“Sam. Samuel.”
When the nurse looked down at me, I saw the familiar squint before she quickly looked away. “How old are you, Samuel?”
“Six,” I said, my lip numb and the word difficult to pronounce.
“Where do you go to school?”
“OLM,” I slurred.
“Where does it hurt, Sam? Can you tell me where it hurts?”
Where didn’t it hurt would have been an easier question to answer, but I dutifully pointed out each area as the nurse enunciated them. “Your eye. And your lip. Your stomach. Your elbow. And your knee. Both knees? How did you get hurt, Sam?”
I did not answer.
“Sam?” the nurse asked, voice gentle. “How did you get hurt?”
My mother stared, face scrunched in worry. I wish I could say that my response was a heroic act to spare her more pain, but that would be a lie. My answer came from my cowardice, born from a desire for self-preservation that in turn was the product of another cold, harsh realization that came to me at the hands of David Bateman. My mother and father could not always be there to protect me. No matter the depth of my mother’s love or how fierce her embrace, she could not protect me from the evil in the world, nor, it seemed, could all her novenas. Even then I began to question my faith and my mother’s belief in God’s will. What kind of God would allow this to happen to a child?
“I fell off my bike,” I said.
12
The nurse cut away what remained of my shirt and shorts and washed and disinfected the cuts and scrapes, which stung, but not nearly to the degree of the blows administered by Bateman’s fists. When the doctor, a man with silver-framed glasses and matching hair, arrived, he placed his chilled stethoscope against my skin.
“Take a deep breath,” he repeated as he moved the metal sphere across my chest and over my back. Then he manipulated my arms and legs and asked me to wiggle my fingers and toes. He prodded around my abdomen, which remained sore, and pressed against my rib cage.
“Does that hurt?” he asked. “Is it a sharp pain?”
“Just kind of sore,” I said.
He pressed a Popsicle stick against my tongue, flashed a light in my eyes, and asked me to follow his finger as he moved it about. “Well,” he said, “I don’t think anything’s broken. We’ll get a couple of X-rays, but I think it’s mostly scrapes and bruises. Does your head hurt? Do you have a headache?”
“Sort of,” I said.
He turned to my mother. “I don’t think he has a concussion, but if he has any nausea, vomiting, bring him back in. Wake him during the night and ask him a few questions.” Then he looked back at me. “You’re a tough kid, Sam. That must have been a nasty spill.”
I nodded.
“Did you run into anything?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think I swerved.”
“You swerved?”
“I think there was a branch and I swerved. I lost my balance.”
“But you didn’t hit anything?”
At this point I suspected the doctor had doubts about my bike accident. My mother had once told me a priest was sworn to keep confidences, even if you told them you’d done something really bad, but I didn’t know if the rule applied to doctors.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Okay, do you think you could handle a sucker?” He pulled a red one from his pocket.
“I think I could,” I said. My mother didn’t even make me save it until after dinner.