A WEEK LATER THE nurses finally removed my bandages. Annie sat beside me as they did so, my grandmother standing behind the doctor. I watched Annie’s face as the last of the bandages were unwound and the relief on her face helped my stomach unclench slightly.
She spoke to me and then Dr. Watson and my grandmother. They must have agreed to whatever she asked because as he used various instruments to peek into my ear, she pulled out her little pocket mirror.
Hesitating, she fumbled, writing a note on the ever-present pad on my lap, “Bruises heal and hair grows back.” Only when I’d read it and nodded impatiently did she hand me the small round mirror.
She needn’t have worried, the yellow and orange-coloured bruises around my eyes and cheeks didn’t concern me at all and the few actual cuts on my face were minor and healing. My forehead looked reddened from the fire and my hair would need to be cut much shorter because of the burnt parts, but considering the fate of the others who had been hit by the blast, I had been lucky. Brian was in a lot of pain and his hands would bear the scars of fire for the rest of his life. And Bonhomme …
Unfortunately, the removal of the bandages had made no discernible difference to my hearing and I wrote a few lines for Watson, asking what he had seen in my ears.
He stepped back to peer into my ear again before he spoke, Annie transcribing, “Your ears are improving. The scabbing over your eardrums has gone down. Are you noticing any improvement at all?”
I shook my head, having understood none of what he had said aloud.
Watson shrugged and spoke again. Whatever he said got Annie tearful and she shook her head several times. Annie wrote, “He says it will take time to fully recover.”
“Perhaps my hearing will return as my concussion improves,” I muttered, shaking my head at Annie as she wiped away her tears. It was gibberish anyway. Both my speaking of it and Watson’s reassurances as far as I was concerned.
* * *
“I WISH YOU WOULD go to a private hospital. You would have the best care and the finest doctors. The Watsons are adequate physicians, but their side of your family tree is known for loyalty and friendship, not brains.”
It was just the elegant handwriting of my grandmother, but even without the sound of her voice to punctuate it I knew her tone was one of resignation, not accusation. Looking up at her face, I added a tinge of coercion to that tone. She hoped she could wear me down through careful applications of guilt and concern. A long time ago, Irene Adler was a lauded soprano, only catching the eye of Sherlock Holmes when one of her paramours, a king no less, convinced the great detective to steal an important photo from her. She had outwitted Holmes and applied her skills to the wrong side of the law — half to dare him to catch her and half out of boredom. After fifty years of dodging and catching Sherlock Holmes, the woman was a formidable foe. One that I didn’t intend to get on the wrong side of — grandmother or not.
I shook my head at her, pointing to an earlier answer I had given on my pad of paper, “I’m fine.”
I had passionately petitioned for my release from the hospital as soon as my burns had healed beyond Watson’s care. I was still taking a veritable cocktail of pills three times a day, but even agreeing to that had seemed like heaven compared to being trapped in a hospital room where friends, family, and the occasional squadron of medical students paraded through to point at the freak who spoke in tongues. So adamant was the good doctor about my pill regimen that he assigned a nurse to drop off my medication once a week at my home on Baker Street. I only agreed with the caveat that Brian’s medication for his burns be dropped off at the same time.
Unfortunately, two days in my own home had turned out to be only slightly better. My grandmother refused to leave my side. Here from morning until she tucked me in at night, and when she went out for even an hour, Annie showed up, or Brian, or his mother, Mrs. Dawes. At least the Dawes were my tenants at Baker Street, living in the downstairs apartment, but Annie had to haul herself in from Spital Street to check up on me and she was too busy for that nonsense. She was writing a story about the ladies-in-waiting who found themselves defending the queen and her king against the common people. The Mistress of the Robes, Ms. Wilans, was the older woman in the newspaper photo who had captured my eye, and according to Annie, she was not the approachable type. Fortunately for my reporter friend, the younger ladies had much to say about the limitations they felt in this new publicly hostile environment.
Even with the distraction of possibly living the rest of my life without sound or speech, it was day two of my being stuck under my grandmother’s watchful eye and I really couldn’t take much more of it.
Nerissa was the only one enjoying my house arrest. The bloodhound snuggled at my feet or pressed her soft, velvety head against my hand until I obligingly petted her.
I wrote the following to my grandmother, “I am going to the Yard before lunch. Then to the college for what I’ve missed, and then home to Nerissa, and ONLY Nerissa. I love you, but I will go mad if forced to live like a watched zoo animal for much longer.”
I gave the older woman a hug before I handed the note to her, hoping she wouldn’t be too hurt by me essentially throwing her out of my home.
She read and then looked up at me, so I squeezed her hand for emphasis. She fetched a deep sigh, taking the notebook from me to write, “Shocked it took this long for you to lose patience. Fine. I need to research better doctors and this revolving door of nurses who show up with your pills is unacceptable. Promise you will rest?”
I read this note, rolling my eyes, but nodding at her affectionately and helping her get dressed to leave.
I closed the door behind my grandmother and said to my bloodhound, “Well, that could have gone much worse.”
Nerissa’s tongue lolled out of her mouth. A perfect response.