What Happened?
I had crazy, wild dreams. Somehow, I knew they were dreams even as I had them. I dreamed I was lying on a hospital gurney under a bright light. All around me was darkness. A surgeon who was dressed in an old-fashioned steel-grey suit leaned over my chest and stomach. The surgeon used a tailor’s seam ripper to cut through the scars which marred my body. As he cut, the skin yawned open to show darkness inside.
I watched the surgeon work. I felt no pain from the cuts, merely curiosity to understand what the surgeon was doing and why. I peered at the man. He had a cloth mask over his face and a cloth cap on his head. The only thing I could see of his face was a pair of brown eyes with heavy lids that made him look tired. The surgeon’s eyes were familiar to me, but I couldn’t place them.
The surgeon finished the work of opening my scars and stood back. He laid his seam ripper on a shiny metal table and waited. I waited as well. After a while, a pair of small, thin hands appeared out of one of the openings in my stomach. The hands pressed on my flesh. They pulled and tugged as a lean, ginger man climbed out from inside me.
The ginger man struggled from out of my stomach like a road worker would climb from a manhole. The man had pale skin and freckles across his nose. His red hair was just visible under his tin helmet. The outfit he wore was that of a doughboy from The Great War.
“Peter?” I asked of the man as he completed his climb and stood on my chest.
The ginger man jumped down from my chest and stood beside the gurney. He touched my face with a gentle caring hand. “Law, my friend, thank you for protecting me. Thank you for all you did. I’m sorry I could not return the love you offered. I wish I would have tried. At least, I wish I would have tried to understand what you offered and how hard it was for you to expose your feelings. You were a good friend when I badly needed a friend. I’ll always love you like a brother for the care you lavished on me. Goodbye, dear man. Be well.”
Peter turned from his spot at my side and walked away. I called after him, but he would not stop or turn back. He walked into the darkness which surrounded me until I couldn’t see him any longer.
With Peter gone from me, the surgeon set to work to stitch up the holes he’d left in my body. His big, clumsy-looking hands flew across my wounds. The needle and thread he used made short work of the task. When he finished, he knotted the thread and cut the end with a tiny pair of silver scissors.
The surgeon laid his needle and scissors aside and removed his cap and mask. When I could see his face, I realized the surgeon was my father. He spoke to me in the same voice I remembered from my youth. “From the moment I locked the door between us, I regretted what I did, son.” My father said. “I tried to find you, but you had already gone. The blame is mine. I betrayed the love you had for me. I betrayed the love we had for each other. I apologize for hurting you.”
Having uttered the apology which I’d spent my entire adult life longing for, my father turned from my side and walked into the darkness like Peter had. I called after him. I’d missed my father so badly, missed the love we shared and the good relationship we once had. I wanted more time with him before he went away. I shouted for him to stop. “Father! Father, please don’t go! DAD!”
“Lawrence?” A voice said to respond to my calls. “Lawrence, what’s wrong?”
I looked, but I couldn’t find the source of the voice. It was a small voice, soft and feminine. The voice seemed to call from out of the light above my head. I reached toward the light, but I couldn’t grasp it. I strained towards it. As I reached, the light went out and left me in darkness. The voice called to me again. “Lawrence?” It said.
A soft, gentle hand touched my face. I opened my eyes. A woman stood over me. She was a pretty woman with greying brown hair and brown eyes. She took her hand from my face to hold it with the other clasped in front of her bosom. My mother used to hold her hands like that when she was worried. “Lawrence?” She said again.
“Mom?” I asked even though I knew the woman couldn’t be my mother.
She shook her head. “I’m your sister, Mildred. I’m glad you’re awake.”
“Millie?” I said as a question. I tried to sit up, but a sharp pain in my stomach stopped me. The muscles clenched and knotted around the pain. The spasms were different than the ones I usually experienced. These were sharper and local to my right side. I clutched at my stomach and tried to relax it until the spasms stopped.
The pain helped to clear my head so I could think. My sister still stood over me. She didn’t walk away like Peter and my father had. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Your…uhm…your Mister Stack told my Julie what happened to you.” Millie explained. “Julie told me, and I came over to see you. You’ve been unconscious for two whole days.”
“Two days?” I asked. “What happened?”
“You were shot in the stomach. You lost a lot of blood. The surgeons said you were lucky. Because of all the work the doctors did on you before, when you were wounded in the war, the bullet didn’t perforate your intestines. It lacerated an artery. That’s why you almost bled to death. They repaired the damage and gave you a transfusion. They say you’re going to be fine.”
“Where’s Walt?” I asked.
“He’s downstairs.” Millie explained. “I sent him to the cafeteria to eat. The poor man, he’s been here since the ambulance brought you in. He’ll be back soon.”
The knowledge that my husband was nearby made me feel better. I let my head relax into the pillow. For the first time since I opened my eyes, I realized that my sister was in the room, and I hadn’t seen her in thirty-five years. “It’s nice to see you, Millie.” I said. “Your daughter is a heck of a hostess. She’s pretty too. She looks just like mom.”
Millie smiled down at me. When she smiled, she looked very like my mother as well. “She does so enjoy working at the restaurant. She says your Mister Stack is a perfect boss. She was so worried when you and he had a falling out several days ago. I was glad to hear from him that you’d reconciled.”
I wanted to ask my sister a million things. I wanted to know about her life and her family. I wanted her to tell me what she’d been doing for all the time we’d been apart. I wanted to know about my brother, Georgie and my other sister, Edith. I wanted to know how my mother lived before she died. I wanted Millie to summarize thirty-five years of life in a few words.
Before I could ask Millie about her entire life up to that moment, the door to the room squeaked open, and Walt pushed through it with his back. He had a plate in each hand and a teacup on the end of his finger. He set the plates and cup down on a low table while he narrated their contents to my sister. “Millie, I didn’t know what you might want. They had a nutted cheese sandwich which looked good, and I brought a tavern ham and Swiss as well. The liverwurst was vile. I also brought some hot tea.”
Walt finished his small task and waited for my sister to respond. She answered Walt by looking pointedly in my direction. Walt looked where Millie looked and noticed that my eyes were open. He ran to me and smothered me with kisses, the last of which involved filling my mouth with his probing tongue until I had to push him away so I could breathe.
“I love you too.” I said when I could speak.
The room door clicked closed as Millie left through it. I didn’t know if she had gone so Walt and I could have our privacy, or if the sight of male intimacy disturbed her. I glanced toward the door and looked to Walt to see what he thought. He divined what I wanted to know and answered the question I hadn’t asked.
“It makes her uncomfortable.” Walt explained. “She says she’s happy you found someone. She says she wants to be my friend, but I can tell she’s struggling. She’s doing better with it than Georgie, but worse than Edith. All three of them have said they want to see you, and poor Julie has been worried sick. She can’t wait to hug her Uncle Law.”
I set the news of my family aside and asked about my husband. “What about you? Are you alright? I’m sorry if I made you worry.”
Walt knelt next to my bed and leaned over me without resting any of his weight on my body. He hugged me awkwardly with his hands on my shoulders and his face next to mine. “Don’t you EVER scare me like that again!” He scolded. “I thought…I thought I might lose you.” He said in a voice that cracked with emotion. “Once you’re out of here, no more cases, no more shoot outs, no more mysteries.”
I worked my right hand out from under the covers and used it to stroke Walt’s hair. “I love you too.” I said.
Walt righted himself and sniffed. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to dab tears from his eyes. “I’m so glad you’re alright.”
“Me too.” I agreed. “What about the case? What about David and Larry and Ted?”
“Mister Scofield says it looks very good for Larry.” Walt announced. “Nothing is for certain yet. Ted was honest about who he is, but the police want confirmation. They wired Ted’s family in Detroit. His father is on his way down to identify his son. They’re also working to find the true identity of the dead man. There’s still work to be done, but Mister Scofield is very hopeful.”
“I’m glad.” I said. I yawned and suddenly felt very tired.
Walt kicked his shoes off and climbed into the narrow bed with me. He covered us both with the thin, hospital blanket and wrapped me in his big, strong arms. “Get some sleep, love.” He said over my face. “You’ve done all you had to do. The others can finish the work. All you need to do now is get better.”
I sighed a sigh which exhaled all my cares with the spent air. I relaxed into my husband’s embrace and shut my eyes. Sleep came immediately.
