I hate hospitals.
I hate doctors, nurses, and all those vampires who draw your blood.
Yet none of them are half as bad as the visitors.
During my first full day at Scottsdale General Hospital, it seemed like half the people in my life—with the noted exception of Dusty—trooped into my room, shoving flowers in my face, waving their arms, and moving their mouths at me, totally ignoring the fact that I couldn’t hear a word they said. Every cop I’d ever worked with dropped by, and they were the worst of all. They flapped their mouths like ventriloquists’ dummies, while all I could do was grin and nod, hoping that I wasn’t agreeing to marry one of them.
At least Jimmy understood that the blast had pretty much deafened me. Besides keeping the press at bay (I’d made headlines again), he kept me informed via notepad on Sandra’s condition: smoke inhalation, first and second degree burns, a broken collarbone, three broken ribs, a punctured eardrum and various cuts and scrapes. But she would live.
The paramedics who had scraped us off the pavement after a flurry of 911 calls from a gaggle of tourists had rendered expert care to us both on the way to the hospital. Not that I could remember any of it.
My own injuries were confined to flash burns, minor smoke inhalation, miscellaneous cuts, and a plate-sized bruise on my ass where I’d landed on the sidewalk. The most painful wounds of all were those on my feet, which were covered with burns and gashes, one of them almost to the bone. The blast had blown me out of my shoes, and I had run back into the building barefoot, stepping on a burning beam here, a little broken glass there. I couldn’t remember feeling much pain at the time, but I felt it now. So much so that the doctors insisted I remain in the hospital for one more day.
This made me a captive audience for too many garrulous visitors.
Megan Alden-Taylor, my eighth drop-in of the day—it wasn’t yet noon—stood with Zach by my bed, shedding dog and cat hairs all over the hospital’s clean white linens.
She said something, but I couldn’t quite make it out. Figuring that she’d asked me how I felt (that seemed to be the standard question for everyone), I said, “I’m fine. I’ve been to rougher parties.” I lied in as chipper a tone as I could manage without being able to hear myself. I wished she and Zach would go back to the ICU’s waiting room where they had been hanging out all night, waiting for word of Sandra’s condition.
But Zach had a few things to say, too. From what little lip-reading I could manage, he blamed himself for the situation. If he hadn’t taken such advantage of Sandra’s need to be abused, she would not have been at the office when the bomb went off.
“Don’t be silly,” I told him. “You didn’t hold a gun to her head. You.…” Then I shut up in shame, remembering that only recently, I’d done exactly that to a woman.
The Scottsdale Journal, which Jimmy handed me, revealed that Patriot’s Blood Press, as well as the insurance office next to it, had burned to the ground. A spokesman from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms divulged that the bomb in Gloriana’s office was basically an incendiary device. Unlike the more common pipe bombs which were set off in the Phoenix area from time to time, this bomb resembled those arsonists used, designed to destroy real estate, not lives. The ATF spokesman also pointed out that the bomb’s timer had been set for 7:00, when by rights the office would have been closed and all employees long gone. The bomb-maker could hardly have known that Sandra would return to finish up some work.
Nice theory, but I wasn’t sure I bought it. The Aryan Brotherhood, whom I suspected had planted the bomb, was hardly known for its compassion. In my own opinion, the time had probably been picked to give its maker time to get far, far away. Like to some whack-brained militia compound in Idaho. Gaining access to the office wouldn’t have been a problem. Most of the Brotherhood knew how to pick locks.
Jimmy interrupted my thoughts by handing me a note. When you are released, you are coming home with me.
I shook my head, then regretted it. The movement made my ears ring.
Jimmy scribbled some more, then stuck the notepad back in my face. Don’t argue. You will do this.
Blinking in surprise, I looked up at him. Jimmy was the mildest of men. For him to order someone around was almost unheard of.
I opened my mouth to protest, but he raised a warning finger and shoved the pad in my face again. He hadn’t erased the message.
I shrugged as best I could, considering the soreness in my shoulders. “Okay.” Maybe my ears were getting better, because I could swear I heard him sigh with relief.
Eventually I dozed off, only to awake later to find Jimmy and the Alden-Taylors gone and Reverend Giblin sitting in a chair next to my bed, Bible in hand. His lips were moving, so I figured he was praying for me. What the hell. It couldn’t hurt.
I went back to sleep.
***
The next morning, in response to my pleas, a nurse handed me a mirror. One look assured me I wouldn’t be entering beauty contests any time soon. My eyelashes and eyebrows had been singed, my eyes blackened, my swollen face resembled a ripe tomato, and half my hair was missing, burned off as I was dragging Sandra out of Patriot’s Blood.
“Aw, hell,” I moaned. Then gasped. I’d actually heard myself! Not perfectly, but the words were audible, rumbling through my ears like a poor tape recording played at a too-slow speed.
“How now brown cow. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.” I heard every word.
“We’re feeling better, are we?” the nurse asked.
“Oh, yes, we are.” In fact, I felt so good that I didn’t even protest when the nurse gave me our bath.
Clean once more (but how dirty can you really get lying in bed all day?), I slipped on the robe Jimmy had brought me, and with the nurse’s help slid into the wheelchair the hospital provided. Then I rolled myself down the hall toward the ICU waiting room, where Zach and Megan sat.
“Sandra’s doing as well as can be expected,” Zach said. “Thanks to you, she’s going to live. In fact, she should be able to go home in a couple of weeks. The scarring on her arms won’t be too bad. Plastic surgery can perform miracles these days, even with burns.”
Zach and I chatted for a while. He told me that Gloriana’s funeral had taken place that morning and that it had been gratifyingly well-attended. I didn’t volunteer my opinion that the woman’s enemies probably wanted to make sure she was dead.
After a little more desultory conversation, I rolled back to my room, struggled from the wheelchair into my bed, and promptly fell asleep.
When I woke again, Reverend Giblin had returned.
“How’s my little girl?” He spoke loudly enough that I could hear him without too much trouble. He looked ten years older than he had the day I’d seen him at WestWorld.
“Your little girl’s doing fine.”
He smiled, but it was a sad smile. “That’s what you always said when I’d ask what was wrong.”
I didn’t like the way this conversation was going. Trips down Memory Lane weren’t my style. Too many nightmares had built their houses there.
The monster in the closet.
I forced that particular nightmare away.
“No, really. I’m fine. The doctors said they’ll release me tomorrow, and then I’m going to stay with Jimmy.”
“Didn’t the court order you into therapy after that last incident?”
Oh, here we go. “Anger management, that’s all. I’m fine.”
“Word is that Shakespeare helped write the King James version of the Bible.”
I was about to ask him what that had to do with anything, when he continued.
“Shakespeare knew a lot about human nature, such as women who protest too much. When you first came to stay with us, we’d been foster parenting for fifteen years, but in all that time, I’d never seen such a frightened little girl. And the saddest thing was, you were even more terrified of showing that fear. Did you think we’d do something terrible to you, more terrible than had already been done? You’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming. By the time Mary Kay and I made it to your room, you’d have this forced smile on your face. You’d tell us you were fine, just fine, and order us back to bed.”
I coughed up some more smoke. “Look, Reverend, I’m fine. I was fine then, and I’m fine now.”
“Lena, you are one of the bravest human beings I’ve ever known. But for all that, you keep running away from your memories as if they’d kill you if they ever caught you. Don’t you think it’s about time you faced them?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I stared at the ceiling and tried not to remember.
Then, since the Rev showed no signs of leaving, I rolled over and feigned sleep.
After a few more minutes of silence, the Rev gave up. But before he left, he placed a book on my bedside table. After the door shut behind him, I squinted at the title.
The Only Demons Are Those We Create for Ourselves.