Page 3 of Beauty and the Baker
The doctor thought about it for a moment. “Appeared younger than you.”
James. He was only fourteen.
Charlie allowed another tear to fall.
“Did they find anyone else?”
“No,” the doctor said solemnly. “Was there someone else there?”
Charlie didn’t want to give anything away. “No,” he said quietly.
“You were pretty badly burned. Did someone do this to you?”
What was he supposed to say?That he stood up for something he believed was right and it resulted in him being tortured and the death of a young boy, if not his best friend.
He knew exactly who did this to him. Even if he didn’t see their faces, he knew.There was no doubt.
He looked the doctor straight in the eye. “No,” he lied. “It was an accident.”
The doctor didn’t look convinced. He sat there for a minute, with his ankle resting on his knee. Finally, Dr. Wagner clapped his hands against his legs and stood. “Well, if you decide you want to discuss it, let one of the nurses know. I can stop by or I can bring the Chaplain over.”
Charlie knew he would never speak of what happened again, so instead, he simply nodded.
“Let’s take a quick look at how you are healing.” Charlie caught the movement of the doctor pulling a curtain around the bed to afford them a measure of privacy. The cool air blistered his back as the doctor pulled the sheet away. Charlie gave a quick intake of breath. He felt a bandage pulling away from the skin on his back. “You are actually looking much better. I think the larvae have done their job extremely well.”
“Larvae?” Charlie asked.
“Yes. We used larvae. You’d call them maggots. They eat the dead skin and leave the healthy skin intact so it can heal.” The doctor put his head out of the curtain. “Nurse,” he called. “I need a dressing kit and a tub of burn salve. Be quick about it.”
Charlie heard a muffled response. “How bad is it?”
The doctor leaned back in. “It is mostly your back and legs. It is almost as if the fire was behind you and never came around front.”
“I dunno,” Charlie replied. He tried shifting again. The doctor disappeared behind the curtain again, before reappearing and placing several items alongside Charlie on the thin mattress.
He heard someone else approach behind him. He tried to turn his head in that direction, but the doctor placed his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Be still. It is just Nurse Watts. She is going to assist me with changing your bandages.”
The nurse spoke in a deep voice. It didn’t have the chirp-like quality of the other nurse. Charlie closed his eyes and strained to hear the bird-like voice of the nurse he saw before. He thought he could hear her singing at one of the other beds.
Charlie concentrated on her sweet song as he tried to ignore the doctor and nurse conversing over his back. It didn’t hurt as badly as he thought. The doctor said that was because he still had the morphine in his system.
Charlie didn’t know when they were finished as he had drifted off to sleep with the sounds of an angel in a white uniform singing to him in his dreams.
It had been three weeks since he woke up in the hospital. Dr. Wagner finally said that he was healed enough to go home.Wherever home would be now.
He woke up in Baltimore, Maryland. He didn’t recall how he arrived there, but he did recall a warehouse down by the water and what followed afterwards.
He knew the physical pain would eventually subside, but how could he ever get rid of those images in his mind?
Charlie was relieved to be leaving, but sad that he didn’t get a chance to see the nurse with the lovely voice before he left. In fact, she hadn’t been there since the day after he woke up.
Instead, he saw Nurse Watts every day. And not that she was unkind, she just didn’t have that angelic quality of the singing nurse.
When Dr. Wagner finally released him, he was provided a new set of clothes since the ones he had on were burnt.From the church, Dr. Wagner said. Charlie didn’t care where they came from. He was just thankful they were clean.
His few possessions were stuffed in a cloth bag and handed to him. He was surprised that they weren’t stolen, but Dr. Wagner said that he ran a very honest establishment and wouldn’t tolerate thieving a patient’s belongings.
In the bag was a flower pin that he wore on his lapel and some loose change. The pin was the ugliest thing he had ever seen. It didn’t even resemble a flower, but a mishmash of metal that had been welded together.
