Page 43 of Hush

“Wait, is the patient’s name Jaden Mallory?” Ben asked, pushing through the gym’s door.

The nurse paused. “Yes,” she answered.

“I was the one who operated on him before,” Ben said.

“That’s right,” the nurse said. “Almost three weeks ago.”

“How did the accident happen?” he asked.

The nurse described some kind of scuffle having to do with toys and a door handle. Under normal circumstances, an accident at home was immediate cause for alarm because it was often code for child abuse. But Ben dismissed this possibility. If he knew Jaden, he’d become overtired or overwhelmed like that day they’d been late to the appointment, and Elise had tried to comfort him, but, somehow, Jaden had been hurt.

“How is she?” Ben asked, slipping behind the wheel of his car.

“Who?” the nurse asked.

“Elise,” Ben said. “The mother.”

“Oh,” the nurse said. “Kind of a wreck, I think.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Ben said.

“Okay,” Ben said, pointing at the X-ray on his screen where the new injury, near the screw he’d placed to fix the first one, showed clear as day.

“We’ll go in here and repair this first,” he said to his team, pointing. “Then we’ll place new hardware here,” he said, mapping it out on the screen.

Ben dismissed his team to prepare the surgical suite, then pushed out the opposite door to the surgical prep room, his scrubs swishing with his hurried gait. Immediately, he locked eyes with the nurse attending to the only patient in the room. Nodding, he stepped around the curtain where Jaden lay in a bed, dressed in a surgical gown. Elise sat next to him, looking terrified.

A large square bandage covered the right side of Jaden’s head, and his severely swollen wrist was bent at an odd angle. When Jaden saw him, his droopy eyes lit up.

“Hey, buddy,” Ben said as his heart did a cartwheel.

His heart continued spinning when he turned to Elise, her face a mask of fear and plenty more, all of it devastating.

“Dr. Parker,” Elise said in a soft voice.

He nodded.

“I…thought we’d switched doctors,” she said.

A dagger of pain sliced right through his lungs, making it hard to breathe. “You did, but Dr. Fitzgibbons is on vacation,” he said. “Hawaii, I think,” he added, though he had no idea why. “But, honestly, she would be the first to admit this is really my area of expertise, so even if she were here, she would likely have deferred Jaden to me.”

“I see,” Elise said.

“I know this isn’t…ideal,” he said in a tight voice, though it sounded so wrong and Elise’s furious look confirmed this, “but I promise I’ll take the very best care of Jaden,” he said.

At this, Elise seemed to crumple.

He stepped closer, so wanting to take her into his arms, but knowing he could not.

A tear trickled down her cheek.

“Okay?” Ben asked, hoping that she at least trusted him to this.I may have let you down, he thought.But I won’t fail your son.

Elise nodded.

Ben looked back at Jaden, then smiled. “They’ll come for you soon, all right? We’ll get you feeling better.”

But Jaden only gazed at him as the nurse entered with the sedative.

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