Page 39 of Falling for Roxanne

HAMILTON

When Roxanne showed up at the office for her next shift, she was right on time as usual, but she looked as pale and unwell as she had when I sent her home early two days ago. We were digging in on the final stage before the Garza retrial and sat in the small conference room passing papers back and forth and looking over files.

“Are you feeling any better?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” she said.

I could tell she didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t press her for personal details about her health. Maybe it had been food poisoning or a hangover or a 24-hour bug. Whatever it had been was none of my business as the supervising attorney on her internship.

“Magda, the new paralegal will be in this afternoon for orientation. I’d appreciate it if you could bring her up to speed on the brief for the case so she can pitch in on any last-minute work we need. She’ll also take some of the burden off you.”

“I’m not burdened. This case is very important to me,” she said but didn’t look up at me.

We worked, barely speaking to each other, for hours. Around noon I said we should break for lunch and meet back in half an hour. When I walked by the open door to the conference room ten minutes later though, she was nibbling a cracker in tiny, focused bites. I paused in the hall, and I was about to go in and ask if she really felt well enough to be here, if I needed to get her some ginger ale or something. My phone rang, with the personal ringtone I used for my sister and for Colin’s school.

“Hamilton Bell,” I said into the phone.

“Mr. Bell, this is Nurse Penny at the school, and I have your little guy in my office. He fell off the slide and I don’t like the look of his arm. I think we may have a little fracture. He needs to see his doctor.”

“I’ll be right there. Can you put him on the phone?” I said, frantic.

“Daddy?” a tremulous voice said, and I could hear that he’d been crying.

“I’ll be right there, buddy. You hang in there and I’m going to come get you and we’ll take you to see your doctor. I love you,” I said.

“Okay. Can you hurry, maybe? Cause I don’t feel good.”

“I’m coming to get you, don’t worry. I’ll be right there.”

I grabbed my keys off my desk and called to Syd that I was leaving for the day. I had to get to my little boy. When I got buzzed into the school office, I found him waiting, swinging his feet in a too-big blue chair, his face red and blotchy from crying. I went right to my knees in front of him and took his uninjured hand.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I said to him, and looked right in his eyes so he knew I was telling the truth. His lip trembled and I hugged him carefully. I turned and signed him out and then held his right hand as we walked to the car.

“I called Dr. Winslow’s office and they’re going to get us right in. They’ll do an x-ray picture of your arm and then maybe they’ll wrap it up and give you a sling if they need to keep it still so it can get all better,” I said. He nodded solemnly.

“Is it gonna hurt?”

“It might. I never broke my arm, but we know the doctor and nurses there are really good at their jobs and we’re going to take good care of you.”

“Okay, but I don’t gotta stay there all night, do I?”

“I don’t think so, buddy. I think we’ll go for ice cream as soon as you’re done.”

We went to the doctor’s office, and I made a real effort to act calm and relaxed and not terrified. I wanted to scoop him up and carry him and demand that they rush us to x-ray immediately, but I didn’t want to scare my son. So, we waited and he didn’t even want to play on my phone because his arm hurt so much. It was heartbreaking and scary. I found a robot cartoon he liked and let him watch that on my phone until they took him back to radiology.

It seemed like he was back there forever even though the clock only showed fifteen minutes elapsed. We sat in an exam room and when the nurse came in, she had a box of materials with her.

“Well, it’s broken, buddy,” she said cheerfully, “good news is it’s just a hairline fracture near the elbow, nowhere near his growth plate. We’ll have you in a cast for about six weeks and I’ll give Daddy the list of things you can’t do—no swimming, no sports, no monkey bars till the cast is off.”

“No swimming?” he groaned.

“It’s the rules. We have to let your arm heal and not let it get hurt again while it’s mending,” the nurse said. “The doctor will be right in to apply the cast and give you some instructions. I just came in to bring you a grape lollipop.”

“Thank you,” I said, and unwrapped it for him.

He sucked on his lollipop happily and watched the robot show some more. I couldn’t believe he had to get a cast and miss out on some of his favorite activities for weeks because of it. No more roughhousing with the cousins or swinging from the bars at the playground. No swimming. I’d have to make sure I came up with some fun things for us to do together in the meantime.

When the doctor had applied the cast, a process that fascinated Colin a lot more than it bothered him, I took the copy of the directions for safety and care and scooped up my son to carry him out.

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