of the daily count. I sat next to Cora.
She said: "How was Brecca."
"Brecca said thank you for the bandage."
"After two years."
"Yes."
"You said you are welcome."
"Yes."
"How did it feel."
I thought about it.
"It felt like a small thing that had been waiting to be a thing for two years and which is now a thing and which is now done."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"Welcome to the inside of the camp."
"Yes."
Tess brought us lunch. The lunch was the rosemary-rubbed dried meat Tess had been making for two days, the small carrots from the garden, the bread Mark had been baking in the wood stove for an hour.
Auriel was on Tess's hip. Auriel pointed at me.
Auriel said: Eh. Tess said: Yes, that's Drew, baby. Auriel said: D.
I went very still.
Auriel said: D-eh.
Tess looked at me.