The Brandywine Prophet

6.4 Batten Clamps

Pink, cream, sand, beige. The floral pattern on the chairs matched the pillows on the sofas which matched the wallpaper which matched the shawl of the overweight woman who reminded Sarah of her mother when she licked her forefinger with her cracked tongue and flipped the page of a Time Magazine. Hanging above her head was a photo-print of a birch forest that matched the plastic fern in the corner that matched the trees outside the revolving door. William would hate the generic nature shots hanging in a perfect row with light-pink frames and off-white mattes. A humming bird. A lighthouse. Rocks. The birch forest.

“Masturbation,” William would say. No... she was wrong; it was abstract art that he called masturbation. “Lifeless,” would be the word for these prints. “If you want to create art, you need to disturb the soul,” he would say. But Sarah liked them. With a darker frame, the lighthouse picture would go well in their bedroom.

Sarah never got to see her husband. The cop outside their house explained that they received a 911 call about an injury at the Carmel Theater. Before she and Kayla could climb the hill to meet the ambulance, William was tossed in the back and carried away. Hyde drove Will’s truck to the ER while Kay and Sarah followed. By the time they arrived, William was getting x-rays.

Now they sat side-by-side in floral chairs with oak arm rests. Hyde tried to apologize, but Sarah couldn’t listen. She needed to think in peace.

Kayla said something about Janie; something about picking her up from her sleep-over.

“Yeah,” Sarah replied. “Sure.” She closed her eyes. There was a fountain or a waterfall somewhere in the building. It couldn’t be in the emergency waiting room, but the halls that connected the various wings were open and barren. The sound, though distant, took the edge off the ringing phones, chatting orderlies and Kayla’s exit.

Hyde whispered her name, but she ignored him. This was all their fault.

“Sarah,” he said again and she opened her eyes. “The doctor’s here.”

*  *  *

“The x-rays aren’t good.” Of course, the doctor prefaced this statement with positive news, assuring Sarah and Hyde that William was otherwise healthy, that he was no longer in pain, and that he lost less than a pint of blood.

Hyde stayed a step behind Sarah as she nodded and shook her head at the doctor’s ramblings. She was barely able to made eye-contact, so the doctor often looked to Hyde for visual indications of comprehension.

“What do you mean they’re not good?” Hyde asked when Sarah didn’t. “What do they show?”

“The weights fractured four metacarpals and three phalanges. Other than a nasty bruise and popped blood vessels, his thumb and forefinger should be fine. Two of his carpals are fractured, and it appears three of them have been dislocated. The skin split in several places, which accounts for the blood loss, but we cleaned him up.”

“I don’t understand,” Hyde said. “All that from a hundred-and-fifty pounds? That’s less than I weigh.”

“From what I understand these steel weights dropped...”

“About twenty feet.”

“The weight of the steel may have only been one-sixty. But ‘apparent weight’ also takes the height of the drop into consideration. By the time the steel reached his hand, the pressure could have been anywhere between two and three-thousand pounds, though his injuries suggest it wasn’t quite that extreme.”

“So, what next?”

“Immediate open reduction surgery on the carpals in his lower hand, then splints to the fingertips, a cast, and frequent trips to an orthopedic.” The doctor refocused on Sarah. “We’ll begin surgery within the next two hours. He’s a little out of it from the morphine, but if you’d like to stay with your husband beforehand, I’ll walk you back.”