The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters), Sheehan-Miles, Charles [reading an ebook .txt] 📗

sinks that looked suspiciously like something you’d see on television, where surgeons would wash their hands on their way into an operating room.

“In here,” I said. We slipped through the doors. Another set of sliding doors was beyond. We walked toward those and peered through the glass.

Bingo. An operating team stood around a small body draped in sheets. They were doing something to the leg. I looked closer, and in between the surgeons, underneath an air mask, I could see Sarah’s pale face, badly bruised on the left side.

“You sure about this?” I asked. “This is you.”

I looked at her as I asked the question. Her eyes were wide, scared, and she chewed on her lower lip.

“Hey,” I said.

Her eyes darted to me.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said.

She nodded rapidly and said, “Let’s go.”

So, we stepped through the door. I was immediately assaulted with the sound of quiet music. It wasn’t the volume that struck me, but the music itself.

Disbelief spread across Sarah’s face. “Are you serious? New Kids on the Block? Do these people have no respect at all?”

“Someone must have lost the coin toss,” I muttered, trying hard not to laugh.

“This music is probably destroying my immune system as it plays. Are they trying to kill me?”

The music continued, despite her disbelief. At that moment, the boy band on the radio was singing something like “oh ... oh ... oh ... oh…” and she screwed up her mouth into a sneer and quietly sang, “Oh ... oh ... no, you don’t. Will you turn that off?”

She took her hand from mine and approached the table, carefully, her expressive face showing fascination. I followed.

Her left arm must have been broken and reset. It was immobilized now in an inflatable cast, but I could see a long line of sutures where they’d already operated and closed the wound.

Her leg ... I had to look away. From calf to mid-thigh, it was swollen to twice, maybe three times, its normal size. Her skin was red, bulging, and the doctors had cut a slit the entire length of her leg, exposing muscle and bone and blood, a three-inch wide open wound.

Sarah stared at it, frozen in place. Her eyes didn’t seem to be focused.

“You okay?” I asked.

She muttered, “I would be if they’d play some decent music.”

I put a hand on her shoulder. “I know this is scary. But if it keeps you from losing your leg….”

“Yeah, I get it, Ray. I’m kind of wishing I could vomit right now.”

One of the surgeons spoke, giving instructions to a nurse. I didn’t understand half of what he said, but what I did get was reassuring. They’d stabilized her, and she was almost ready to come out of surgery and go to the intensive care unit. They were going to leave the fasciotomy open for at least several days, and monitor for infection and damage to the muscles. He talked about urine samples and kidney damage and elevated enzymes and something called rhabdomyolysis, which I gathered was something to do with the leg muscles dying. The nurse took notes, writing them up on a chart.

As we watched, the surgeons began wrapping up the surgery. The open wound on Sarah’s leg was loosely packed with bandages that looked almost like foam.

“I think I’m done,” she said, her voice considerably higher pitched than normal.

I nodded and followed her as she very quickly moved for the exit.

Outside, in the hall, I asked, “You sure you’re okay?”

She stood there for a second, not responding. One side of her lower lip was curled inward as she chewed on it. “Yeah. I am. In a way that helped a lot … I mean ... it looked like I was almost stable.”

“So you think you’ll live?”

She smirked. “Yeah, I just might. Although I bet my leg is gonna hurt like hell for a long time. Did you see that? They cut it open like it was a freaking sausage.”

I blinked, then said, “Nice image, Sarah.”

I don’t think she caught the sarcasm because she just kept going, still talking fast and high pitched. “I mean ... yeah, it’s going to suck. I bet I’ll have to go through physical therapy. But I’ll probably keep the leg. That’s something.”

“That’s a lot,” I said.

“Your turn.”

I sighed. “Not sure I’m gonna get so many warm fuzzies from this as you did, Sarah. You heard what the doc said back there.”

She looked at me, her expression sober. “Don’t you think ... knowing ... might help a little?”

I grimaced, then shrugged, helpless. “Yeah, all right. Let’s see if we can find it.”

The next operating room wasn’t me. An older guy, in his sixties, lay on the table with his chest open. “Not here,” I said, peering in the window.

The operating room after that was mine. It was obvious, because all the action seemed to be around the head. I really didn’t want to go in there, but at the same time, I did. What happens if you see yourself die? For that matter, what happens when you die? I didn’t know the answer to that. Somehow the whole question of pearly gates and clouds and angels playing on their harps struck me as so much bullshit, and part of me was terrified that this was what happens when you die. Either oblivion, or worse, being stuck out here alone forever.

I didn’t want to think about that.

All the same, I found myself entering the operating theater. I felt a completely irrational urge to tiptoe in; as if there was any way my presence could disturb the surgeons within. But we knew that wasn’t the case.

Inside, a deep, flowing classical music piece was playing. A surgeon with magnifying goggles sat on a stool at my head, with a nurse reaching over his shoulder. The surgeon had what appeared to be a tiny pair of tweezers, and the nurse some kind of suction device.

Sarah spoke. “Thank God they have better taste in music. I was half afraid they’d be