Deep Woods

Bethany had stopped dressing my wounds. She looked up at me, her eyes huge.

The memories were jagged, now, razor-sharp. They sliced at me as I dug up each one, and even shaping them into words was painful.

“My dad says to me, stay here. And then he’s gone, running into the alley. Because that’s just who he is. And I strain my ears but there’s traffic going past. I can hear him talking to someone in that voice he does, the one he learned in the Marines, the don’t fucking mess with me voice, but I can’t hear the words. And then…” I stared at my boots. “Then I hear him just...stop. The words are cut off and he just gives this little grunt. And then I’m running into the alley and—”

“It’s dark in the alley and my eyes haven’t adjusted, yet, after all the bright city lights. I stumble in, feeling my way along the wall...I hear footsteps, someone running away. And then I see my dad, sitting with his back against the wall, and his white shirt has this big black stain on it. Then a car drives by on the street and its headlights light us up, and I see the black is really red.”

I glanced at Bethany for a second. She was staring up at me, her mouth open in horror, her eyes shining. I looked back at my boots. It was the only way I could keep talking.

“He’s trying to speak, but he can’t. He’s taught me first aid, I know I need to keep pressure on the wounds but he’s been stabbed three, four times and he’s bleeding so fast and I’m calling for help, again and again, and I’m—I’m crying. But it’s a long time before someone comes and when they do, when a passer-by finally hears and flags down a cop...he’s dead.”

“Cal…” Hands brushed my face, cool and smooth against my beard and cheeks. She gently lifted my chin so that I was looking at her. “Oh God….”

I took a deep breath and looked right into her eyes. “The cops take me to the police station. I hear that they’ve caught the guy, and they found the woman he was mugging, when my dad ran in to help: she’s going to be okay. And I’m sitting there thinking, I’m going to have to go home on my own. I’m going to have to go all the way back to Idaho on my own. How will I get there? But it’s worse than that. One of the cops manages to track down my mom’s sister and she races there. She has to tell me who she is because it’s the first time I’ve seen her since I was a baby. And she tells me I’m going to come stay with her.”

Bethany just knelt there staring at me. She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. I nodded. There was nothing to say.

What surprised me was...sure, it hurt, just as I’d known it would. Telling her had brought everything back. And the pain was vicious and bright but...clean. Like a wound that could now heal. And the best treatment for it was looking into those big brown eyes, letting that soothing presence wash over me. I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. I sure wasn’t healed, but it felt better.

For a few minutes, I just watched her work. She was quick and neat with the stitches and she had a gentle touch: I barely felt a thing. “So what happened in med school?” I asked at last. I was trying to be gentle, like her, but I wasn’t used to this stuff: I felt like an elephant trying to turn around in a room full of Ming vases.

She drew in a long breath and let it out. “It went well, for the first few years. I loved the work, I loved helping people. And then...I was on my ER rotation and one night, this woman comes in with her little girl. The kid’s got asthma, and croup on top. You ever see a kid with asthma? It’s terrifying for them. They can’t breathe and they don’t understand why. Her chest’s heaving and she’s not getting any air and she’s so scared. And the mom’s in pieces, she’s begging me to help them. But just as I’m about to get them some Albuterol, it comes out that they don’t have any insurance. And my boss says rules are rules, I have to send them to a different hospital. But that’s right across town, it’ll take hours, they’ll have to wait in chairs all over again and the kid needs the medication now. So…”—she took a deep breath—“I snuck into the drug locker, when no one was looking, and got the kid an inhaler.” She sighed. “I didn’t know they had cameras in there. They kicked me out.”