His assisting student popped her head in. “Yes, sir?”
“Let’s get some new images of Evelyn’s shoulder,” he ordered. He patted Evelyn’s bed. “I’ll see you in a bit to talk about the results.”
Doctor Evans left, and Mary prepared Evelyn’s bed to roll her to the imaging center. Evelyn grasped my hand.
“This happened last night when you punched that guy, didn’t it?” I said, holding tightly to her arm. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was kind of hoping it hadn’t actually popped out,” she replied in a strained voice. She was still in a lot of pain. “Clearly, I was wrong.”
Mary wheeled the bed a few inches toward the door. I walked alongside the bed, Evelyn’s hand in mine.
“Sorry, miss,” said Mary. “You’ll have to wait here.”
So I watched her take my best friend away from me, feeling useless and completely at fault.
An hour later, Evelyn was returned to her room. When Doctor Evans came in to review the new scans with us, he wore a grim look.
“The news isn’t good, I’m afraid,” he said, popping the scans into the backlit frame. The image of Evelyn’s ruined shoulder appeared. Evans pointed to a piece of tissue. “See here and here? You’ve torn the ligaments. It’s completely undone what we did in the last surgery. I would have to say it’s even made things worse. How’s the feeling in your fingers?”
Evelyn struggled to move them. “Still nothing.”
Evans pressed his lips together. “That’s what I was afraid of. Nerve damage. I’d like to get you in the operating room as soon as possible. If we don’t fix it now, you might never regain full use of the arm.”
In this instant, Evelyn wore each of her expressions plainly. Her pain was evident in the wobbling of her chin, her fear presented itself in the whites of her eyes, and her anger—this should never have happened—was etched into the lines of her forehead. My bottom lip trembled, but I stopped myself from crying. She needed me to be strong.
“Jack,” she whispered, her voice cracking.
I pressed my forehead against hers. “You can do this. You’ve done it before. I’ll be here for you afterward. Everything’s going to be okay.”
My words were enough to convince her. She wiped her eyes and lifted her chin. Just like that, all her uncertainty disappeared, or at least she hid it under a veil of stoicism.
“Let’s do it,” she told Evans.
I had never waited for someone in surgery before, but I had discovered it was the worst possible kind of waiting one could ever experience. It was worse than when you were desperate to pee on a long road trip with no rest stops in sight. Worse than waiting for a splinter embedded in your skin to break through the surface so you could finally pluck it out.
Every so often, a nurse peeked into Evelyn’s room to give me an update, but it was never enough to soothe my nerves. “They’re still working,” was the usual news. “Everything’s all right so far.”
So far. I could argue those were the two worst words in the English language, though at this moment it seemed like everything was worse than it usually was. The soda from the vending machines was flat, the coffee too bitter, and the smell of disinfectants so intense that my burning nostrils begged for relief.
After two hours of torture, I decided I could no longer sit in Evelyn’s room and wait for her to come out of surgery. I had to do something. I had to find a purpose or reason for me to be in this hospital. I set aside Evelyn’s coat, which I’d been holding ever since they’d wheeled her off to the operation room, and left the room.
The hospital hallways didn’t provide much relief. The disinfectant smell followed me, and the nurses gave me funny looks as I wandered aimlessly from one ward to the next. When my mother died, I hadn’t gone to the hospital. There wasn’t much point. My dad was the one who had to identify her body. I didn’t envy him. Mortuaries were cold and smelled like death, as if visitors needed more of a reminder of why they were there.
I stopped in my tracks, and a nurse ran over my heels with a tray of surgical tools. The mortuary. What were the chances Rosie Brigham’s body was here? The parking garage on Hanbury Street wasn’t far from the hospital. This was where they would have brought her to confirm her state.
I checked the closest directory. I’d wandered floors away from Evelyn’s room. As it turned out, the mortuary was down a flight of stairs and to the left. Not out of my way at all.
The corridor outside the mortuary was empty. One of the lights flickered on and off, buzzing like a dying fly. I crept along the wall, my shoes squelching against the linoleum floor. The morgue door was mere feet away. I peeked through the window—no one inside—then pushed open the door.
A body, covered in a sheet, lay on a metal table. Bile burned the back of my throat as I grasped the edge of the sheet and braced myself. I pulled the sheet away from the body’s face.
It wasn’t Rosie Brigham. It was a teenaged boy who was far too young to be lying on that table. Curious, I lifted the blanket and saw the stab wounds in his torso. Knife fight. Not uncommon on the streets of London, especially if you fell in with the wrong crowd.
Lockers for body storage lined the far wall. I examined the names taped to the front, searching for Rosie Brigham. Her name wasn’t there, but one locker wasn’t labeled. I grasped the handle, held my breath, and pulled the locker open.
It was empty. Half-relieved and half-annoyed, I slid the locker back into place. Had Rosie already been buried? Surely, the police would have wanted to study her body more.
I turned toward the computer. The
