JORDAN STOPPED ABRUPTLY, her heart rate accelerated. “Is he breathing?”
“He’s having a rough time. My dad found him and the ambulance brought him here. If Silas is with you, can you tell him to come, too?”
“We’ll be right there.” She turned to Silas.
“It’s Patwin,” Jordan said. “He’s alive, but he attempted suicide by hanging.”
Silas swore and grabbed for her hand, helping her move as fast as her injury allowed, the rest of the way. Silas had much longer legs, and Jordan was winded when they burst through the door. Her brain was going over the various potential injuries caused by neck trauma.
The most serious were permanent spinal-cord damage and brain injury, but there was a horrible list of other things such as laceration of the jugular and perforation of the larynx, trachea or esophagus.
She could hear Patwin straining to breathe the moment she came through the door. The ambulance drivers had used an oxygen mask and put him in a C-spine, but he was fighting the restraints. Peter Crow was trying to calm him down.
Rose Marie hovered close, her hands over her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks. The two volunteer medics were also standing by.
“Okay, let’s have a look here.”
Straining hard against the restraints, Patwin was making a horrible guttural choking sound. His throat was black, bruised in a circle around his neck.
“He’s panicking because he’s in pain and he can’t breathe.” Knowing he had a history of drug abuse, she still had no choice except to use morphine. Jordan gave the injection, and then turned to Peter.
“Tell me exactly what happened and where you found him.”
“He was in my workshop, in the basement,” Peter said. The big man’s hands were trembling, as was his deep voice. “I was working on my boat and I forgot some tools. I came back for them, thank God.” He wiped his forehead with the tail of his shirt. He was sweating profusely.
“He strung a rope over a beam, stood on a toolbox and kicked it away just as I came in. The rope had some give to it, so his feet were barely off the floor. I cut him down. I was gonna give him mouth-to-mouth, but he was breathing. He was awake.”
Jordan put a comforting hand on Peter’s arm. “Do you know if he lost consciousness at all?”
Peter shook his head. “I don’t think so. Like I said, I came in just as he kicked the box away.”
“Good.” She turned back to Patwin. “By struggling, any spinal damage is going to increase,” she warned him in a stern tone. “Dying is one thing, but going through life in a wheelchair is quite another. So try your best to lie still, okay?” The morphine was already having an effect, and as Patwin gradually relaxed, she did a quick but thorough assessment.
From the way he’d been moving his body, it was a pretty fair bet that at least there hadn’t been any damage to his spine. Patwin’s eyes were swollen and bloody looking because the strangulation had caused tiny blood vessels to burst.
“He’s going to have to be medevaced to Tofino for X-rays,” she told the family, and Christina hurried away to make the emergency phone call.
“My guess is he’s escaped without major or permanent damage to the spinal cord, but we have to make absolutely certain. He’s going to need to be on oxygen support for a couple days, and he’ll need painkillers.”
As Jordan went on with the examination, she thought that the young man must have a busy guardian angel. Somehow, against the odds, Patwin seemed to have escaped paralysis, suffocation and major neck hemorrhage.
As far as Jordan could determine without X-rays, there seemed to be only bruising to the spinal cord. There were no discernible breaks, and no other damage that she could find. She left the ambulance men to watch over her patient, and took Silas and the Crows into an examination room and closed the door.
“Physically, it seems as if he’s come off very lucky,” Jordan told Patwin’s family. “The X-rays need to confirm it, but I don’t think there’s any serious damage to his spine. Too early to tell if he’s permanently harmed his larynx or suffered brain damage. I’ve had to give him morphine, despite his history of drug use. He may have to go through detox all over again.”
“Thank God he’s alive.” Peter put an arm around his wife, and the other around Christina. “Thank God he’s okay.”
Jordan met Silas’s look. They both knew that Patwin was a long way from okay.
“The question now is what to do next,” she went on. “I need the family input here. I can request that he’s taken from Tofino to Nanaimo and committed for psychiatric assessment. Attempted suicide is a clear call for help.”
“He hates being confined,” Rose Marie said. Her voice was steady, but tears were still rolling down her cheeks. Peter dug a red handkerchief out of his pocket and tenderly mopped her face. “If we send him away, he’ll find a way to escape, and then who knows what he’ll do?”
“Do any of you have any idea what might have precipitated this?”
“It’s my fault.” Peter Crow’s face twisted with anguish. “I gave him hell this morning—I told him he had to get a job or move out of the house.”
Peter’s broad shoulders slumped. “I found out Patwin’s been hanging around with that no-good Johnny Swann again. He’s trouble, that Swann kid, everybody figures it was him and his friends who broke into Mabel’s last month. Stole the float from the cash drawer and went on a rampage in her kitchen.” He turned to his wife. “Patwin got in trouble before, hanging out with Swann. I’m sorry, Rosie. I didn’t want Patwin in trouble again.”
“I know.” Rose Marie patted her husband’s arm. “I got after him, too. He’s been drinking a lot and not coming home. I bawled him out this morning, I was really mad at him.”
“You can’t blame yourselves.” Christina’s face was flushed, her voice angry. “It’s time Patwin smartened up. It’s not like he hasn’t had support from everybody, the little shit.” Her face fell. “I can’t believe he’d do such a stupid thing.”
Silas put his arm around Christina’s shoulders and turned to Jordan.
“I’d like to go with Patwin to Tofino. Let me talk to him alone, before you make any arrangements to send him to Nanaimo. If he’s willing, maybe I could help him this time.”
Jordan said, “You’ve tried before?”
Silas nodded. “It didn’t work, because Patwin didn’t really want help. Maybe this time it’ll be different. Will you agree to let me go with him?”
Ordinarily, Jordan would have accompanied her patient.
“Absolutely. I’ll phone the Tofino hospital and speak to the doctor who’ll be treating him. But I need Patwin to give me a no-harm commitment, an assurance either verbally or in writing that for twenty-four hours he promises not to harm himself.”
Jordan made the call to the Tofino hospital, and was assured by the attending physician, Doctor Magrath, that they’d be expecting Patwin and that as soon as the tests were completed, Jordan would be notified.
Back in the examination room, Patwin was quiet, his eyes closed. His breathing was still erratic and obviously painful, but the morphine had calmed him.
Jordan took his hand in hers. When he looked up at her, she explained that Silas would accompany him to Tofino, and added that she could request he be taken to Nanaimo for psychiatric assessment.
Patwin was obviously disturbed by that. He tried to say something but grimaced in pain. His eyes were bloodred now, and dark bruises were beginning to pocket beneath them.
Jordan quickly explained about Silas and the no-harm commitment, and Patwin wriggled his fingers as if writing in the air. Christina brought a pen and a pad; Jordan scribbled a promise and released the restraints enough so that Patwin could scrawl his name.
Following the ambulance attendants, they made their way to the school’s playing field where the helicopter was already waiting.
A crowd had gathered, silent as Rose Marie kissed Patwin. Peter bent and pressed his lips to his son’s forehead, and when her turn came Christina bent over him.
Jordan heard her say, “You bloody fool. Do you think I changed your diapers and babysat just so you could go and do something like this? I’d like to kill you myself, you damned idiot.” Her tears dripped down on her brother’s face. “I love you, we all love you, don’t you know that?”
Patwin was still strapped on the C-board. He couldn’t hide the tears that rolled from the corners of his eyes and dripped into his hair. His hands were strapped down, but his fingers were free. He lifted one to Christina in a silent salute as the stretcher was carefully loaded on the helicopter.
“I’ll take care of him,” Silas promised his mother, giving her a hard hug. He did the same to Christina, then he and his stepfather clasped hands. Turning to Jordan, he put both hands on her shoulders. “I’ll call you later tonight and let you know what’s happening.” And in a quick featherlight caress that took her by surprise, he bent and touched her lips with his. Then he climbed into the helicopter beside the pilot.
Jordan was stunned. In front of his family and probably half the village, Silas had made a statement about their relationship. If they hadn’t guessed already, they certainly knew now. She should have been furious with him, but instead his gesture touched her heart.
They all watched the helicopter lift steeply up and turn toward Tofino, where an ambulance would be waiting.
Rose Marie came over and put her arms around Jordan, giving her a hug. “Thank you for helping my son.” She threaded her fingers through Jordan’s. “Come and have something to eat with us now, okay? Food always helps at a time like this.”
“Yeah, Jordan,” Christina seconded. “Come home with us for a while.”
Jordan, who’d been looking forward to going to her apartment, shutting the door and taking quiet time to assess the various events of the day, opened her mouth to refuse. It was late, and now that the crisis was over, she felt drained.
But the expression on Rose Marie’s face stopped her. The older woman needed reassurance, and Jordan guessed that maybe she needed to talk about her son.
She smiled at them and said, “Thanks, I’d like that.”
Jordan had stopped being surprised at the way food appeared in an emergency in Ahousaht. When she and the family trooped into the Crows’ house, it was almost ten, but two neighborly women were in the kitchen, taking hot biscuits out of the oven and putting freshly baked salmon on a tray. On the table were mashed potatoes, salad and crumb cake.
With a few words of comfort, the women slipped away, leaving Jordan and the Crow family to eat the food.
No one had much of an appetite, though. Peter filled his plate and then set down his fork.
“I keep thinking, what if I hadn’t needed that damned socket for the spark plug.” His kind, scarred face, usually smiling, was pale and grim.
Rose Marie wasn’t eating, either. “I’d gone over to Auntie’s, it was our evening for sewing circle. I didn’t even know Patwin was home. He hasn’t been around much these past few days.”
“Dumb-ass idiot.” Christina was still angry. She jabbed viciously at a biscuit, breaking it into crumbs. “He got better marks than I did in school—he won every scholarship award there was before he got mixed up with a bad crowd. He could have been anything he wanted—doctor, lawyer, teacher…. But instead he quit school in grade ten. It’s one disaster after another with him. And now he goes and tries this.” She burst into tears. “I still can’t believe he’d do a thing like this.”
Jordan reached over and drew Christina into her arms. “It’s such a scary thing when someone tries to take their own life.”
“Did you see many attempted suicides, when you were working at the E.R.?” Rose Marie asked.
“Yes, unfortunately we did.” Jordan didn’t add that many survivors ended up severely damaged. “Like I said, it’s a cry for help, and the great thing here is that I think Patwin came out of it without serious side effects. And he’s going to get help. If he won’t let Silas work with him, then we’ll find another way.” She studied Rose Marie. “Tell me about Patwin. What was he like as a little boy, what did he most enjoy?”
“Christina, go get the album.”
Christina blew her nose and hurried off, and Rose Marie said, “Patwin wasn’t an easy child, not like Christina.” She smiled a little and shook her head. “I didn’t think I’d ever have any more kids, and then I got pregnant with Patwin. I guess we spoiled him bad, being the youngest.”
Christina came back with an armful of albums, and Rose Marie selected one and opened it to a photo of a younger Peter holding a cherubic small boy under one arm. Patwin’s face was split in a wide, happy grin.
“I remember that day,” Rose Marie said, tapping a forefinger on the photo. “Patwin was three there, and he got away on me. He went down to the docks looking for his daddy.” She looked up at Peter. “You remember how many times we had to go looking for him? He was the worst kid for running away, from the time he could first walk. Peter built a fence around the yard to keep him contained, but Patwin would always find a way out. He needed to explore, to experience everything firsthand.”
“Is this Silas?” Jordan was looking at a black-and-white photo of a somber boy in short pants, standing on the dock, holding a suitcase.
“Yeah, that’s him,” Rose Marie confirmed. “He was about eight in that picture, coming to stay for the summer. I used to look forward so much to him coming home, but he wasn’t happy about it. Look at that face.” She rubbed a finger lovingly over the picture. “It was hard for him, living in two worlds. Funny, I always worried more about him than Patwin.”
“It must have been hard on you, only seeing him in the summer.”
“It was really hard.” Rose Marie nodded. “I think when he was little he didn’t know why I’d gone away and left him. I just didn’t have the money for lawyers, plus I was sick at the time. That’s partly why when Patwin came along, I couldn’t help spoiling him—I wanted him to have the security Silas missed out on.”
“Did Silas ever run away, the way Patwin did?” Jordan was curious about him, about what kind of baby he’d been, what kind of little boy.
Rose Marie shook her head. “No. Silas wasn’t like Patwin that way. Silas was a quiet boy, but did he have a mind of his own. There was no reasoning with him if he got an idea in his head.”
“He also had a ramrod up his ass,” Christina said. “Thought he was too good to play with us when he was here in the summer. So the other kids and I used to play mean tricks on him. Grandmother Sandrine always caught us and gave us hell for it.”
Rose Marie clicked her tongue. “And well she should. In those days Silas was used to a different sort of life. And I think he was jealous because you had a big family around all the time. He spent most of his life at boarding school.”
Rose Marie turned a page in the album. Here were photos of Christina graduating from high school, then nursing school, of Patwin receiving an award for scholarship, and one blurry newspaper photo of Silas in mortarboard and gown, graduating from university.
“I wanted to go so bad,” Rose Marie said softly. “But he said no. That was when he didn’t want anything to do with us.”
Jordan studied the pictures, thinking of her own graduations. The best one had been from medical school. Toby had been there for her that day. She’d given up on Mike long before, but some small part of her had still hoped he’d appear. Had Silas missed his mother, in spite of telling her to stay away?
She turned the pages of the album. “What sort of things does Patwin like to do? What are his hobbies?”
“Drinking,” Christina snorted. “Driving us all bonkers.”
“He used to like to build things out of wood,” Peter said. “When he was twelve, he and I built a small boat for him to sail. Remember that, Rosie? He was never interested in fishing, but he liked sailing.”
“He’d get along with my brother,” Jordan commented. She told them a little about Toby, confiding the early problems he’d had and the fact that he’d done jail time and was now a successful boatbuilder. Patwin’s family needed to hear that other people had similar problems and came through them all right. Besides, it was easier to talk about Toby than confide in them about Garry. “Toby’s coming for a visit as soon as he finishes this yacht he’s been contracted to build.”
When Jordan’s cell phone rang, everyone waited quietly as she talked to Doctor Magrath at the Tofino hospital.
The news was good. Just as Jordan had suspected, there was no real damage except bruising to Patwin’s spinal cord, and his voice was already beginning to come back. With Jordan’s approval, Patwin would be released the following morning in Silas’s care. She reported all of that to the Crows, but she didn’t repeat what else the doctor said.
“These native kids get thinking there’s no way out for them except suicide,” Magrath sighed. “I wish we could help them before they become that desperate. Patwin’s brother seems to be a stable guy, maybe he can help this kid get a handle on what’s bothering him.”
Relief that Patwin was physically okay made everyone relax. Rose Marie made coffee and Christina served the crumb cake. As soon as the meal was over, Jordan headed home.
She’d just walked in the door when her cell rang again.
Jordan answered eagerly, knowing it was Silas.
And froze when Garry said, “Hey, Jordie, how’s it going?”