“Doctor Esposito should be by as soon as she has something concrete to tell you,” the cop added.
My eyes caught his name tag. His last name was Law. Something about that made a hysterical laugh burst out of me.
Allen steered me to sit down in a plastic chair, while the cop… I didn’t care what the cop was doing.
“Give me your phone,” Allen said firmly, and I handed it over, no questions asked.
I heard him talk, but nothing really registered. Then he held out the phone for me.
“It’s for you.”
I frowned and put it on my ear. “Hello?”
“Sweetheart, Allen told me what’s going on. I can be there tonight if I book a flight right now.”
“Mama?”
“Yes, baby,” she said in Finnish. “You’re going to be okay.” Then she talked to someone, likely my dad, and soon she said, “You just hang on, honey. I’ll be right there. Now give the phone back to Allen.”
Frowning, trying to process, I did as I was told.
Allen spoke with her for a moment, and then held onto my phone it seemed.
I don’t know how much time passed. Then suddenly Allen who had sat next to me nudged me.
“Mr. Barlow?”
“Yes, this is his partner and I’m a family friend,” Allen said to the petite doctor.
“I’m Doctor Esposito. So, I’ve called Mr. Barlow’s sister, but she told me to tell you the news we have myself.” She stood there with a clipboard and glanced at it. “He was hit by a vehicle that clipped his hip and sent him flying. He’s going to be fine, given time, but we’re going to have to operate the hip to make sure it stabilizes. There’s likely no need for hip replacement as he’s young, but the surgeon will be in charge of that decision.” She glanced at me, and something in her eyes alerted me, made me feel like I was pulled up through water. Suddenly my mind was clear.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s a head injury.”
I covered my mouth with my hand, feeling as if I was going to throw up even though my stomach wasn’t doing anything alarming.
“What kind of a head injury?” Allen asked her.
“He hit his head when he landed, and he didn’t fracture his skull, but he’s showing some signs of potential traumatic brain injury.” She lifted her hand as if to placate us. “Now, that sounds scary, but I believe it’s going to be very mild case. He’s been sent in for some scans and we’ll know more soon.”
“W-what’s your p-prognosis at the moment?” Before she could say it was too early, I shook my head. “Just your gut feeling as a professional?”
She made a face, as if hesitant to say anything, and then sighed. “I’m going to say that in my experience, he’ll likely have some memory related issues, maybe aphasia. Balance can also be impacted, especially with the hip injury, so we need to be cognizant of that during recovery. Time will tell. Right now, he’s in and out of consciousness and is having trouble with his vision, but that’s pretty common.”
I nodded slowly. “Thank you.” I needed some information, something to hold onto.
“Luukas lost his husband in a diving accident three years ago,” Allen told her.
I saw in my periphery that she nodded, likely sympathetic, but I kept my gaze on the posters on the wall.
“I’ll have a nurse show you to his room as soon as he’s settled. The hip surgery will be tomorrow morning since we’re a bit backed up right now. There’s no risk though, it’s a small fracture that can wait.”
Allen thanked him while I tried to stay afloat. I had to, for Bear.
Bear
There was a lot of pain. Not the nice kind, either. Then I felt like clouds, all light and fuzzy. Then more pain and more fuzziness.
