‘I know that.’
‘So what can I do?’ the surgeon asked. He was afraid that Kelly might ask for something he was unfitted to do; more afraid still that he might agree.
‘Get me better.’
CHAPTER 9
Labor
It was almost grim to watch, Sandy thought. The strange thing was that he was being a good patient. He didn’t whine. He didn’t bitch. He did just what they told him to do. There was a streak of the sadist in all physical therapists. There had to be, since the job meant pushing people a little further than they wanted to go – just as an athletic coach would do – and the ultimate aim was to help, after all. Even so, a good therapist had to push the patient, encourage the weak, and browbeat the strong; to cajole and to shame, all in the name of health; that meant taking satisfaction from the exertion and pain of others, and O’Toole could not have done that. But Kelly, she saw, would have none of it. He did what was expected, and when the therapist asked for more, more was delivered, and on, and on, until the therapist was pushed beyond the point of pride in the result of his efforts and began to worry.
‘You can ease off now,’ he advised.
‘Why?’ Kelly asked somewhat breathlessly. ‘Your heart rate is one-ninety-five.’ And had been there for five minutes.
‘What’s the record?’
‘Zero,’ the therapist replied without a smile. That earned him a laugh, and a look, and Kelly slowed his pace on the stationary bike, easing himself down over a period of two minutes to a reluctant stop.
‘I’ve come to take him back,’ OToole announced.
‘Good, do that before he breaks something.’
Kelly got off and toweled his face, glad to see that she hadn’t brought a wheelchair or something similarly insulting. ‘To what do I owe this honor, ma’am?’
‘I’m supposed to keep an eye on you,’ Sandy replied. ‘Trying to show us how tough you are?’
Kelly had been a touch lighthearted, but turned serious. ‘Mrs O’Toole, I’m supposed to get my mind off my troubles, right? Exercise does that for me. I can’t run with one arm tied up, I can’t do push-ups, and I can’t lift weights. I can ride a bike. Okay?’
‘You have me there. Okay.’ She pointed to the door. Out in the bustling anonymity of the corridor, she said, ‘I’m very sorry about your friend.’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’ He turned his head, slightly dizzy from the exertion, as they walked along in the crowd. ‘We have rituals in uniform. The bugle, the flag, the guys with rifles. It works fairly well for the men. It helps you to believe that it all meant something. It still hurts, but it’s a formal way to say goodbye. We learned to deal with it. But what happened to you is different, and what just happened to me is different. So what did you do? Get more involved in work?’
‘I finished my masters. I’m a nurse-practitioner. I teach. I worry about patients.’ And that was her whole life now.
‘Well, you don’t have to worry about me, okay? I know my limits.’
‘Where are the limits?’
‘A long way off,’ Kelly said with the beginnings of a smile that he quickly extinguished. ‘How am I doing?’
‘Very well.’
It hadn’t gone all that smoothly, and both knew it. Donald Madden had flown to Baltimore to claim the body of his daughter from the coroner’s office, leaving his wife home, never meeting with anyone despite pleas from Sarah Rosen. He wasn’t interested in talking to a fornicator, the man had said over the phone, a remark that Sandy knew about but which neither medic had passed on. The surgeon had filled her in on the background of the girl, and it was merely a final sad chapter to a brief and sad life, something the patient didn’t need to know. Kelly had asked about funeral arrangements, and both had told him that he would be unable to leave the hospital in any case. Kelly had accepted that in silence, surprising the nurse.
His left shoulder was still immobilized, and there had to be pain, the nurse knew. She and others could see the occasional wince, especially close to the time for a new pain medication, but Kelly wasn’t the type to complain. Even now, still breathing hard from a murderous thirty minutes on the bike, he was making quite a point of walking as rapidly as he could, cooling himself down like a trained athlete.
‘Why the big show?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. Does there have to be a reason for everything? It’s the way I am, Sandy.’
‘Well, your legs are longer than mine. Slow down, okay?’
‘Sure.’ Kelly eased off his pace as they reached the elevator. ‘How many girls are there – like Pam I mean?’
‘Too many.’ She didn’t know the numbers. There were enough that they were noticed as a class of patient, enough that you knew they were there.
‘Who helps them?’
The nurse pushed the elevator button. ‘Nobody. They’re starting up programs for dealing with the drug habits, but the real problems, the abusive backgrounds and what comes from it – there’s a new term now, “behavioral disorder.” If you’re a thief, there are programs. If you abuse kids, there’s a program, but girls like that are outcasts. Nobody does much of anything. The only people who deal with that are church groups. If somebody said it was a disease, maybe people would pay attention.’
‘Is it a disease?’
‘John, I’m not a doctor, just a nurse-practitioner, and it’s outside my field anyway. I do post-op care for surgical patients. Okay, we talk over lunch, and I know a little. It’s surprising how many of them show up dead. Drug overdoses, accidental or deliberate, who can say? Or they meet the wrong person or their pimp gets a little too rough, and they show up here, and their underlying medical problems don’t help very much, and a lot of them just don’t make it. Hepatitis from bad needles, pneumonia, add that to a major injury and it’s a deadly combination. But is anybody going to do anything about it?’ O’Toole looked down as the elevator arrived. ‘Young people aren’t supposed to die that way.’
‘Yeah.’ Kelly gestured for her to get in the elevator first.
‘You’re the patient,’ she objected.
‘You’re the lady,’ he insisted. ‘Sorry, it’s the way I was raised.’
Who is this guy? Sandy asked herself. She was managing the care of more than one patient, of course, but the professor had ordered her – well, not exactly, she told herself, but a ‘suggestion’ from Dr Rosen carried a lot of weight, especially since she had great respect for him as a friend and counselor – to keep a special eye on him. It wasn’t matchmaking, as she’d initially suspected. He was still too hurt – and so was she, though she would not admit it. Such a strange man. So like Tim in many ways, but much more guarded. A strange mixture of the gentle and the rough. She hadn’t forgotten what she had seen the previous week, but it was gone now, and never a hint of it had returned. He treated her with respect and good humor, never once commenting on her figure, as many patients did (and to which she pretended to object). He was so unlucky and yet so purposeful. His furious effort in rehab. His outward toughness. How to reconcile that with his incongruous good manners?
‘When will I get out?’ Kelly asked in a voice that was light but not light enough.
‘Another week,’ O’Toole replied, leading him off the elevator. ‘Tomorrow we unwrap your arm.’
‘Really? Sam didn’t tell me. Then I can start using the arm again?’
‘It’s going to hurt when you do,’ the nurse warned.
‘Hell, Sandy, it hurts already,’ Kelly grinned. ‘I might as well get some use out of the pain.’
‘Lay down,’ the nurse ordered. Before he could object, she had a thermometer in his mouth and was taking his pulse. Then she checked his blood pressure. The numbers she put on the chart were 98.4, 64, and 105/60. The last two were especially surprising, she thought. Whatever else she might say about the patient, he was rapidly getting himself back into shape. She wondered what the urgency was.
One more week, Kelly thought after she left. Got to get this damned arm working.
‘So what have you found out for us?’ Maxwell asked.
‘Good news and bad news,’ Greer replied. ‘The good news is that the opposition has very little in the way of regular ground forces within response distance of the objective. We have ID’s three battalions. Two are training to go south. One just returned from Eye Corps. It’s pretty beat-up, in the process of reconstituting. The usual TO and E. Not much in the way of heavy weapons. What mechanized formations they have are well away from here.’