Married people -- Fiction; Suburban life -- Fiction; Women -- Fiction
She would not leave him or cease to do what she could in every humble
way. She chafed his hands and bathed his forehead;—she helped to carry
him to the clubhouse; and, when the hospital ambulance came, she went in
it to the hospital with him. She stood in the corridor outside the door
of the room to which they carried him there, and waited while a surgeon
examined him. Indeed, she waited, weeping.
She knew the surgeon, and when he came out of the room she rushed to
him. “Doctor Waite, tell me! Don’t spare me!”
“He’s got a concussion. It’s no joke, but anyhow it isn’t a fracture.
Funny about nobody knowing who he is;—I’m sure I’ve met him, or else he
reminds me of somebody, I can’t think who.”
“Doctor, he isn’t—he isn’t going to——”
The surgeon looked upon her reassuringly. “No. We’ll pull him through.
You quit thinking about him and go home and get your dinner and then go
to bed and go to sleep.”
“I couldn’t,” Lily said, choking. “I couldn’t do any of those things.”
He laughed sympathetically. “Then I guess I’ll have to call up your
mother and tell her to come and make you.”
But when not only her mother but her father, too, arrived in hurried
response to the telephone, they could not get the tearful Lily to leave
the hospital; and they remained with her, engaging in intermittent
argument, until midnight. At that time Doctor Waite informed them that
the unknown patient was in a torpid but not critical condition; he had
mumbled a few words to the effect that he wanted to be let alone.
“And as that’s just what we’re doing with him,” the surgeon said to Lily
rather sharply, “and as you can’t do any possible good to anybody in the
world by staying here, I suggest that you take his advice, too, and obey
your father and mother.”
Not until then would the suffering girl allow them to lead her away; but
so far as sleep was concerned, she might as well have stayed at the
hospital. So might her father and mother, almost; for she was at their
door in her nightdress three times—three separated times, the last
being at four o’clock in the morning. “Papa, do _you_ think he’ll die?”
Mrs. Dodge wearily conducted her to bed again; but Lily only wept upon
her pillow, and in whispers begged it to forgive her for not calling
“Fore.” Sunrise found her dressed; and in the chilly November early
morning she slipped out of the house, crossed the suburban park to the
hospital, and immediately heard news indeed. Doctor Waite was already
there, and with him were three other surgeons and a physician, all of
them important. He came to speak to Lily.
“All this distinguishedness for your unknown patient,” he said, with a
gesture toward the group he had just left; and, as her expression began
to be grievous, he added hastily, “He’s perfectly all right. At least
he’s going to be. The importance yonder is only because he turns out to
be so unexpectedly important himself.”
“You’ve found out who he is?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account