“Thank you, doctor. May I give you a hug?”
“My pleasure.”
She returned to Marco’s room and climbed in the bed beside him. She looked outside their window at the clouds and the day full of promise and hope. It wasn’t a view of the ocean, but it was a wonderful view just the same. If she could stick with the positive, somehow, the evil things coming their way would shed off like an old skin.
She turned on her side, watching his deep rhythmic breathing. His stubble was growing fast. His lips were full and dark pink. His forearms were covered in bands of tats chronicling all that he’d been through—all the men he knew who didn’t come home, the people he saved, the ones he couldn’t, and the wars he fought. His flesh was like a patchwork quilt stitched together with scars and scratches, holidays here and there where the dark hair didn’t grow back at all.
He was like one of the old quilts her grandmother had made, telling stories about the materials she used, the dresses her mother used to wear, all connected with stitches—the sinews of the heart.
She was still the luckiest girl alive.
Chapter 10
Marco awoke to the sounds of snoring nearby and discovered Shannon was asleep in a bed next to his. His head was woozy with a lot of pain coming from his left leg, but the leg itself felt like it had swollen up to the size of a large oblong balloon about to burst. He couldn’t wiggle his toes, and he had no feeling on the other side from his waist down.
He tried to raise his head, even to speak, but all he could manage was a small squeak from his throat. He didn’t have the strength to try making words or sentences so dropped back into the pillow, exhausted.
His right forearm was taped to a flat plastic brace that looked like a small tray, where a smorgasbord of tubing fed into his system. The insertion of a catheter down below did catch his attention, however, and with very little movement of his right hip, his urethra burned. He howled, which managed to wake Shannon from her slumber.
She sprang to action, hopped off the bed, and gave him a kiss. “How are you doing?” she asked brightly. He could even say she was perky, dammit. Marco did not feel perky.
“I feel like I’ve been made into a human punching bag,” he mumbled. “This your idea of some sort of sexual domination game? Because I’m not liking it one bit.” The pain in his right leg was shooting up the back of his thigh into his butt cheek, where it constricted a muscle there and produced a world-class cramp. “Argh. Oh man, I’ve got a cramp in the back of my thigh.”
“Let me rub it—”
He stopped her from slipping her hand under the covers. Lord knew what she’d find, and the thought of her fingers sliming through his shit made him sick to his stomach. To say he was feeling vulnerable was an understatement.
“Don’t touch me!” He wanted it to sound definitive, in control, but he sounded like a scared teenager as his normally deep baritone voice wailed like a wounded female cat in heat.
Her face was filled with tears, but she was smiling.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“I’m so glad to see you awake, Marco. It was very touch and go. But you have a great doctor. The worst part is over. Now we can concentrate on healing.”
“How bad is it? Give it to me straight. I can tell they didn’t cut off my dick so whoop-de-doo! Am I going to be one of those guys who sets off all the alarms at the airport screening now?”
“You’ll definitely raise attention. But then, you always do get the looks wherever you go, especially if there are ladies nearby.”
“I’m not talking about ladies. What did they do to me? Will I be shitting out into a bag from now on? Am I wheelchair-bound?”
“Well, they considered removing your left leg, but I wouldn’t let them.”
“Atta girl.” He was still confused. He closed his eyes to try to remember what had happened and how he got here to the hospital. “What else?”
“You’ll have a lot of pins and plates, and a rod or two in your left leg for a time. Not sure about what stays and what gets to come out.”
“You put it so delicately, ‘Gets to come out!’ Like it is a privilege I get to be wired and plastered back together.”
“Your back and neck aren’t broken, so no wheelchair at this point.”
“What else?” He closed his eyes, tried to adjust his hip again, and stopped, crying out.
“You need me to ask the nurses for something for pain?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think straight. You tell me. Am I in pain?”
“Sounded like it. Why don’t we wait a bit and see if you can begin to feel things? Dr. Patel told me they needed to know what you could move and what caused you pain. Your left leg is the one most damaged. He said you’ll have to have more surgeries. All they were able to do was stabilize your broken bones and repair the blood vessels, but your knee is still messed up and will have to be replaced.”
“Ouch, not looking forward to that.”
“I was told to push the call button when you awoke. Let’s do that now.” She leaned over, took the small device no bigger than a Vienna sausage, and pushed a white button on the end of it.
“I could have done that, Shannon.”
“But I nicely did it for you, Marco. Say ‘thank you, Shannon.’”
“Thank you, Shannon.”
The loudspeaker above Marco’s bed squawked unintelligibly, but Shannon answered, “He’s awake, and I think he needs something for pain.”
The speaker cracked and then shut off. About five minutes later, a young pretty nurse entered the room with a vial and a needle.
“So where are you having pain, Mr. Gambini?”
Marco pointed with his forehead to the middle of his groin. “I’m not joking. My dick hurts, at least I think it’s my dick.” He adjusted his hip again and the hot searing pain returned twice as strong as the first time.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Gambini. I’ll give you a little something, but that’s from the catheter in your penis.”
“What did they do, fuckin’ put it in sideways?”
Shannon covered her mouth, snickering.
“I’m going to look and see if it’s infected. Sometimes they do these pretty quickly and they can scrape the insides.”
When the nurse lifted the covers, Shannon looked away. Marco tried to raise himself up to examine the pulsing body part, but it was no use.
“Oh, I can see it now. Looks like there is a little blood, and some bruising. I can place some numbing cream there, which will help. You’re already on a whole regimen of antibiotics, so that’s not necessary, but you’re going to have to live with this for a few days. They’ll take it out as soon as they can, and that means we’re getting you up to use the toilet. But until then, I’m afraid we’re leaving this in and monitoring the output. Don’t expect a miracle.”
Marco laid back, staring at the ceiling while the nurse left then returned with a small jar of salve, which she applied around the opening where his penis accepted the plastic tubing. She followed the path of the tube where it was depositing urine into a small jar on the floor.
“Your color looks good, and you’re peeing up a storm, so I’d say, compared to how you could have looked, you’re doing very well.”