Love Lift Me by Synthia St. Claire Read Free Book Online

room.”
    “What
man called you?” I asked.
    “Oh,
some feller from the hospital here in Jonesboro. Said ya’ll done had an
accident. I hadn’t even left the hospital with your momma in Wilmington yet
when he called. We drove out here quick as we could.”
    The
corners of my mouth turned down a little further. I looked out the sliding
glass doors and watched one of the ladies at the nursing station as she busied
herself with something. In a messy pile of blankets on the floor to my right
was my bra, which had somehow survived the accident, along with the purse which
I’d carried along for the trip. On a nearby table, still in one piece with some
new cracks in the screen, was my phone. Someone had thoughtfully plugged it in
and the green light on top was flashing. That thing was as stubborn as me in
refusing to die.
    I’d
check it later. The rest of my stuff was probably strewn out across an entire
two-mile stretch of Interstate Forty. I didn’t even want to think about my
favorite shirt or the shredded, bloody jeans I’d been wearing; they had probably
been cut off a few seconds after the ambulance crew wheeled me into the ER.
    “How
long have I been here?” I asked numbly.
    My
father pulled his chair closer and settled into the stiff cushions. Before he
answered, he blew out a sigh and visibly relaxed. “Two, no , three days. You
lost a lot of blood. They gave you an uh, a transfusion. Doc said you hit your
head real hard too, but it won’t that bad. Concussion, he reckons. Nothing
worse there. Stitched you right up. Mostly lots of little cuts and bruises. The
big thing was your leg.”
    I
strained to pull myself forward and up in the bed. “My leg?”
    “Be
careful, honey. The nurse was workin’ on you a minute ago.”
    Simply
moving had never been so difficult. I strained forward until I was sitting up,
mostly straight. “I just want to see.”
    “They
had to take you to the operating room, Lil’ Bit. Doctor said you nicked an
artery or somethin’ in the wreck.”
    I
peeled back the white sheet and gasped. My leg was still thankfully in one
piece, but a crude, curving line of stapled incisions extended for several
inches along the inside of my thigh to just past my knee.
    “Hold
on,” said another voice, this one the nurse I’d seen earlier. She stepped into
the room and began going through one of the large red, plastic boxes in the corner.
“Don’t touch it, please. We still need to finish changing your dressing.” To my
relief, it didn’t hurt when she gently applied the bandage and taped it down.
“There we go. Glad to see you’re fully awake. You’ve been out of it since you
came from surgery yesterday.”
    I
felt embarrassed, wondering how many people had seen me naked or if I’d said
anything in my sensitive state. The stuff some people said under anesthesia
would normally qualify them for a trip to the loony bin.
    “Well,
that’s everything for now. How’s your pain? Do you need something for it?” the
nurse questioned.
    “It’s
not too bad. Mostly just sore.”
    “The
morphine should be wearing off over the next hour or so, but you can
self-administer it if the pain gets too bad. Just press the green button
hanging on the side rail. Do you need anything else?” she asked sweetly from
the doorway.
    Just
like a nurse ,
I thought, remembering my time running clinicals with some of the more senior
charges. Ready to move on to the next patient. Duty calls . I just looked
at her and shook my head slightly.
    “Alright.
I’m right over here if you need me,” she said, and off she went, around the
corner to the next room without another word.
    “Who’s
watching momma?” I asked, my senses coming back to me. I knew that she was
probably feeling delicate, but would never admit so. Mother never was the type
to complain about anything that bothered her.
    “I
asked Miss Pauline to keep an eye on ‘er. The church was sendin’ her over with
a whole tray of chicken and soup and who