“Hang on there, Nat. The roads are really bad. I wish I could drive faster. We’ll be there soon.”
—wipe wipe snow wipe wipe snow the cleaver echoed in the kitchen my bone was white I saw my own bone—
“We’re here. Natalie? Natalie. We’re here.”
My apartment building. Ellen parked directly behind my car. She shut off the engine and left me in the seat. She went around to my side and Harley was there with us in the snow and they both held on to me. The snow was falling lighter, and there were no gusts, not like by the water. Harley and Ellen were dragging me toward the house like a drunk bride at her bachelorette party who should have known better but it was all okay and tomorrow morning I would be hungover but no worse and then we were stepping up onto the landing where the porch light was shining, waiting for me, and then we were going through the front doorway and into my apartment and I felt the heat and we were home.
4
In my apartment, Harley lifted the coat from my shoulders and I fell to my knees on the carpet. Seeing the blood-soaked dish towel wrapped around my hand, she said, “Oh, Natalie, what happened to you?”
On the carpet beside the coffee table was an unzipped red canvas satchel. Covering the table were sealed packs of bandages and ointments and pills and tape.
“Her fourth and fifth fingers were severed,” Ellen said.
“My god—where are they?” Harley asked. “Are they on ice?”
“They’re gone,” Ellen said.
Only then did I decode the meaning of the grinding sound in Victor’s kitchen. Garbage disposal.
“She needs a hospital,” Harley said.
“No,” I managed.
“We have to call 911.”
“No!” I struggled for more words. I needed an interpreter. “Ellen …”
“We got involved in something,” she said. “Bad people did this. If we go to the hospital and the hospital calls the police … you have to patch her up.”
“Are you crazy?” Harley said. “This isn’t a patch—it’s life-threatening!”
“Please,” I said.
Harley pulled her eyes away from the bloody dish towel and knelt down to me. “Are you allergic to latex?”
I shook my head, and she pulled on a pair of gloves. “Help me get her over to the kitchen.” She and Ellen dragged me there, and then Harley guided me down so I was sitting on the floor. The room got swimmy. The kitchen sink turned on. “Keep her from moving,” Harley said. She unwrapped the dish towel. I turned my head away. “Now find a clean towel—dish towel, any kind of towel.”
I heard the kitchen sprayer being pulled from its home. When the spray of water hit my hand, I screamed so loudly that Harley’s dog started barking, and from my living room there came an intense flapping of wings against metal cage bars.
“Try to stay still,” Harley said. “I know it hurts.”
That word, “hurt,” was a piece of cotton. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the fire bolt ripping up and down my arm.
“I found some towels,” Ellen said.
“Put them in the other room by the table,” Harley said, and went back to spraying my hand. I bit my lip to stop myself from screaming. When the spraying finally ended, she told Ellen to shut off the water. My shirt was wet. I was shivering. “I’m going to put some ointment on now,” she said. I couldn’t watch. The direct touch made me scream again but I did my best to hold still. More barking upstairs. More wings beating against the cage.
“I’m going to wrap it tightly in gauze,” Harley said, “and we’re going to hope the bleeding slows down.”
After the initial contact, I felt my hand relax the tiniest bit as she continued to layer on the gauze, over the wound, around to the base of my hand, around my wrist, and back up, over and over. When I dared to look at my hand, blood was already darkening the gauze. She continued to add layers. “Help me get her over to the couch,” she said, and with Ellen’s help I was being lifted to my feet and guided over to the loveseat, then lowered again. My legs were lifted and placed over an armrest. Harley slid one of the back cushions to the side and underneath my head. She placed the other back cushion on my stomach and laid my arm on top. My birds, no longer frantic, started to coo—first one, then both of them. “You have to keep it elevated,” Harley said. “Above your heart. That’ll slow the bleeding and help with pain.”
She wrapped one of my bathroom hand towels around the gauze.
“Can you keep pressure on it?” she asked me.
“I think so.”
“Good girl.” She covered me with the afghan. “Ellen, come with me a minute.”
They didn’t go far enough. Even with the birds cooing, I heard every word.
She needs a hospital. She needs sutures, specialists …
Can’t you do it?
You can’t just start sewing. I think the bone needs to be cut back to make a flap of skin. And she probably needs blood, and there’s a huge risk of shock, and even if by some miracle she doesn’t go into shock, she’s gonna end up in the ER anyway when this gets infected.
She won’t go.
Do you really think she should be making her own decisions right now? God, what did you two get involved in?
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Pain slowed down time. An eternity passed before Ellen spoke again. I have to leave. But I’ll call for an ambulance from the road. Give me ten minutes. Okay?
What do you mean, you’re leaving?
But Ellen was already back beside the loveseat, crouched down. “Honey, Nat, I hope you understand, but we can’t be in the same place. I’m gonna go. You’re in good hands here.”
“You can’t leave,” Harley said. She repositioned the afghan, which had slipped down from
