“Simple?” I sputtered. “Simple?You think a wedding is simple? A shuttle launch issimple.Quantum physics issimple.Planning a wedding is like planning a war—”
“An apt comparison,” he muttered under his breath, but I heard him anyway.
I jerked my hand out of his. Sometimes I wanted to just smack him.
Dwight, pushing the gurney, laughed. Dwayne was much nicer than Dwight. I said, “I don’t want you pushing my gurney. I want Dwayne. Where’s Dwayne?”
“He’s taking care of the paperwork, bringing in your things, stuff like that,” Dwight said easily, and he didn’t stop pushing my gurney.
The night was justnotgoing my way, but I perked up as much as possible at the news that Dwayne was bringing in my things. It’s a measure of how much my head hurt that I hadn’t given a single thought to my purchases, especially my new shoes, until now. “He has my shoes?”
“You’re wearing your shoes,” Wyatt said, flashing a quick, questioning look at Dwight over my head, silently asking if I could have a brain injury.
“I’m not going loopy, I mean my new shoes. The ones I bought tonight.” As I explained, Dwight rolled me into a cubicle. Dwayne followed within thirty seconds, his hands full of clipboard, papers, my purse, and several plastic bags. I spied the bag from the store where I’d bought my shoes, and sighed in relief. They hadn’t gone missing. Then an efficient team of nurses took over; Wyatt was evicted, Dwayne and Dwight gave their report on my condition, which was pretty much as I’d already figured out. Then they, too, were gone, the curtain was pulled, and my clothes were swiftly cut off me. I really hate the way emergency room personnel treat clothing, even though I understand the need for it. Even someone who is conscious might not be able to accurately gauge her own medical condition, and speed and efficiency are the name of the game.
Regardless of that, I really, really hate when my bra is cut with one callous snip of those big scissor blades. I love my underwear sets. This particular bra was a gorgeous mocha color, with little flowers in the satin fabric, and tiny pearls sewn in the middle. Now it was ruined. I sighed when I saw it, because it was ruined anyway, from blood.
Come to think of it, pretty much every stitch I had on was ruined, either from rips or blood, or both. Scalp wounds really bleed a lot. I sighed as I looked myself over, then surveyed the clothing that had been tossed aside, which I could do without moving my head much because the head of the gurney was raised and I was propped up. No, nothing was salvageable, except maybe my shoes. My black cargo pants were torn in several places, big, jagged tears that couldn’t be repaired, never mind that the legs had been neatly cut lengthwise to allow the nurses to swiftly remove them. My bare legs were both dirty and bloody, confirming that my irrational fear of germs in the parking lot hadn’t been all that irrational. Actually, most of me was dirty and bloody. I wasn’t a pretty sight at all, which was depressing, because Wyatt had seen me like this.
“I’m a mess,” I said mournfully.
“It isn’t too bad,” one of the nurses said. “It looks worse than it is. Though I suppose it feels bad enough to you, doesn’t it?” Her voice was brisk, but comforting. Or rather, she meant it to be comforting, but what she said made me feel worse becauselookswere exactly what I was worrying about. Yes, I’m vain, but I’m also under a deadline for a wedding and I didn’t want to look like a war refugee in my wedding pictures. My kids would be looking at them, you know; I didn’t want them wondering what their father had ever seen in me.
I’m also not of a “victim” mentality, and I’m tired of being shot, battered, and bruised. I didn’t want Wyatt to think he had to take care of me. I want to take care of myself, thank you very much—unless I’m in the mood for pampering, in which case I want to be in good shape so I can enjoy it.
I had just been sort of halfway stuffed into a hospital gown when a tired ER doc shuffled in. He checked me over, listened to the nurses, checked my pupils to see how they were responding, and sent me off for a head CT and what seemed like all-over X-rays. A few boring and painful hours later, I was admitted to the hospital for an overnight stay because the docs also agreed with my diagnosis of a concussion. All of my scrapes were cleaned and some of them bandaged, most of the blood was swabbed away—except out of my hair, which annoyed me because it felt so icky. Worst of all was that they shaved a patch at my hairline and put in a few stitches to close the gash in my scalp. I would have to get creative with my hairstyles for the next few months. At last I was deposited in a nice cool, clean bed and the lights were turned low, which was a relief. Have I mentioned how much my head was hurting?
What wasn’t a relief was the way Wyatt and my entire family were ringed around the bed, silently staring at me.
“This isn’t my fault,” I said defensively. It was weird, having them all sort of aligned against me, as if I’d done this on purpose or something. Even Siana had a solemn expression, and I can usually count on her to be in my court no matter what. I did understand, though, because if Wyatt had gotten hurt as often in the past few months as I had, I would be demanding he change jobs and we move to Outer Mongolia to get him out of the danger zone.
Mom stirred. She had been as tight-lipped as Wyatt, but now she went into mom-mode and went to the miniature sink, where she wet a washcloth. Coming back to my bedside, she began gently washing away the dried blood that the nurses had skipped. I haven’t had my ears washed by my mother since I was little, but some things never change. I was just glad she used water instead of spit. You know all the jokes about mom-spit removing everything from grease to ink? It’s true. Mom-spit should be patented and sold as an all-purpose spot remover. Come to think of it, maybe it has been. I’ve never read the ingredients of a spot-remover. Maybe it just saysmom-spit.
Finally Wyatt said, “We’re getting the security tapes for the parking lot, so we may be able to get a tag number for the car.”
I’d been hanging around him long enough now to understand some of the finer points of the law. “But she didn’t hit me. When she floored the gas pedal, I dived out of the way. So it isn’t a hit-and-run. It’s a terrify-and-run.”
“She?” He picked up on that immediately, of course. “You saw her? Did you know her?”
“I could tell it was a woman, but as to whether or not I know her…” I would have shrugged, but I was trying to keep movement to a minimum. “The headlights were shining in my eyes. The driver was a woman, and the car was a late-model Buick, that’s all I know for certain. Parking lot lights do weird things to colors, but I think the car was that sort of metallic light brown.”
“You’re sure it was a Buick?”
“Please,” I said with as much disdain as I could muster. I know cars. It’s one of the weird genes Dad passed on to me, because all Mom can tell is the color and if it’s a big car, little car, or pickup truck. Make and model mean nothing to her.
“If she says it was a Buick, it’s a Buick,” said Dad, taking up for me, and Wyatt nodded. At any other time I would have been annoyed that he would automatically take Dad’s word for it after questioning mine, but right then I was, not down and out, because I obviously wasn’t out, but I was definitely down, both physically and mentally. I felt drained, not just from the pain, but it was as if this was just one incident too many. I mean, how many times can people try to kill you before it gets a little depressing? It isn’t as if I go around pissing people off and getting in their faces. I don’t even flip off stupid drivers because you never know if they’ve taken their antipsychotics or if they’re driving around with a loaded pistol and an unloaded brain. I was tired of it, I was hurting, and I really wanted to cry.
I couldn’t cry, not in front of everyone. I’m not a crier, at least not that kind of a crier. I’ll cry over a sad movie or when “The Star-Spangled Banner” is played at football games, but when it comes to the personal hardship stuff I generally just suck it up and go on. I had been hurt worse in my life, and I hadn’t cried. If I cried now, it would be because I felt sorry for myself, which I did, but I didn’t want to show it. It was bad enough that I looked like roadkill; I refused to add sniveling to my current list of unattractive qualities.
If I ever got my hands on the bitch who had caused this, I’d strangle her.
“We can talk about this later,” Mom said. “She needs to rest, not rehash everything. Y’all go home, I’ll stay with her tonight. That’s an order.”
Wyatt doesn’t take orders well, even from my mom, and she generally scares the hell out of him. “I’m staying, too,” he said with that no-nonsense cop tone of his.
Even with my eyes half-closed I could see them squaring off. At any other time I would have watched the battle with interest, but all I wanted now was some peace and quiet. “I don’t need anyone to stay with me. You all have work tomorrow, so all of you go home. I’m okay, honest.” Note: When someone says “honest” they’re usually lying, just like I was.
“We’ll both stay,” Wyatt said, ignoring my brave offer and reassurance. I glanced down to see if I had a visible body, since everyone was acting as if I wasn’t there. First I lay in the grungy parking lot for what felt like an hour without anyone noticing me, and now I was certain that, though I was speaking, no one was hearing me.