35
Sienna
I can feel the difference when I wake up. My thoughts are . . . cleaner, and I’m not so cold and hot and cold and hot at the same time. I take a deep breath of sterile air and then let it out slowly as I look at the white ceiling and light green curtain set into tracks above me. The sound of beeps and feet and distant commands are taking place on the other side of the curtain. As my brain comes fully awake, the relief fades and the heaviness settles back into my chest. Time has warped in my memory, and I am pulled between wanting to move the pieces of memory into the right order and turning away from the bits and pieces I can recall; David Vandersteen’s arms falling to his sides mix with a car speeding through the streets of Hamilton while I bleed all over the backseat. A fall. A woman with eyes like mine screaming. A teenage girl crying. The horn of the Uber car honking as it swerves through an intersection on a dark road. Lying on my back and looking at the leaves as the trees tremble in the wind.
I try to lift my left hand to my head. It doesn’t necessarily hurt worse than the rest of me but the pain there seems important. My arm is encumbered with an IV and finger-pulse-taker-thing I recognize from the times I’ve woken up in recovery. I hear the zipping sound of the curtain being pulled back and look up to see a woman in purple scrubs.
“Ah, good, you’re awake.” Her teeth are really bright, and she’s wearing lipstick that matches her scrubs.
“Am I?”
She smiles and lays a hand on my shoulder. “You’re going to be okay,” she says so soft and sweet that it makes me want to cry.
By the time the doctor comes a few minutes later, I know I am at Hamilton General Hospital—the same hospital where I was born. The doctor sits on a rolling stool and then pushes himself closer to the head of the bed. He meets my eyes and gives me a smile. “Good evening, Ms. Richardson, I’m Dr. Labrum. When did you have your lumpectomy and lymphadenectomy?”
Oh, right. I had breast cancer surgery. Funny how that had fallen down the list of things for me to worry about. “Uh, ten days or so ago.”
He nods. “You came in for that bump on your head, but you were also septic. Do you know what that is?”
We have a septic tank at the ranch—no flushing hair combings or tampons—but that doesn’t fit this conversation. I shake my head.
“It’s also known as blood poisoning and can happen when there’s an infection that gets into the bloodstream.” He nods toward my right arm. “Did you notice your armpit incision feeling hot and tender the last few days?”
“I think so.”
“Did you know you had a fever?”
I’d thought about it, but only for a second. The hot and cold and hot and cold makes more sense now. My mind flashes to the post-op instructions explaining the signs of infection. “Shit,” I breathe, and close my eyes in self-disgust.
“Yeah,” he says in a drawling tone. “You were 104.7 when you came in—that was your body trying to kill off the infection, but it wasn’t making much progress.” He stands and moves to the head of the bed, where he looks at the back of a fluid pouch connected by a tube to the IV in the back of my hand. I register for the first time that the area stings a little bit. “You were also severely dehydrated; have you been traveling? We know from your ID that you’re from Wyoming—did you drive up here to Ontario?”
“I flew from Chicago, but I drove that first part.”
He nodded. “Most people don’t drink enough when they take road trips so that they can avoid having to take bathroom breaks.”
I haven’t thought about drinking enough water.
Dr. Labrum returns to the stool and smiles sympathetically. “If you’d gone back to your hotel and taken your pain pills, which I assume you are still using”—he pauses long enough for me to nod in confirmation—“and gone to sleep, you very likely would have gone into a coma as your organs shut down. You dodged one hell of a bullet by falling off that porch. You have two staples and some stitches on the back of your head as a reminder to thank your guardian angels.”
A shiver goes through my chest. I picture David Vandersteen and the words I was backing away from that led to the fall.
“I would like to call your doctor and talk to him about what’s going on up here.”
“Her,” I correct, even though I’ve been only half attentive to what he’s saying. I remember that I have a follow-up on Thursday that I haven’t thought about since I scheduled it. “Dr. Laura Sheffield in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She wasn’t the surgeon, but she’s the doctor who’s been overseeing my . . . case.”
He’s writing down the information and nodding. “We’re going to keep you a couple of days. Have you been staying in Hamilton?”
I nod. “In a hotel.”
The documents I ordered will be ready on Wednesday—it’s only Monday night. How am I going to get them?
“Ms. Richardson?”
My old name draws my attention back to the doctor, who looks as if he’s waiting for me to answer a question I don’t remember him asking. “We’re working on getting you into a room; we need to keep you under observation for a few days and get this infection knocked down. Are you here in Hamilton alone?”
I nod.
“You’re going to need help after you’re released. We can call a family member or friend and explain the situation, but a call from a hospital often frightens people.”
No kidding. “I can make my own calls, and I have Dr. Sheffield’s number on my phone. Is my purse here?”
“The Uber driver brought it in, and we put it in a locker. I’ll have someone bring it to you.”
He leaves, and I relax my head back onto the pillow and stare at the white ceiling above me. There is something cold on the back of my head. Two staples and some stitches too, I guess.
I need to call someone to come to Hamilton. Check me out of the hotel. Be here when I get out. Help me get home. Take care of me. I’m too beaten by all of this to fall back on my usual determination to do things myself. I need help, and I know it.
Beck. The thought comes and goes just as quickly. I will call her and withstand her worry and her fear and maybe even a reprimand I deserve. But Beck doesn’t have a passport.
Dad. Thinking about him makes my throat thick and tight. Up until the last few weeks, he’d have been the obvious choice, but now . . .
Tyson is the next name that comes to mind, and though my mind raises a protest, it settles quickly because there’s no one else. He has a passport, and despite everything broken between us, he’ll help me. Again. Because he’s a good man. Because we made a promise that means something, at least for a little while longer.