Blackberry Winter

by Maryanne Fischler

  Emily reluctantly let go of Brian’s hand and spoke softly. “You won’t go far will you?”

  “I’ll be right outside your door.”

  When Dr. Vogler emerged from the room, he told Brian that Emily was doing remarkably well. “We’ll want to do a number of tests to ascertain what impairments there might be. I think it would be best to wait to tell her about the assault until she’s a little stronger.”

  Brian disagreed, “Everybody in this city who’s read a newspaper in the last two days knows what happened to her, I think she’s got a right to know what she’s dealing with.”

  Dr. Vogler spoke patiently, and, Brian thought, patronizingly, “I have to go with my best judgment on this. The orthopedist tells me that she should have surgery to put some hardware into that arm as soon as possible. I don’t want to upset her while she’s still facing that. We’re going to move her into a regular room and give her something for pain. Try to keep her still and quiet.”

  “Have you explained her injuries to her? Have you told her about the surgery?” Brian asked.

  “I told her she would be having surgery on her arm in the morning. I’ve also told her in general terms that she has other injuries. I told her not to be concerned about the memory loss. It’s not unusual for patients with trauma to the head to suffer memory loss for the time before and after the blow.”

  “Yes,” Brian said caustically, “I’m aware of that.”

  “I think at this stage that we need to prevent her from worrying or being upset. I hope I can count on your cooperation.”

  “It’s not the way that Emily and I usually deal with one another, but I understand that you have the final word,” Brian said diplomatically.

  Brian accompanied Emily to her new room and was present when she was given medication for pain. It took almost immediate effect.

  “My head is getting fuzzy,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I have very strict orders from Dr. Vogler to be the voice of sweetness and light and to keep you still and quiet.” It went against everything they had ever meant to each other for him to be so much less than candid with her, but there was a least a part of him that was glad that she wasn’t going to know the truth for a while. He didn’t look forward to the task of telling her how the world had treated her.

  She was soon dozing fitfully. When she stirred in her sleep, she would wince in pain and waken. Occasionally, she would speak, not very coherently. At one point she asked, “Brian, what day is it?”

  “It’s Saturday.”

  That seemed to startle her. “I missed two whole days then. How did I manage that?”

  “It’s nothing to worry about, it’s just because you had a concussion.” That answer seemed to satisfy her and she drifted off again.

  In another moment of wakefulness, she said, “My ring is gone.”

  Brian was scrambling for an answer to that, and could only come up with, “It’s nothing to worry about, sweetheart.”

  “Is it all right?”

  Not even knowing what she meant exactly, he murmured reassuringly, “Yes, everything’s fine.”

  Paul arrived in the late afternoon and found Brian waiting in the empty room. Emily had been taken for more x-rays.

  “How is she?” Paul asked.

  “She’s been awake sort of off and on all day. She doesn’t remember anything about the attack, and Vogler has forbidden me to talk to her about it. I don’t agree with that strategy, but I don’t feel I’m in any position to argue with him. They’re going to do surgery to install a pin in her arm tomorrow. She’s pretty heavily medicated at the moment, but I know she wants to see you, she’s been asking for you.”

  She was brought back to her room and moved back into her bed. When she was settled, Brian brought Paul in announcing, “Look what the cat’s dragged in.”

  “Hello, Paul,” Emily said, “if you can find a place that isn’t black and blue, come and kiss it.”

  Following her instructions carefully, Paul kissed her forehead and said, “Hello, Emily. Is this slob taking good care of you?”

  “Yes, but I need you to do me a favor,” she said. “Pack him up and make him go home. He won’t admit it, but I know his leg is killing him.”

  “I’ll take him with me when I go, okay? Are they keeping you pretty well doped up?” he asked, noticing that she seemed to have trouble keeping her eyes open.

  “Yes, my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool. They’re going to put a safety pin in my arm tomorrow.” Her voice was slurred and anyone who didn’t know better would think she had been drinking.

  Paul smiled, “A safety pin, huh? Well, that ought to fix you right up. Why don’t we get out of here and let you sleep?” Turning to Brian, he added, “I’ll wait for you out in the hall.”

  Brian leaned over the bed and spoke softly, “Promise me you’ll sleep all night and have happy dreams.” At her murmured assent, he whispered, “Goodnight, my sweet Emily, I love you.”

  As Brian and Paul were stepping into the elevator they noticed its only other occupant was Detective Hoffstedter. The policeman looked both tired and perturbed. “Gentlemen,” he said, “how is Miss Stone?”

  Brian answered, “Weak, but doing pretty well under the circumstances.”

  “I’ve just come from speaking to the doctor on call. He informs me that she has no recollection whatsoever of the attack she suffered.”

  “Yes, that’s true. The doctor in charge of her case has left strict orders about that. She’s not to be told anything about what happened to her until she’s stronger.” Brian’s opinion of those orders was obvious from his disdainful tone.

  As the elevator reached the ground floor all three men stepped out and continued their conversation in the lobby of the hospital.

  The detective shrugged almost philosophically. “Well, we have physical evidence, and we know the blood type of the perpetrator. We’re compiling a list of every male Miss Stone knows. We’ve been in touch with the Wake County sheriff’s office to inquire about the brother, but it appears he was in custody for drunk driving and driving without a license at the time of the assault. Our best bet at this point may well be the ring. If somebody tries to pawn it and that somebody is B positive, we’ll have something.” Up until this point the detective had sounded like he was mostly just thinking out loud. His tone suddenly changed as he asked, in an obvious attempt to sound nonchalant, “What blood type are you, Doctor McClellan?”

  Brian’s response was immediate and furious, “Do you really think that I…”

  Paul interrupted, “The man’s trying to do his job, Brian.” Turning to the detective, he said, “I imagine I’m on your list, too. I’m A negative.”

  Brian made an obvious effort to control his voice and said in a low voice, “My blood type is O.”

  The detective’s response was, “There’s something I want to explain to you about victims, Dr. McClellan. I deal with a lot of victims, people of all sorts who get hurt by other people. You get a case where a woman has been at a party drinking until two in the morning, accepts a ride home from a complete stranger, invites him up to her apartment, and he rapes her; that’s one kind of victim. I do a thorough job of investigating a case like that, but I don’t go out of my way, I don’t lose any sleep over it. The department brass wants cases like that solved, but they don’t lose any sleep over it either, because the public doesn’t get stirred up over a case like that. How can the police be expected to prevent that kind of situation from turning into rape?” The detective’s voice had shifted down an octave, as though he were imparting a well kept secret. He continued, “This case is different. This is a county employee, a nice lady minding her own business, abducted in broad daylight. This creep set a trap and then waited for her to come along, and when he was done, he left her for dead. That makes me mad; things like that ought not to happen. That’s the way the public looks at it and that’s the way I look at it. I don’t care
who I offend or how obnoxious I have to make myself, there’s not a lot I won’t do to break a case like this.” His voice returned to its usual officious tone. “Thank you, gentlemen, for your cooperation. I’ll keep you informed of our progress.”

  Emily’s surgery was conducted early on Sunday morning at the quietest time of the hospital’s week. She had already been sedated when Brian arrived. He decided the best place to wait for her was in her room. It would probably be a matter of hours before the surgery was complete and she was out of recovery. The days of waiting which he had already endured had taken their toll on his patience. He thought briefly about leaving the hospital, but he could think of nowhere else he would rather be.

  A nurse stopped in to change the linen on the bed and reported that the surgery had gone well and the patient was in recovery.

  Emily was brought back to her room at about noon, groggy but conscious. Brian watched as she was very carefully transferred back into her bed, a process made more difficult by the heavy cast on the arm.

  “Hello, Emily. How are you, darling?”

  “I’m sort of sleepy still. It would be nice to be able to think clearly.” There was a trace of annoyance in her voice.

  The nurse brought in a device which Brian recognized as an automatic medication dispenser, or “pain machine.” The patient was linked to the dispenser through an intravenous tube. When the patient began to experience discomfort, she could push a button and the machine would dispense a pain-relieving medication. At one time, doctors would not have been willing to put such a device at a patient’s disposal, thinking it would result in addiction. But as more was learned about the deleterious affects of pain on the healing process, the pain machines were more commonly used. Brian listened as the nurse explained to Emily how the device worked. He wondered if she would actually use it. He had at one time thought that Emily had a very high threshold for pain. The bruise she had sustained at the library when his parents had been visiting would have most people downing pills in no time, but Emily had shrugged it off as “no big deal.” He had come to believe after her fall with the coffee cup that in fact, she suffered from pain as much as anybody, but was for some reason uncomfortable discussing it. There was something vaguely troubling to Brian about this.

  Paul arrived just after Emily fell asleep. He whispered to Brian, “It won’t be much of a Sunday feast, but let’s at least grab a sandwich in the coffee shop before she wakes up.”

  Over their meager meal, they discussed the question of Emily’s pain response. Paul had observed the same reluctance on her part to acknowledge pain, and offered his explanation. “Emily has spoken on several occasions about the verbal abuse she suffered as a child and the occasional slap, but has never spoken about any extensive physical abuse. From what I’ve seen, I think she’s denying that part of her memory, even to herself. I think that she may well have been beaten as a child, and simply be unable to deal with it. If that’s the case, this current crisis may well trigger some serious problems. Of course, I could be way off base here. It’s something to keep in mind.”

  Brian’s pain and concern were evident. He could not say that this possibility had never occurred to him, but he just hated thinking of it. He could certainly understand why Emily’s mind recoiled from doing so. “What can I do that would help her?”

  “Make her admit that she hurts. That would be a first step.”

  They returned to the room to find Emily more awake and alert than she had been since her admission to the hospital. The head of her bed was elevated so that she could look around the room comfortably. There wasn’t much to see, a flower arrangement from Doctor and Mrs. McClellan, a potted plant with a card signed by the library staff, and four bare walls.

  “I think I liked being in the hospital better when I couldn’t see how dreary it is,” she commented. “Have you two been feasting without me? I hope so.”

  “We just had a sandwich. You’ll probably be able to have solid food tomorrow.” Brian answered, “How do you feel?”

  “Oh, not too bad. It’s good to be able to think. Isn’t it about time somebody told me what happened?”

  Brian didn’t want to answer as he did, but felt obliged to follow doctor’s orders. “We’re forbidden to discuss it until your doctor says it’s all right.”

  Emily looked thoughtful. “Is it something that would upset me?”

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Brian suggested. From that point throughout the rest of the afternoon, Brian and Paul basically dominated the conversation. They talked about baseball, a movie Paul had seen, and anything else they could think of that would keep the conversation within the stipulated barriers.

  Emily seemed to be thinking her own thoughts and not paying much attention. She asked during a lull in the small talk, “Which one is my doctor, there have been several tromping in and out of here.”

  “Dr. Vogler, the one who asked you who the President is when you first came to, is the doctor in charge of your case. He’s a neurologist,” Brian responded.

  “I don’t think he’s been here today,” Emily said.

  “No, I think he’s off duty today. I’m sure he’ll be here to see you tomorrow,” Brian said.

  Paul left at twilight, and Emily and Brian were left alone. Emily said, “You know it’s hard to find anything to say when you’re not allowed to talk about what you want to talk about.”

  “Darling, I’m sorry, but I have to go along with what your doctor thinks is best. Why don’t we talk about something I want to talk about?”

  “All right,” she replied, “what?”

  “I’ve been watching you all afternoon and I haven’t seen you push the button on your pain machine once. Why is that?”

  “I haven’t felt all that badly. Besides, I’ve had enough of being doped up for a while.” She seemed uncomfortable with the topic of conversation.

  “Emily, you don’t have to wait until you’re in terrible pain to use the medication. It’s here to make you more comfortable when you hurt. I want you to use it tonight so you can sleep, all right?

  “Yes, Doctor. The trouble is there are too many doctors around here, and they all want to tell me what to do. I’m going to tell you what to do for a change. Come over here and kiss me.”

  Brian smiled and leaned over the bed, intending a pleasant little peck, but Emily obviously had something more passionate in mind. He pulled away slightly and said very softly, “Emily...”

  “What’s the matter?” there was a strange tone of suspiciousness in her voice.

  Brian said awkwardly, “Nothing, sweetheart, I just think you need to take it easy until you’re feeling better.”

  Emily blushed and said, “I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t think of that. Maybe I’d better try to sleep now.”

  Her abrupt dismissal and the redness of her face told him that he had upset her, but he thought anything he tried to do to make amends would only make things worse. He wished her a pleasant good night and was gone.

  Chapter 6

  When Emily woke up Monday morning, her first thought of the day was that she wanted to find out what the cause of her injuries was. She had been considering possibilities, and grew more and more upset with each scenario she devised. She finally decided in an arbitrary way that she must have wrecked her car, people get all sorts of strange injuries in car accidents, and they weren’t telling her because the other driver involved must have been killed. The next step in her logic was to simply check the newspaper. An accident like that would certainly be reported prominently.

  The nurse who brought in her morning medication was one of those professionally cheerful people who think they brighten up a room just by walking into it. After Emily had dutifully taken her pill, she asked the smiling nurse, “Could I please have some newspapers? I need to catch up on all the news.”

  The nurse’s smile cracked just slightly as she said, “Well, I’ll have to ask Dr. Vogler when he comes in.”

  “Why should it matter to him
whether or not I have a newspaper?” Emily asked.

  Still grinning stiffly, the nurse answered inanely, “Doctor’s orders,” and left the room.

  It seemed to Emily that this response simply proved her hypothesis that something awful had happened because of her driving. In a short time, the young student nurse who was the bottom rung on the labor ladder in the hospital came in to bring her some juice. Emily decided to try a different tack. “I’ve misplaced my newspaper from the end of last week and I hadn’t finished reading it yet. Do you think you could find me a copy anywhere, maybe lying around in one of the waiting rooms or something? She tried to sound sort of pitiful, and goodness knows, she thought to herself, she looked the part.

  “Oh, sure,” the innocent young nurse said. She was back in less than fifteen minutes with newspapers for Friday and Saturday. Emily thanked her profusely, and began her reading.

  Fifteen minutes later, Emily’s breakfast arrived. Fifteen minutes after that, the nurse came in to see if Emily needed any help eating, and found the meal untouched.

  “Miss Stone, aren’t you going to eat your breakfast?” she said in a tone that Emily found condescending. Emily picked the tray up with her good arm and hurled it against the wall. The nurse began to make clucking noises of disapproval and to lecture on the sins of being a temperamental patient. She bent over to pick up the debris, and when she stood up, saw that Emily had pulled the IV out of her arm and had a furious look on her face.

  “What on earth are you doing?” the nurse said, appalled.

  Emily offered no explanation other than a stony glare.

  When Brian arrived on the ward in the morning he was greeted by a nurse with the message that Dr. Vogler wanted to see him right away. He went to the neurologist’s office on the fourth floor and told the secretary who he was. After a short wait, he was shown in.

  “Well, Dr. McClellan, you missed the fireworks this morning. Miss Stone had what I think could be accurately described as a temper tantrum.”