Rorey's Secret (12 page)

“Oh, Sammy.” I could just about laugh and cry at the same time. I gave him a kiss, and he wanted me right up next to him again. It wasn’t long before Sarah, Katie, and little Emmie all came in together bringing Samuel a handsome-looking plate of pancakes and a glass of milk.

“You want some too, Mom?” Sarah asked me.

“Not right now, honey.”

Samuel looked at the food and then at the girls. “Everybody else fed?” he asked them.

“No. You’re first.”

“Well . . . doesn’t seem right to make them wait. You wouldn’t mind going on and getting everybody else’s breakfast, would you?”

They probably did mind a little, hoping to be with him. But they didn’t argue. And when they were gone, Samuel looked at me with his dark eyes clouded with care. “Help me eat this, will you?” he asked. “I don’t want them to be disappointed.”

I set the plate on the side of the bed and took his hand. “Tell me, Samuel, please. Where are you hurting most now? Is your side still bothering you? How does your head feel? Are you really all right?”

“Too many questions.” He sighed. “Juli, I don’t know. I just hurt. All over.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m expecting the doctor before long.”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry. Please.”

“I don’t know how you think I could help it.”

He looked at me, trying to smile again, and squeezed my hand. “Well, at least I still know who you are.”

“Samuel, that’s not funny.”

“Something to thank God for. Right? It’s okay. I’m gonna be okay.”

I couldn’t help it then. I didn’t want to cry in front of him, but I did, hugging his neck and hoping it didn’t hurt him. “I’m so glad you risked your life,” I told him. “But I hope to God you never have to do it again.”

He only held me, for a long time. When I finally moved a little I accidentally set my hand right in the middle of that plate of pancakes. We both looked down at my squishy fingers dripping with syrup. He laughed. And it was a beautiful sound.

I had to go to the kitchen to wash up a bit. Emmie thought I was pretty funny, making a mess of my own. I wasn’t usually so clumsy. I guess Sarah and Katie thought it was funny too.

When I went back into the bedroom, Samuel had me help him sit up a little. He tried to eat, but he could only manage a few bites before he had to lie back down. Dizzy, he told me. And not hungry, either. I finished what he didn’t eat because he wanted me to.

“Has George been over?” he asked me.

“No. But I expect him and all the rest. I’m not sure they can stay at home. Robert said the house was damaged. Do you think we can manage them here?”

“We’ve done it before.”

I nodded. Sure, we’d had all the Hammond kids here plenty of times. But not like this. Our house was like some sort of nursing station already. I wasn’t sure how well I’d deal with more. But I had little time for wondering. We could hear somebody pulling up in a vehicle outside and Barrett Post’s voice greeting them.

“Go on,” Samuel told me.

I didn’t want to leave his side, no matter who it was. But I did.

I could have hugged that Mcleansboro doctor. Right in front of Mr. Post and Franky. There he stood, beside his old car with his big black bag in hand.

“Heard you were having a new baby out here,” he called to me. “I was sorry not to make it last night. Made sure to find a way to get here this morning.”

“Bless you,” I told him with my heart suddenly thumping faster. I wouldn’t have had to send Robert for Dr. Howell, if only we’d been patient.

“Mr. Post was telling me the baby’s just the beginning, with the fire and all.”

“Yes. Yes, please come in.”

I ushered him straight to the house to see Samuel. I thought maybe Franky would follow us. He knew I would want the doctor to look at his hands. But he didn’t follow, only turned around toward the woodshop again.

“Guess your home became something of a hospital last night, Mrs. Wortham,” Dr. Hall was saying. “You must be exhausted.”

“I suppose we should’ve tried bringing everybody in to you—it’s just . . .” I looked at him and almost broke down in sobs. “Oh, I don’t know . . .”

“It’s all right. I don’t mind coming out. I know you’ve had a hard time of it.”

He heard the baby in the sitting room and glanced in that direction, but I urged him toward Samuel again, and Delores agreed with me.

“Take a look at Mr. Wortham first,” she told the doctor. “He give us all quite a scare.”

Samuel was still awake when we came in, and I was grateful for that. He greeted Dr. Hall by name, which I’m sure the doctor would understand as a good thing. Sarah came in behind us and wanted to watch, but the doctor told me it might be better if she didn’t.

“You can come back soon as he’s done, pumpkin,” Samuel said to help her feel better. But she was none too happy about being asked to go out.

Dr. Hall was thorough. He took his time looking Samuel over, arms and legs, chest and back. In the daylight I could see so many bruises and scratches I hadn’t seen before. It looked just like what Samuel had said, that the barn had fallen on him. I knew it to be a miracle that he’d survived.

“Well, Samuel,” Dr. Hall said quietly. “I’m pleasantly surprised not to find you dealing with obvious broken bones. Only thing I’m wondering about in that way is your ribs here.” He pointed to Samuel’s right side. “You’ve got some bad bruising in this area, and you seem awfully tender.”

Samuel nodded. I took a deep breath, but it came hard. Broken ribs? How much of a problem might that be? And what could be done?

“It’s a little hard to know for sure,” the doctor continued, “unless we put you under an X-ray picture machine. I don’t blame you for not coming into town, though. With your head injury, the bumpy roads wouldn’t have done you any good.”

That scared me. Terrible. What about the head injury? I wanted to ask how bad it was, but I couldn’t seem to get a word out. Thank God we hadn’t let Sarah stay in the room. I just stood there and watched, twisting my apron between my fingers.
Dear God, let him be all right. Let it be that the doctor’s only being cautious and it’s not really all that bad. Please, God.

Dr. Hall spent some time looking in Samuel’s eyes and ears with some kind of magnifier and an even longer time looking over the obvious wound on the back of his head and then asking a whole series of questions, some of which didn’t seem relevant at all.

Finally the doctor turned and looked at me. “Was he unconscious?”

“Yes. For a while. When it first happened. And then later. He seemed to be sleeping, but I wasn’t sure if it was normal sleep.”

Samuel glanced over at me with something strange in his eyes.

The doctor frowned and did some more looking, feeling over Samuel’s head with his hand. I could tell it hurt. Finally, the doctor spoke to me again. “Could have been much worse. I’d say you have a lot to be thankful for that your husband’s still here.”

“I know,” I managed to say, hoping he’d go ahead and say more. And he did.

“His eyes are fine. His thinking’s fine. No fluid in his ears at all. Structure of the skull feels fine despite some swelling in the skin. I don’t expect any skull fracture. Bit of a miracle, I’d say.”

I smiled.

“Still, a whack on the head’s nothing to mess around with, especially when he’s lost consciousness. He been dizzy or nauseous at all?”

“Yes,” I said. “And hurting too.”

“You’d about have to expect that. I’d say he’s got a concussion. Have to be careful for a while, till we know the swelling’s gone, and pray there’s none on the inside.”

“On the inside?” Those words hit me hard. “What would that be like?”

He turned away from Samuel to face me. “Mrs. Wortham, I wasn’t meaning to alarm you. There’s no reason at all to expect—”

“Expect what? What could happen?” I thought of the man from the cave, the man who’d been hit with the rock and then died in his bed.

The doctor looked uncomfortable. “We should expect him to just be getting better—”

“But if there’s a chance . . .” I stammered, “if there’s a chance of complications, I want to know.”

He sighed. “Mrs. Wortham, don’t be worrying yourself. There’s always a chance, but—”

“Tell me. Please tell me what could happen.”

He sighed again. “It’s a tricky thing,” he said, turning his eyes back toward Samuel. “We just can’t predict something like this very well. I’m sure he’s fine. But in some cases there can be bleeding or swelling inside. You can’t tell it looking at the outside, and it doesn’t always show in the X-ray pictures we can get, because it’s gradual. If it happens, it can cause problems. Loss of memory, or function, or worse. But we’ve no reason to think—”

My heart was pounding in my throat. “Could he die?”

Dr. Hall shook his head. “Mrs. Wortham, there’s no cause for such alarm. I don’t believe we have any such problem here.”

“Can we know for sure?”

“I wish I could say so. Soon they’ll have machines, and we’ll be able to tell anything you want to know. For now, the best thing to do is relax and make sure he gets plenty of rest. I saw you had ice on his head. That’s a good thing. Get more if you can. Keep him still. There’s not much more you can do, unless you want to move him to town, but I’m not sure that would be to any real benefit. He should recover fine at home.”

“What about his ribs?”

“I’ll wrap them tight. That’s another reason he shouldn’t be up moving around. They should heal on their own all right. You can expect it to be painful, though. And four to six weeks, probably, before he’s full on the mend.”

Surely he must be wrong about it taking so long! Surely there must be some way to help him more quickly. I knew I shouldn’t worry, but it was pouring over me like water. Could broken ribs create bleeding and swelling inside too? Should I ask? How could we know?

“I’m sorry if this seems like bad news, Mrs. Wortham,” the doctor told me. “But I believe he’ll come out fine. You’ve got plenty to be grateful for, that he’s doing this well. And with him sitting here talking to us, I don’t expect any complications.”

“Yes,” I told him. “Thank you.”

He looked at Samuel’s leg and told me I’d done a fine job bandaging it. I’d thought it would need stitches, but he said it was already closing on its own and he believed it’d do all right.

“Maybe I’d best take a look at the others while I’m here,” he said then. “I’ll come back in to Mr. Wortham again before I go.”

I knew it could have been so much worse, and I was probably just irrational for worrying over what might be. But still I felt numb inside. It was hard to move, showing Dr. Hall into the sitting room toward Berty and baby Rosemary. Sarah and Katie both came up beside me, and I hugged them, telling them not to worry, that the doctor said we had plenty to be thankful for.

“Go get Franky,” I told them. “I want to make sure the doctor looks at his hands.”

Thelma was sitting up on the old davenport, happy to talk to the doctor. I was relieved there’d be no difficult news with her. She seemed to be fine, just like her mother had said. The doctor said so too, and congratulated me on doing so well.

“Fine baby you got here,” he said, lifting Rosemary into his arms. “She nursing well for you?”

“Took the breast twice already this morning,” Delores told him like the proud grandmother she was.

It didn’t take the doctor long to look the baby over and pronounce her healthy. “Congratulations to you,” he told Thelma. “Where’s the father?”

Thelma looked down for a moment. “Over with his pa. They lost their barn last night, and we don’t know what all else. They’re making sure the flames don’t kick back up. And I think Pa Hammond’s having a hard time of it.”

“I understand. Quite a night you’ve all been through.” He turned his attention to Berty. “Let me take a look at you, young man.”

Bert didn’t look up. “It’s only just my ankle. An’ . . . an’ I reckon I deserve that much.”

“Oh, Bert—” I started to say.

“Why?” the doctor asked him.

“Because I run in after Imey, my calf, that’s why. An’ I shoulda knowed better. I shoulda knowed I couldn’t save her, an’ it weren’t worth it to try. I near got Mr. Wortham killed. He was the one rushed in there an’ got me out.”

The doctor glanced up at me for a second, and then back to the boy. “Well, a lesson learned, I’d say.”

Bert nodded. “I’m just awful sorry, that’s all. I ain’t never felt so bad over nothin’.”

“Let me see that ankle?”

Bert looked at me, but then he assented, stretching his leg out in front of him. It was kind of puffy and pink, but the doctor wasn’t worried.

“Can you put weight on it?”

“A little. It hurts, though.”

Dr. Hall didn’t take long looking it over. “Got you a bad sprain, I’d say. And angels watching out for you. Could have died going in a burning structure. Don’t ever do it again.”

“No, sir, I won’t.”

“You’ll have to stay off of that ankle a few days. Soak it morning and night. If you’re not on it by next week, have your pa bring you in. But I think it’ll be fine.”

The doctor patted Bert’s shoulder, then turned to me. “Well, Mrs. Wortham. You had one busy night. Any more?”

“Yes. One. Bert’s brother Franky has a burn on one hand and what looks like a nail puncture on the other. He was fighting the fire. And he helped pull my Samuel out. Can’t keep him from working today, though. I sent the girls for him.”

“Well, where is he? I can go to him.”

He did. We were started on the way when Sarah and Katie came back, telling me Franky wouldn’t come. “He says he don’t need a doctor, that his pa’ll be mad,” Katie said.

I was immediately stirred almost to anger over the idea. Surely George wouldn’t be angry over his son seeing the doctor. Not if he had a lick of sense about him.

I took Dr. Hall straight to the woodshop, and there was Franky sanding away on the beautiful hope chest he and Samuel had been working on earlier in the week. He didn’t stop when we came in. He didn’t even look up. I’d never known Franky to be stubborn before, but I thought that was what I was seeing in the set of his jaw. Until I came closer and saw the tears in his eyes.

“Franky, let Dr. Hall look at your hands, please.”