“Okay, he can stay,” the nurse says, and she and the doctor help Penny out of the hospital gown.
“So, tell me what hurts the most right now?”
“My side… my ribs, I guess,” Penny says, pointing to her right side.
“I’m going to feel around here. Let me know if it gets too painful, okay?”
Penny’s soft whimpers fill the otherwise silent room, and when I can’t take it any longer, I finally look over there. She is sitting up on the bed, the nurse holding her up while the doc examines her. There are bruises all over her face, arm, and shoulder, but the worst one covers her ribs.
Another rush of anger surges through me, and I decide then that I will hunt Thomas down. He needs to learn a lesson.
“Amy is going to take you over to radiology, and when I get those x-rays, we’ll go from there.” The doctor writes something down on her clipboard before handing it to the nurse and leaving the room.
Amy unhooks the IV from the pole and attaches it to the bed when there is another knock on the door. A few seconds later, it opens, and a gray-haired man appears.
“Sorry to interrupt. I’m Charles with the financial department,” he introduces himself and walks into the room. “Miss Jenkins?”
“Yeah,” Penny croaks, before clearing her throat, “that’s me.”
“I’m about to take her to radiology. Can’t this wait, Charles?” Amy interrupts, and I don’t miss the tone of annoyance in her words.
“This will only take a minute. Hospital policy,” he explains. “MissJenkins, when you filled out the take in form, you stated you have no health insurance. How would you like to pay for your visit and treatment today?”
“I… I don’t know,” Penny answers, flustered and embarrassed.
“We offer payment plans. You could put some money down today and pay the rest in installments. If you can’t pay anything, we could only treat anything that’s life-threatening–”
“We’ll pay for it today,” I cut his rambling off.
Fishing out my wallet, I find my credit card I rarely use and hand it to him. Most of our business is done with cash, but I have a nice cushion sitting in a bank account.
He takes the card without question and slides it through an attachment of the laptop he is carrying. “The visit and basic checkup are $250. Any other testing and treatment, like x-rays, will be charged separately.”
“That’s fine,” I tell him. He hands me back my card and makes me sign on a small digital pad.
He leaves just as Amy rolls out Penny, but not before both of them glance over at me.
“Thank you,” Penny says quietly, and the nurse gives me an actual smile. A far cry from the death stares I have been getting so far.
The door shuts behind them, leaving me to my thoughts.
Penny has been back from the x-rays for almost an hour, and we are still waiting on the test results. At least they’ve given her some pain meds through her IV now. She seems a little out of it but also calm, her breathing steady, and when she reaches to get some water, she doesn’t flinch or grimace in pain.
“Thank you, again,” Penny whispers, breaking the seemingly endless silence between us. “I’ll pay you back. However you want… if that’s still okay. I mean, if you still want this.”
She saysthis, but I’m sure what she really meant wasme.
Do I still want her?
The truth is, I don’t really know…
Before I can come up with an answer, the doctor finally walks into the room, folder and clipboard in hand.
“Sorry for the wait, guys. We are slammed today,” she excuses. “I just had time to look over your x-rays.” She walks up to stand next to Penny’s bed.
“Is everything okay?” Penny asks.
“Well… there is some stuff we need to talk about and go over. The good news is, there is only a hairline fracture on one of your ribs,this time.” She pauses for a moment to get out one of the x-rays. “But I found ribs that were broken at one point and healed now.”
