get angry or sulk.
At last Renie’s head appeared from under the bedclothes. She propped herself up and regarded Judith
with a pale, drawn face. “Please don’t insist.”
Judith felt something sink in the bottom of her stomach, and it wasn’t the pork cutlet. “Out with it. I can’t
sit here and look at you look at me like that. You know
it’s impossible.”
Shuddering, Renie faced Judith head-on. “You know
Bill—how he has to build up to bad news in his careful, deliberate fashion. Finally, he told me Joe’s been
stabbed. He’s been taken to the hospital, and his
chances are fifty-fifty.”
Judith passed out cold.
FOURTEEN
HEATHER CHINN CAME running. It wasn’t Renie’s insistent buzzer or even her horrified shrieks, but the
sudden change in status on Judith’s monitor at the
nurses’ station.
“What happened?” Heather asked in alarm, seeing Judith’s unconscious figure and ashen face.
“She got some bad news,” Renie replied. “She
fainted.”
Heather began chafing Judith’s wrists and speaking to her in low, encouraging tones. Sister Jacqueline entered the room, followed by Dr. Garnett and
another nurse, who wheeled in some sort of equipment. Renie clung to the edge of her bed, eyes
wide, breathless.
“I didn’t want to . . .” she moaned, but was ignored.
Judith’s eyelids flickered open. “Ohhh . . .” She
tried to recognize the pretty face with the almondshaped eyes. It was someone she knew. Wearing
white, with a cap. A nurse. She must have fainted
during her labor. “The baby,” she gasped. “Is he
okay?”
Apparently, doctor, nurse, and nun weren’t unfamiliar with Judith’s type of reaction.
SUTURE SELF
223
“Everything is fine, Mrs. Flynn,” Dr. Garnett said in
a soft but authoritative voice. “You’ve had hip surgery,
remember?”
“Hip?” Judith was mystified. “What do you mean
‘hip surgery’?”
Dr. Garnett signaled for the nurse to back off with
the resuscitation equipment. “You had a hip replacement. What year is it, Mrs. Flynn?”
Judith looked down at the big dressing on her hip.
“Then I didn’t go into labor?”
“No,” Dr. Garnett replied. “Dr. Alfonso replaced
your right hip.”
At last, Judith grasped the present and tried to sit
bolt upright. But she fell back at once. “Joe!” she cried
in a thin, reedy tone. “What happened to Joe?”
Dr. Garnett, who was wearing surgical scrubs, took
in the puzzled looks of his colleagues.
“It’s her husband,” Renie said, some of the color returning to her ashen face. “He’s had a very bad accident. Mrs. Flynn just found out about it. That’s what
made her faint.”
