Stuck in the Middle (9 page)

The boy sat unmoving in the middle of the hospital bed, as though afraid to soil the crisp white sheet. His shaggy dark hair looked like it hadn’t been washed, or even combed, in days. A fresh pressure bandage, no doubt compliments of Nurse Debbie, wound around one filthy foot. The kid’s chin rose as he threw a defiant glare toward Ken. But Ken detected a hint of fear buried in his tough-guy stare.

“I’m Dr. Fletcher. And I’ll bet you’re Michael.”

The boy didn’t respond, just stared. Ken shifted his gaze to the woman who sat in a hard plastic chair beside the bed. She looked like she could stand a shower too, and some clean clothes. He took a step toward her, his hand extended, and kept the smile on his face though he nearly flinched at the sharp odors of cigarette smoke and sour alcohol that rose from her. She looked maybe twenty-five. Surely not old enough to have a ten-year-old son.

“You’re Mrs. Lassiter?”

Her grip was timid, as though she wasn’t accustomed to shaking hands. “I’m not married.”

“Ms. Lassiter, then.” Ken grinned at the boy. “But you’re this big guy’s mother, right?”

The kid rolled his eyes and looked away. Okay, too old to be called a “big guy.”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

Ken kept his hands behind his back as he bent over the boy’s filthy foot. “So, Mike, I see you’ve got a battle wound here. Mind if I take a look?”

One edge of the boy’s mouth twisted. “That’s why we’re here.”

Smart-aleck kid. Ken swallowed a sarcastic response, and crossed to the sink against the wall to wash his hands. Both sets of eyes followed him. He pulled on a pair of examination gloves and unwound the bandage. As soon as he pulled the gauze away, blood seeped from a two-inch wound. Deep. Broken glass, probably. Ken had seen a couple like this in Cincinnati. He glanced at the boy’s face.

“Want to tell me what happened?”

“I stepped on a busted bottle.” His voice was tight. “Didn’t see it in the grass.”

“How long ago was that?”

His mother spoke. “About half an hour ago. I brought him straight here, soon as I saw it.”

Ken glanced at the clock on the wall. 2:47. “Out kind of late, weren’t you?”

The boy shrugged. Ken kept his gaze on the wound but saw the woman bristle out of the corner of his eye.

“We fell asleep in front of the TV.” She sounded defensive. “Michael must have got up and went outside without me knowing.”

Passed out was more likely, considering the smell of her breath. His jaw tightened as he bit back a disapproving response. “Mike, can you move your ankle up and down, and wiggle your toes?” He did, which brought a fresh flow of blood. Ken blotted the wound with a clean Steripad. “Good. Now I’m going to push on your foot, to see if I can feel any glass still in there.” He caught Michael’s eyes with his and held them. “It might hurt a little.”

The boy’s throat convulsed, though his expression did not change. He lifted a shoulder.

The nurse had already attached a portable magnifying lamp to the bed rail. Ken swung it into place and watched the wound as he probed. The gash looked clean, the edges neatly sliced. He found no evidence of glass still inside. Michael stiffened a couple of times, but not a sound escaped those tightly clamped lips. A tough guy, huh? Well, better that than a screamer. Ken had seen older kids lapse into hysterics in similar situations.

The initial examination complete, he flipped off the lamp and lowered the arm, then perched on the edge of the bed.

He spoke to the mother. “It’s deep, but he’s lucky. If the glass had cut the extensors, he would have needed surgery to repair the damage.” He swung his gaze to the boy. “We’ll stitch this up, and you’re going to have to stay off of it for a day or two. And it’s important to keep the area around the wound clean.”

“What are you going to do to me?” His voice wavered, and he clamped his mouth closed as though irritated he had allowed his fear to show.

Ken blotted the wound once again, and spoke matter-of-factly. “First we’re going to spray on some anesthetic to numb it. Then I’m going to give you a shot.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “I don’t like shots.”

He gave a sympathetic shake of his head. “Neither do I. Unfortunately, you’re going to get two, one in your foot and a tetanus shot in the arm.”

“In my foot?” Michael didn’t bother to hide the alarm in his voice. “You mean in the cut?” His voice rose in pitch until he almost shouted the last word.

“Shut up,” his mother snapped. “It’s your own fault, you little idiot. If you’d stayed in the house like you were supposed to, none of this would have happened. Stupid little . . .” She ended with an obscene exclamation that made her son flinch.

Ken felt his own lips tightening. He’d seen parents berate their kids for getting injured before, but that didn’t make it easier to witness. He ignored the woman and placed a hand on Michael’s leg. “I won’t lie to you, it might hurt. But only for a few seconds, and then you won’t feel a thing. When the area around the wound is good and numb, the nurse is going to wash it. Then I’ll stitch it up and you can go home.”

Michael studied him while a pleasant female voice from the speaker in the ceiling paged Dr. Anoush. Ken kept his face impassive. Finally, the boy nodded.

“Good.” Ken stood. “Let me get the nurse and we’ll get started. You’ll be home before you know it.”

He slipped through the curtain and crossed three steps to the nurses’ station where he outlined the treatment plan to Debbie. While she assembled the necessary equipment, he stepped into the tiny office to type his notes into the boy’s file. They returned together to the examination room, Debbie’s white sneakers squeaking on the polished floor.

“Okay, Mike, are you ready?”

The kid didn’t look as brave as he had a few moments before. His eyes were glued to the stainless steel tray Debbie carried, the one with two hypodermic needles on it.

“Look,” the mother interrupted, “how much is this going to cost me? I’m not working right now, so I can’t afford a big bill.”

Ken bit back a sarcastic comment about the cost of cigarettes and alcohol as compared to the health of a child. Instead, he picked up the chart and studied the admission form. “Says here Michael is covered by the Kentucky Child Health Insurance Program.”

Debbie spoke up. “They’ll handle all costs above the deductible you already paid. We get a lot of patients with KCHIP. They’re good.”

The woman nodded. “Do I have time to go outside for a smoke?”

A look of pure panic crossed Michael’s face. The boy quickly replaced it with the belligerent expression he customarily wore, but Ken felt his own jaw clench. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to have children.

“I’m afraid you’ll need to stay in the room while we treat your son, Ms. Lassiter.”

The woman folded her arms across her chest, red fingernails clutching her forearms. “Fine. Can we get on with it, then?”

Ken put on a fresh pair of gloves and picked up the topical anesthetic. “Okay, Mike. I’m going to spray your foot with this. It won’t hurt a bit.”

Michael nodded, and watched closely as Ken sprayed the wound. His foot jerked as the cold spray hit and the sharp smell of antiseptic filled the air. “It kinda tickles.”

Ken grinned up at him. “I told you it wouldn’t hurt.”

They waited a few moments, and then Ken caught and held the boy’s eye. “Okay, now we’re ready for the first shot. Have you ever been stung by a bee?” Anxiety creased the kid’s forehead as he nodded. “It’s going to be something like that, but only for a few seconds. Then it will go completely numb.”

The muscles in Michael’s cheeks bunched as his jaw clamped shut.

“You can scream as loud as you want. There’s nobody else in the emergency room right now, so you’re not going to bother anybody. Understand?”

Michael gave a single nod. His mother rolled her eyes and turned her face toward the wall.

Debbie handed the syringe to Ken and stepped up to the bedside. “Hold my hand, honey. It helps if you squeeze something.”

The boy clutched Debbie’s hand in both of his, screwed his face up, and said to Ken, “Okay. I’m ready.” Then he shut his eyes tight.

Ken administered the injection as quickly as he could. As the needle entered the tender flesh, Michael’s scream pierced the air and echoed down the hallway. The scream ended in a string of curses that made his mother’s sound like Sunday school talk. Thankfully, Debbie’s face remained impassive as she returned the boy’s white-knuckled squeeze.

“All done.” Ken set the syringe in the tray and smiled at Michael. “It’ll go dead any second now.”

The boy’s face cleared slowly, creases falling away as his crushing grip on Debbie’s hand relaxed. “It already is.”

“Good. We’ll give that a few minutes to get things good and numb before we start stitching that cut.” He looked at Michael’s mother. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

He left the room without waiting to see if she would follow. He’d seen plenty of kids like Michael in Cincinnati, good kids who needed a strong positive influence in their lives before they started trying stupid things to look cool in front of their peers.

The woman’s expression looked a lot like her son’s when he first arrived—belligerent. She stood with her arms crossed, her purse slung across one shoulder, and refused to look him in the face.

“Ms. Lassiter, do you know what your son was doing outside the house so late at night?”

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault.” She tapped a sandaled toe. “I knew I was going to get blamed for this. I can’t watch the kid every minute, you know.”

“Granted. But surely you have rules about when he has to be home at night.”

“He was home. I told you, he slipped out after I fell asleep. It’s those kids he runs with. They’re bad news.”

Ken kept a firm grip on his patience. “Maybe if you explain to Michael why you think they’re bad news, and that you don’t want him to hang out with those kids anymore, he’d listen to you.”

She gave a blast of humorless laughter. “Are you for real?”

“I just think—”

“I don’t care what you think. It’s easy for you to stand there and tell me how I should act. You’re not there every day, you don’t know what our life is like. Your job is to take care of that cut and butt out of our business. So why don’t you do that and get off my back?”

Ken stared after her as she stomped away. True, he didn’t know what their life was like. He only knew his heart twisted in his chest when he thought about that ten-year-old boy running around the streets with a gang of kids at two o’clock in the morning. Where would Michael be in five years? In three, even?

There were so many kids like him in Cincinnati. But somehow in a big city Ken expected to see street gangs and all the problems that went with them. Gunshot wounds, knife fights, drug overdoses. He never thought about those same things happening in a smaller town like this one.

Should he report her for child abuse? There was no indication that Mike had been abused, none of the typical signs like bruises or broken bones. Neglect, maybe? He shook his head. She would just stick to her story that he snuck out of the house after she was asleep. And it was probably the truth.

Maybe he was overreacting. After all, a ten-year-old who stepped on a broken bottle in the middle of the night was a far cry from a street thug. With a sigh, he headed back toward the examination room to stitch Michael’s wound.

~ 7 ~

Joan drizzled fat-free dressing across her salad while beside her Allie piled chicken wings on a plate already full of fried fish, mashed potatoes, cheesy macaroni, and yeast rolls.

“I love this buffet.” Allie balanced a final wing on top and licked her lips. “They have the best rolls.”

Joan eyed the mountain of starch and grease her sister was about to consume. “You know, you really should eat something healthy every now and then.”

Allie answered by balancing her plate in one hand while grabbing an apple off the buffet table with the other. She scowled. “There. Something healthy. Are you satisfied?”

Joan shook her head, laughing, as she led the way back to their table. “Don’t come crying to me when you want to fit into your pre-baby jeans and you can’t get them past your pudgy knees.”

Allie set her plate down and tried to slide into the booth. She pushed the table toward Joan a few inches so her bulging belly would fit. Scooching into the center of the bench, she looked so funny Joan couldn’t help laughing again.

Allie glared across the table. “Okay, no making fun of the pregnant lady. You’ll give me a complex. Instead why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you today?”

Joan pulled a napkin out of the dispenser and handed it across the table. “What makes you think anything is bothering me?”

“Because your voice sounded funny when you called this morning. And because I usually have to pry you out of that store for a lunch break, so if you call me for lunch, something must be bothering you.” She leaned forward. “Is it Gram?”

Their drinks arrived. Thankful for the interruption, Joan peeled the paper off her straw and gathered her thoughts as Allie sent the server back for more lemon slices. She had worried about her midnight mug-arranging episode since the moment her eyes opened yesterday morning. But now that it was time to talk about it, she couldn’t find any words that didn’t sound lame. Maybe she should just ignore the whole thing. After all, what did she expect Allie to do?

“Maybe I just wanted to get away from Rosa’s constant griping about Luis for a while.”

Chicken wing in hand, Allie gave her a shrewd look. “You never could lie to your big sister. Come on, out with it.”

Joan heaved a sigh. “Okay, so maybe something is kind of bothering me. It’s not a big deal, really. It’s just that . . . ,” she toyed with her fork, “I’m afraid I might be going crazy.”

Allie’s forkful of mashed potatoes paused halfway between her plate and her mouth. “Why do you say that?”

Joan speared a piece of lettuce. “Because the other night I got up at two in the morning to rearrange the coffee mugs.”

Allie’s face remained impassive, probably a technique she’d learned from her college counseling classes. At least she didn’t laugh. Joan couldn’t take Allie laughing at her right now. Not about this.