“It’s god-awful,” he gasped.
“You might’ve broken a rib or two.”
“Wrap it good and tight.”
Rae Lynn went into the kitchen for her supply of rags. She took an old bedsheet back to the room and got her scissors from her sewing basket. She began cutting it into long strips, fast as she could. Every time she looked at Warren, his face was contorted with pain.
In between panting, he said, “It hurts. Something fierce.”
She could see the area had already discolored, and Warren had turned pale. She started to speak, but he cut her off, as if reading her mind.
“It’ll heal,” he insisted.
She exhaled sharply. “You ought to let me fetch the doctor.”
Warren was obstinate. “No, just wrap me up like I said, and let me rest.”
Concerned, Rae Lynn did as he wanted, him still panting as she wound the long strips round and round his torso, making them tight as she could. When she was done, she helped prop him against the pillows, and he made a show of acting like he felt better.
He grabbed her hand, kissed the back of it, and said, “Thank you, shug.”
The deep lines in his brow, his face glistening with sweat told her it was as bad as it had been before she’d done the wrapping. She brushed his hair back, and he squeezed her hand.
He tried to sound reassuring when he said, “I’ll be fine.”
She couldn’t think of what else to do, so she went into the kitchen and sat at the table, where the food waited to be eaten, but she’d long since lost her appetite. The sun was back out, the early-summer downpour having already moved off to the east. The irony. If he’d only waited like she said. If only she’d held the ladder for him. She heard the bed squeak, and rose from the chair to check on him. He hung halfway off the side of the bed like he couldn’t hardly stand whatever was wrong inside of him. She frowned, concerned. She didn’t want to be upset with him, not now, and especially not over some foolish argument about how he chose to do things.
He said, “My left shoulder hurts too. Must’ve jammed it somehow.”
She tried again. “You sure you don’t want me to fetch the doctor?”
He fell back onto the bed and said, “No, we ain’t got the money for such.”
Troubled, Rae Lynn watched as he closed his eyes, as if wanting to block her from his view. They had a whole fifteen dollars. More than most. Why couldn’t he spare a dollar to see a doctor?
She waited a moment in the silence, then said, “I’ll let you try to sleep.”
He didn’t respond, and she went out, closing the door behind her. Back in the kitchen, she took the food off the table and set it in a cupboard. With nothing else to do, she sat in a chair, watching the door to their room. She wanted to see Warren standing in the doorway, perfectly fine. She reckoned what happened to him shouldn’t be all that shocking. Quite honestly, how something like this hadn’t occurred already was a wonder. Rae Lynn could only hope he’d recover, and that it might somehow change him, make him think about outcomes. The afternoon turned to evening and every now and again, he would moan. Once he cried out so loud she thought sure he’d relent and allow her to get Doc Perdue.
When she went in to see what she might do to help, only wanting to ease his suffering, before she could speak a word, he barked at her, “It ain’t a thing to be done but to let me be!”
This short temper wasn’t like him. It was the pain speaking, so she said nothing and backed out of the room. Butch happened by, and she really wasn’t in the mood for his wisecracks, but after going in to see Warren, he came back out, his face filled with concern.
He said, “You ain’t got him no doctor yet?”
Rae Lynn shook her head. “He don’t want one, Butch.”
“Maybe you ought to get him anyway. Don’t listen to Warren, he’s always been like’at.”
“He won’t let him see him, even if I did.”
Butch scratched his head. “I reckon that’d be like him too.” He looked back toward the room, and Warren wheezed out, “I can hear you. No. Damn. Doctor!”
Rae Lynn raised an eyebrow, and Butch shrugged, then left.
Evening became nightfall, bringing a hint of relief from what had been a hot, humid day. The sun was below the trees, and the creaking of crickets and tiny blinking orbs of fireflies at the edge of the woods signaled day giving in to night. Under normal circumstances, they’d sit out on their porch, her shelling peas or maybe doing some mending by the dim light of a lantern. Warren would roll a cigarette, have him a smoke, and talk about the next day, what they might get done. She stepped outside now and took several deep breaths as a light breeze sifted through the pines, whistling soft and low. It stopped, then came again, as if Mother Nature breathed with her. She turned her face into it, and a tear or two slid off her chin. Aggravated, she rubbed her face dry. It would be all right. Tomorrow when the sun rose, Warren would be better, she told herself as she hugged her arms tight around her body. She had to believe this.