The Sparrow Sisters (8 page)

“Ben Avellar,” the man said, moving his wounded right hand as if to shake, which only dripped blood on Henry's shirtsleeve. “Oh, shit. Sorry, man,” Ben said.

“No problem. I'm Henry Carlyle. I'm a doctor. Come back to the office and I'll clean this up for you. Maybe a stitch or some of that terrific glue,” Henry said, thinking of the little girl.

“Really, it's no big deal. Besides, I've got to ice these first.” Ben looked at his boat. “I can't leave them.”

“OK, I'll help you. That hand should be elevated.” Henry pulled Ben over to the edge of the dock. “Here, swish it around in the salt water and then I can wrap it in a towel or something.”

Ben looked at Henry with his eyebrows raised nearly into his baseball cap. Then he bent down and grabbed the hose from his boat. “I think I'll use this. The harbor water is a little oily.”

As Henry began shoveling ice, his shoulders stretching the
back of his shirt in a satisfying way, a couple of guys from other boats offered their help, snickering at Ben as he fumbled the lobsters with his left hand. He was unsteady on the deck of his boat, the
Jenny Joy
. Henry wondered if Jenny was Ben's wife.

“Leave it, Ben,” said one of the fishermen. “We'll do it.”

“If I'm missing one bug!” Ben gave up, lifting his swaddled hand, the tip of his middle finger visible. The men laughed.

Henry and Ben walked back to the office. The sun was hot on Henry's neck and he was embarrassed about the whole dirty-water blunder. He was sure that Ben thought he was a privileged landlubber boob. The gulls seemed almost threatening as they fought for scraps on the docks.

“So, you're the new guy,” Ben said.

“I guess I am,” Henry answered. “It's been weeks. Why am I still so interesting?”

“Not a whole lot to talk about until the summer people come.” He gestured to Henry's leg. “But people'll talk about what they got. How'd you do that?”

Henry realized he hadn't thought about his leg once while he shoveled the ice, and now it twanged with every step.

“Skiing,” he said, his lie coming easily.

“Bullshit,” Ben said back. “You're no skier.”

“How do you know that?”

“You're too regular. I don't know, not fancy like the Mayos, say. They ski.”

“You're right, I am definitely not fancy.” Henry laughed at the word.

“And you're not going to tell me either.”

“Right again, not worth talking about, even if the summer people aren't here yet.”

Henry opened the office door for Ben, and four pairs of eyes—three patients and Sally— looked up. He'd agreed to take walk-ins two afternoons a week. They'd have to wait. He hustled Ben back to the exam room, gesturing for his nurse to follow.

Sally pulled a suture kit out of the cabinet and swung the metal tray close to Henry. Ben sat back on the exam table; his eyes followed Henry and Sally as if he'd never seen either of them before. Henry wondered if Ben had ever been in a doctor's office for anything more than a check-up, if that. He pulled the lamp over and spread Ben's hand out on the white paper. As he carefully unwrapped the towel, it stuck to the ragged edges of the cut and Ben jerked.

“Sorry,” Henry said and looked at Sally. They could both see that the dirty gash was not the real problem. Ben's thumb was broken, and it amazed Henry that a lobster had been able to do so much damage, even more that Ben had carried on working for nearly half an hour. The pain had to be stunning.

Sally looked up at Ben. “Claw?”

“Yeah, a real mother.” Ben's face had paled since he sat down, and Henry could see his pulse beating erratically in his throat, sweat standing out on his cheeks.

“Sally, please call—”

“I'm on it.” Sally was already at the desk.

“Who're you calling?” Ben was leaning crookedly against the wall, his eyes closed.

“The EMTs,” Henry said as he began to clean the cut. “This is broken, Ben. I don't want to mess around with it.”

“Oh, shit,” Ben murmured. “What about the boat?”

“I'll make sure the boat's OK,” Sally said. “I'll call the guys, get you to Hayward. They'll take it from there.”

Henry debrided the wound, the saline turning pink and then a deeper red as Ben's blood continued to flow. Ben had begun to shiver so Henry grabbed a thin cotton blanket and threw it over his shoulders. The smell of alcohol was thick in the room.

They heard the ambulance pull up, no siren only a quick “whoop-whoop” as it came to a stop. In less than a minute Henry's exam room was filled with more big men. Ben was surrounded, and Henry had to roll out of the way on his stool. He felt small and superfluous as the EMTs dropped their bags and pulled out their own stethoscopes.

“What do we have?” said one.

“Lobster versus Ben,” Henry said, and the guys laughed. Henry stood, his triage instincts making his speech clipped and fast. “First phalanx is broken, thenar is torn.” The EMTs nodded. “He's a little shocky. Keep the cuff on him and start an IV, saline, and five of morphine for pain.”

“Oh no,” said Ben. “Patience would kill me.”

For a second Henry could have sworn he heard his own heart stutter.

“Why is that?” he asked as he carefully looked at anything but Ben.

“Because she got me to detox last month and I promised her I wouldn't screw it up.”

“You're an addict?” Henry was honestly surprised. He might have guessed alcohol but not drugs. And, while he was at it, Patience was detoxing addicts?

“Not that kind of detox, Doc,” Ben was almost laughing as he slid awkwardly off the table. One EMT grabbed his elbow as his knees buckled and his eyes rolled. Henry lunged for his other arm and pulled him upright.

“Thanks,” Ben whispered. They hustled him out as Sally held the door, turning sideways to squeeze her belly away from the grinning men.

“It's a girl, Sally,” the EMT said.

“Sam Parker, just because you delivered Willa May's baby does not make you an expert.”

“Ask Dr. Carlyle,” he called as he got in the rig.

The patients in the waiting room were already planning their dinner-table stories and taking bets on Sally.

Henry sat for a moment before he called in his next appointment. He willed the adrenaline to dissipate, ashamed that something as mundane as a broken thumb could make him miss a city ER. But that wasn't exactly it. As Henry gathered the bloody gauze and alcohol wipes and threw them in the bin, he had to admit that what he missed in that moment was the field hospital where he'd spent fifteen months, where he'd
saved more men than he'd lost, the place that had nearly broken him. Henry shook his head as he shoved the last of the detritus into the garbage. “It's done now,” he said under his breath.

P
ATIENCE LEFT
S
ORREL
to finish the Mayo arrangement and drove Matty and his bike home. They were both sunburned, and Patience wondered if Rob would give her trouble or not even notice. She lifted the bike over the tailgate and let Matty wheel it to the garage.

“Come on, I'll walk you in,” she said holding out her hand.

Matty didn't take it, but he moved closer to her as they went around to the back door.

“Rob, your soldier's home from the wars,” Patience called as she pushed the screen open.

“He's still at the store,” Matty said as he went to the fridge. He took out a carton of milk and carefully poured a glass. “He won't be back until after six.” Rob Short worked at the hardware store, the one place that seemed to actually give him peace. He kept the books, and he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the inventory and took real satisfaction in every column he reconciled; in that way he and Matty were very much kin.

“Do you want me to wait?” Patience looked at Matty until he met her eye.

“Nah, I'm OK,” he said, and she saw that he was.

“Right, then, just be sure you tell your dad about today, yeah? And ask him for your pill.”

Matty nodded.

“In fact, where does he keep them?”

Matty pointed to a high cabinet, and Patience stood on tiptoes to open the door. She braced one knee on the counter and pushed up to see the top shelf. A line of bottles stood near the edge of it. She recognized Rob's blood pressure medicine and Matty's Doxepin. The others were sleeping pills, antacids, and aspirin. As she climbed down, banging her shin on the counter edge, Patience was relieved that the medicines were out of Matty's reach, that Rob did at least one thing to keep his kid safe.

“OK, I won't dose you, but make your dad do it tonight, please.”

Patience reached to hug Matty, but he shook his head so she lightly touched his shoulder.

“Right, see you, buddy,” Patience said.

“See you.” Matty stood at the back door and watched Patience pull out. He finished his milk and sat at the kitchen table until his father came home. They would have a stilted conversation about their days, and Rob would grimace as Matty recited the list of plants and their uses. Neither would see that Matty found the very same comfort at the Nursery that Rob found at the store.

As Patience drove away from Matty, she decided to stop at Pete Markham's liquor store before she went back to the Nursery for Sorrel. She had a taste for a cool gin and tonic, with lime sharp on her tongue. Also, she thought she might play for time so that she didn't have to see Simon Mayo when he came
to collect the flowers. She had always liked Simon; she liked him now. But she knew his history with Sorrel (or thought she did), and she felt a little angry with them both. The Mayos had a habit of taking what they wanted through the sheer gift of privilege. Patience believed that's what Simon had done with Sorrel, and that Sorrel had let him.

Patience pulled over to the curb on Main Street and was digging in her backpack for some money when Henry Carlyle saw her. She had one foot up on the truck's running board and was leaning over the bag on her knee. Her sundress was hiked up over her thigh, and her red hair fell across her face in a fiery wave that shimmered as she rummaged. Henry considered slipping away, but he felt emboldened by the lobster episode. Besides, he needed to know what the hell Ben Avellar had been talking about. He approached from the front of the truck, noting the bumper stickers that were obviously used as much to cover the rust spots as to voice an opinion: E
AT
L
OCAL
, and GPC
:
S
ING
I
F
Y
OU
L
IKE
C
OWS
.

“Hello,” Henry said. Patience's head jerked up at the sound of his voice. She turned toward him and hit her cheek against the truck's wing mirror.

“Ow, damn it!” Patience barked.

“Oh, God, I'm so sorry,” Henry said as he reached for her. He came around the hood with his hand out and was surprised when Patience stilled. Henry tilted her head and brushed his thumb over the rising bruise. “You should probably ice this.”

“Then it's a good thing I was going into Pete's for some
gin,” Patience said. She looked at Henry's eyes. They were blue or gray and turned slightly down at the corners. Maybe those lashes weren't too long after all.

“We need a do-over,” she said and slung her bag onto her shoulder as she stuck out her hand. “I'm Patience Sparrow.”

Henry took it. “Henry Carlyle.”

“That's better,” Patience said. “I'll see you around.”

She walked into the liquor store, leaving the doctor on the pavement, his left hand on the truck to steady himself. As the door swung shut behind Patience, Henry realized he hadn't brought up Ben. He followed her in and found her paying for the gin, a lime, and a bag of ice.

“I wanted to ask you about . . .”

Patience cut him off.

“Nettie is fine,” she said.
Enough gloating,
she thought.

“No, not Nettie, Ben Avellar.”

“Is he sick too?”

“He broke his thumb this afternoon,” Henry said. “He'll need surgery.”

“I'll tell Nettie.” Patience was lost.

Nettie and Ben had been in the same class all through school. He occasionally came out to the Nursery to deal with big projects: moving trees, building the split-rail fence and the willow trellis where the cutting sweet peas grew, digging the small pond at the edge of the wildflower meadow. He was a gentle man for all his size and was as careful around the plants as the Sisters were. Patience didn't know that Ben had stayed with
Nettie after he finished filling Thaddeus Sparrow's grave. He'd watched her, alone at the top of the hill, leaning against her mother's headstone, crying. No one knew that on the day she'd buried her father, Ben discovered that he had feelings for Nettie. He climbed the hill to sit with her, leaving his shovel behind so that she wouldn't think of him only as the gravedigger. Ben had given her his bandanna to blow her nose and helped her to her feet when she finished crying. It was too strange to talk about that day the longer they left it, so he and Nettie had simply gone on as they had before, buying each other's goods and services, nodding to each other on the street, shaking hands at church. So, of course, Patience couldn't make a connection between them, and Henry Carlyle had no reason to.

Henry was shaking his head. “This isn't about Nettie, or not directly. I tried to give Ben something for the pain, but he refused. He said you'd detoxed him.”

“Oh,” Patience said. “Oh, I get it.” She picked up the gin and ice and tried to walk around Henry, who didn't get anything and hadn't moved.

“Ben decided to clean up his act,” she said as she stopped in front of Henry. He could see the nimbus of light around her from the door and for a moment he could hardly focus.

“He'd been feeling kind of lurgy so I put together some stuff to, you know, wash him out.” Patience scooped her hand through the air.