Maybe he hadn’t succeeded in convincing Nancy to give them back to the tribe, so he’d done away with her.
Then Maddie had remembered that Rafe was with Joe, paddling around the ponds that were cared for by the Wampanoags.
She’d jumped up from her chair. And the rest had happened.
The sensation of her body tipping sideways over the split railing, rolling, rolling, one thud after another, came thundering back. Especially the part when she landed with a bump into a bunch of spiny shrubs.
That was it. She couldn’t recall anything else until she’d woken up to the sounds of machines—and her son’s voice.
As entrapped by sinuous tubes as she now was, she struggled to check the bedside stand for her phone. She needed to call Brandon. Maybe he’d come back—without his mother—so they could finish their conversation. But the bedside stand was crowded with boxes and sealed packets of medical paraphernalia; her phone wasn’t there.
Right then, a tall, thin woman with short red hair and big eyeglasses entered the room. She had on a white coat and was carrying another of those tablets that must have replaced old-fashioned patient charts. Three young men, also in white coats, trailed after her. They, too, carried tablets. None of them had smiles on their masks.
The redhead’s brown eyes glanced at her tablet, then fixed on Maddie. “I heard you’re awake.”
Maddie nodded. She would have thought that her state of alertness was obvious without confirmation from a ten-inch screen.
“I’m Dr. Wilson, and these are . . .”
As she continued, she turned toward the young men, so Maddie didn’t hear their introductions. Hopefully, it didn’t matter.
The doctor then explained Maddie’s injuries in more depth than the nurse had, which didn’t matter, either, as most of it was medical lingo regarding test results and procedures. Except when she said “mild concussion.” Maddie recognized that term, also from when Rafe had fallen on the ice at the frog pond a hundred years ago. But while she appreciated what the doctors and nurses had done for her, she only wanted to know when she’d be released. And where her phone was.
“So,” the doctor said, “everything appears to be okay with this injury. But with the additional trauma to your foot, Dr. Blais replaced your cast, so you’ll have to follow the same protocol as before. In other words, you’ll be starting over with that—elevating it for a couple of days, and so on. If you don’t have enough medication, Dr. Blais will prescribe more.”
When she said “Dr. Blais,” it took a few seconds for Maddie to recognize the name of the orthopedic doctor who had cemented her foot and half her leg the first time, and who’d given her kudos for a good job of healing when she’d seen him the other day. She wanted to peer under the covers to determine if this cast was as enormous as the previous one.
“Dr. Blais is off today, but his office will notify you about your next appointment, which should be in a week or so. In the meantime, we’ll keep you here another night. Your vitals are fine, so it’s just precautionary. For a while, you might experience occasional confusion. Typically, it’s nothing to be alarmed about, but if it’s too frequent or too intense, give us a call.”
Maddie kept listening, though she’d rather be sleeping.
“When you do leave the hospital,” the doctor added, “it will be best if you’re not left alone for a few days. Head injuries can have a mind of their own. That’s about it. Any questions?”
Maddie couldn’t tell if the doctor knew she’d just made a joke about head injuries having a mind of their own. So instead of laughing, she tried to think of a question. Nothing surfaced. “No questions. But thank you. This is a great hospital.”
“It is. But next time—if there is one—it would be better if you plan to visit us some other time than summer.”
Ah. A joke.
That time, Maddie smiled.
Then the woman nodded and led her ducklings from the room.
Once they were out of sight, she sat up and lifted the sheet.Argh, she thought. The cast did look bigger, more cumbersome.Great. Then she remembered she should have asked if someone could look for her phone. But she supposed that wouldn’t qualify as a medical question. So she tousled the sheets, trying to figure out where the call button was. Finally she found it on the wrong side of the bed. It had fallen out of reach.
Determined to stay awake until a nurse passed her door again, Maddie waited with vigilance. A few minutes later one obliged. And Maddie called out, “HELP.”
* * *
Brandon arrived twenty minutes later. Maddie had been in and out of sleep when he came into her room.
“You’re tired,” he said as he moved a chair next to the bed.
At first, she wasn’t sure why he was there, or, for that matter, why she was. Then the word “concussion” filtered to the forefront of her mind. As did the doctor’s mention of “confusion.” She sighed.
“I was so glad to hear your voice,” he said, “and to know you’re back among the living. But you sounded a little crazed, so I got here as fast as possible, what with summer traffic, which was touch and go all the way down State Road. No surprise.”
All the time he was talking, Maddie was thinking . . .I called him?
