March joined me in the little curtained exam area a little while later when they called “Payten.”
“How do you feel now?” he asked.
“I’m the animal in the cage, and you’re the zookeeper. You tell me.”
“It’s for your own good.”
The curtain being pulled open stopped my response.
“You hit your head and lost consciousness?” the short young doctor asked, looking up from her tablet. Her nametag read Dr. Holland.
I nodded. “It was just for a minute.”
“Okay.” She giggled. “That means I’m in the right place. How are you feeling?”
“Fine, considering I?—”
“She got hit in the head hard,” March interrupted. “She needs a CAT scan.”
The doctor turned around. “Family, I take it?”
I cringed.
“Uh, no,” March admitted reluctantly.
“Then, if you’re not here for a prostate exam, the waiting room is where waiting is done.” She shooed him out with a hand motion.
March scurried out.
I swallowed my laugh at the way the small doctor had scared the big SEAL.
“Do you remember what happened?” she asked.
Touching the bump that had grown on the back of my head, I knew I’d never forget it. “The guy was big. He hit me pretty hard, and then I bumped my head against the wall behind me.”
“Do you remember it and what led up to that?”
“Uh, not really.”No cops.
“That’s when you lost consciousness?”
I nodded.
She typed on the computer. “For how long?”
“I don’t know. Long enough for Mr. March there to carry me down the street and back into the bar.”
She shined a penlight in my eyes. “Follow the light, please.”
I did, feeling a sense of accomplishment.
That was followed by orders to raise my eyebrows, stick out my tongue and move it to one side and then the other.
“I’m going to give you three words to remember, and then you say them back to me when I ask. Understand?”
I nodded.
“Apple, horse, drive,” she said slowly. “You said bar. Were you drinking?”
