At the Seams

Chapter 26: Day 20 - 11:40 pm

Chapter 26 - Day 20 - 11:40 pm

Sam awakens to the sounds of Ginger and Jay losing it upstairs in the Rabbit Hole. Oh no, he thinks, not again. He leaps from his makeshift bed, running upstairs to see what else could possibly go wrong with Mary.

He takes the stairs two at a time. When he reaches the top, he can see Jay once again aggressing Mary’s unresponsive face, and blood smeared on Ginger’s cheek and caked in her honey-colored hair. Sam’s stomach drops. Amazingly, all he can think about is how he could possibly explain to the police more injuries on his comatose wife’s body. He kicks himself for being selfish and approaches the bed, trying to compose himself before he reaches his wife and her hysterical loved ones.

Ginger sees Sam as he comes around the bed. She stops crying and screaming to look at him. Her eyes are dismal with fear and confusion. Through her tears and bitterly twisting lips, she says, “I decided to sleep on the chaise tonight. I don’t know why, I just didn’t want to leave Mary. I couldn’t sleep, so I came to sit with her. When I took her hand, it felt wet and sticky. I turned on the light and I was covered in blood. She’s covered in blood.” Ginger sobs, her next words miserably desperate. “I can’t even tell from where all she’s bleeding.” Her words vanish into tears as she drops her head into her bloody hands and sobs.

Jay still yammers madly on the bed, his paws and weight now settled on Mary’s chest. “Jay, off!” Sam hollers, and Jay does settle back, abandoning the barking for throaty whining. “Ginger, please go use the restroom,” Sam says, unable to bear the sight of the tortured woman bathing in her daughter’s blood. “Get the blood off your hands. I’m going to check Mary for wounds.” Ginger nods and heads for the stairs, grateful for the excuse to leave.

Sam removes Mary’s sheet, working patiently around the Dobie. Sam wants to see Mary’s whole body, so he gently disrobes her. Just as he lowers her back to the mattress, Simon appears, bleary-eyed, over Sam’s shoulder. “What’s going on, now?” Simon asks. His voice is testy, but Sam can hardly blame him. Though Simon wasn’t present for the hip-and-arm episode, he witnessed the first absurd event, with the water and the bite on Mary’s cheek. Simon knows about all the strange occurrences, and yet nearly faints when he sees Mary’s blood. “Christ, Sam, what happened to her?”

“Well, her nose is bloody, though it’s stopped gushing.”

“She could have drowned,” Simon says in a strangled voice.

Sam only glowers and nods as he continues to scan Mary’s body, lifting her arms and legs, sitting her up to check her back and neck. “Otherwise,” he says as calmly as he can manage, “she just has a nasty cut on her hand.”

“Wait, didn’t she have a wounded hand on the first day of her illness? That was one of the things the ER doc got all riled up about, right?”

Sam stops fussing with Mary to recall. The first day of Mary’s illness seems like a decade ago, rather than only three weeks; Sam hasn’t thought about it in days. “I think she did have a scrape on her hand, then, too. Why?”

“Well, this is a pattern going back to the beginning of the illness—it’s likely medically significant.”

Sam rolls his eyes (and only because Simon can’t see him). Leave it to the doctor to try to explain the unexplainable. “I can see your point,” Sam says. He’s getting better at the diplomacy thing. “I don’t understand the medical relevance, though. Do you really want to try to explain spontaneous wounding? I don’t think even you could dream that up.”

Simon pauses. “I have no idea what the hell is going on anymore,” he says. His voice sounds entirely defeated. Sam pities the man.

“No other wounds,” Sam says, collecting Mary’s nightgown from the floor. Simon gasps and Jay’s whining quickens. Sam stands in a panic and hits his head on the steel guardrail. He fights through the stars obscuring his vision to peer at Mary. “What?” he asks, his voice fast and tight. “What happened now?”