Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison [134]
“That shoulder’s gonna ache for a while.” The doctor didn’t look at me when he spoke, just made notes on a clipboard. “And that wrist is badly sprung. It’ll be a couple of months healing completely.” The nurse was washing dried blood from my cheek with an alcohol swab. I watched her instead of him.
“We’re going to have to wait a while before we give you anything.” The doctor’s eyes wandered up from the clipboard and down my body, pausing at the bruises on my thighs and sliding down to the swollen knees, one of which was scraped raw. He put his palm on my hip and squeezed slightly. “You tell me now if anything else hurts you.”
It might have been a question. It might not. I looked up at him with no expression. I kept wondering where Mama had gone. What had happened to Daddy Glen? I didn’t remember the ride in from Alma’s place, didn’t remember Mama saying anything to me. Had she told them what had happened? Did anyone know? Where was Mama, and why wasn’t she with me?
The deputy leaned against the door until the nurse brought him a folding metal chair he could prop back against the wall. He was a red-faced boy with sandy hair cut so short you could see his pink scalp under the fuzz. He reminded me of the twins when they came back from the county farm, stiff-backed, crew-cut, and proud of themselves. This one was proud of himself too; kept smoothing down his uniform shirt and pulling at the material so the sweaty wrinkles under his arms wouldn’t show. His mouth was soft and his chin small, but when he looked at me, he would poke his lips out and try to make his face stern. Watched too much television, probably thought of himself as some public defender type. I tried to feel dangerous, but my eyelids were damp and swollen, my neck itchy, and my mouth too painful for me to frown. He kept fiddling with his shirt and looking over at me. After a while I began to feel more and more like a child, a girl, hurt and alone.
By the time Sheriff Cole came in, walking stiffly as if his big wide belt weighted him down and hurt his back, I felt so small I didn’t know if I could talk.
“Ruth Anne.” He greeted me by name.
He pulled a stool over beside the hip-high table I was propped up on, grunted as he shifted his butt onto the stool, then rolled his head so that his neck made a loud cracking noise. At the sound he grinned and put both hands flat on his thighs.
“You want to talk to me? Tell me what happened?”
I swallowed. Olive complexion, big nose, bigger ears, strong chin, and thin gray hair combed straight back off his face—Sheriff Cole didn’t look like anybody else I knew. People said he came from Maryland and that he would never have made sheriff if he hadn’t been such a churchgoing Baptist, a deacon, and well-off even before he married a Greenville girl. He looked more like a frycook than a sheriff, big-bellied, greasy, and soft.
I looked up into his wide, dark eyes. His voice was soft, almost lazy, his tone both polite and respectful. He made me wish I could talk, tell him what had happened, what I thought had happened. But it all seemed so complicated in my head, so long and difficult. How could I begin? Where would I begin? With Aunt Alma going crazy? With the moment Daddy Glen grabbed me and tore my shirt? I thought of that moment in the parking lot so long ago, waiting to find out about Mama and his son.
“You’re not hurt too bad,” he told me. “Doctor says you’ll be fine.”
I lifted my head, knowing fear showed in my face.
“No concussion, the doctor says.” He took the little notebook out of his pocket, opened it. “You’re a little shocky, need to be careful for a while. Some of your people are out there. I got the doctor talking to them.”
“Mama?” My voice was a hoarse croak.
“I an’t talked to your mama yet. Your aunts are here, though. We’ll let you see them soon.” He flipped pages, took out a pen, and looked at me. “Now, we need to know what happened, Ruth Anne. I know you’re not feeling too good, but I want you to try to talk