“My arm.” She paused, and in that pause I heard pain, yes, but not confusion. Not shock. Information. “He broke my arm. But he told the doctor I fell down the stairs. And Mom—”
Her voice thinned, not from tears this time but from the effort of saying something she had likely been holding back for much longer than one night.
“Mom stayed by his side.”
I was at the closet by then, pulling on dark slacks and the first clean blouse my hand found.
“Which hospital?”
“St. Augustine. Emergency.”
“I’m leaving now. Do not say anything else to anyone until I get there. Not the doctor, not your mother, not him. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Are you alone right now?”
“I’m in a room. He’s in the waiting area. Mom’s with him.”
“Good. Stay where you are. I’m on my way.”
She exhaled once, shakily, and I heard the smallest break in the composure she had been forcing onto her own voice.
“Okay.”
Then she hung up, and I stood in the dark for one second with the phone in my hand and the old part of me—the part built in operating rooms and reanimated at odd hours—settled cleanly into place.