Chapter 6: Stitches After Sunset
The county hospital ER smelled like cold plastic and floor cleaner and my own wet clothes had gone sour by the time the triage nurse called my name. I left a damp outline on the plastic chair when I stood up. My left shoe made a soft squelch with every step and my right trouser leg was stuck to the bandage the catering lead had pressed on at the estate. He'd put me in the back of a black SUV and told the driver not to run the lights.
I told the intake clerk what had happened in the order I remembered it. Carrying a tray on the terrace. Fell backward into the fountain. Cut my shin on the marble. She typed without looking up and slid me a clipboard.
"You're soaked through," the ER nurse said when she pulled the curtain. Her name tag said Alvarez. She was maybe fifty, short hair, a navy scrub top with little cats on it.
"I know," I said. "I haven't had time to change."
She didn't make a thing about it. She cut the tape on the makeshift bandage with blunt scissors, then peeled it back slow. The gauze came away pink and then red. Air hit the cut and I breathed in through my teeth.
"Okay, let's see," she said, quiet.
She washed her hands, snapped on gloves, and tipped my leg toward the overhead light. The tear in my black trousers was about three inches long, the fabric frayed and dark with blood and fountain water. Under it the laceration ran diagonal across my shin, maybe two inches, edges jagged. She irrigated it with warm saline from a squeeze bottle and the water ran pink into a basin. When she dabbed it, I could see pale grit at the edges.
"Depth is to just above the fascia," she said, more to herself while she charted. "Abrasion pattern around it looks like stone. Marble?"
"White marble fountain," I said. "Water was light blue before."
She glanced at me, then back at the wound. "You hit the rim going in."
She asked if she could take photos for the medical record. I said yes. She held a small hospital camera with a ruler sticker next to the cut and took three, then asked me to hold the torn fabric away from the skin and took two more.
"You're doing the right thing documenting," she said, not making it a big deal.
They got me a gown and a blanket and a pair of dark scrub pants to change into. I peeled off the vest, the white shirt, the black trousers one-handed while Alvarez held the curtain. My ponytail had come half loose and was still dripping. My lace-up shoes were waterlogged and heavy; when I tipped one, fountain water and a little bloody water ran out onto the paper on the floor. I set them on the paper carefully. I folded the torn trousers and the vest on the chair instead of letting them bag them. I took my phone out of the vest pocket. The waterproof pouch had held. The screen came on when I thumbed it.
Alvarez came back with a suture tray. The doctor, a young guy in glasses, looked, said it needed four, injected lidocaine in three small stings that made my leg jump. While the numbness spread he talked calmly about tetanus and antibiotics.
"Four interrupted, nonabsorbable," he said as he worked. "You'll come back in ten days or your primary can take them out."
I watched the needle pull through. I didn't feel the bite, just tugging. Alvarez counted quietly and patted my hand when I held my breath too long.
After, she wrapped it in a clean white bandage, not too tight, and handed me a stack of papers. Discharge instructions. Wound care. A sheet with billing codes and a triage slip that listed "laceration, right shin, 4 cm, contaminated, abrasion." She'd written "consistent with sharp/rough stone edge" in the notes. I asked if I could have copies of the photos and the record for myself. She printed them at the nurses' station and stamped them.
I asked if I could photograph my clothes before they were bagged as waste. She nodded and pulled the curtain fully.
I laid each thing on the exam table under the bright light. The torn trousers with the blood dark around the rip. The right shoe with the water line inside. The white shirt gone translucent and stained pink at the hem. The black vest with the waterproof pocket still damp. I used my phone and took them straight overhead, then close on the product tags and the hospital band on my wrist next to each item for scale. The billing slip I put flat and shot twice so the numbers were readable. I slipped the envelope from the estate, still unopened, into the frame of one photo and then tucked it back into the vest pocket where it had been.
When I was back in the borrowed scrubs, hair wrapped in a hospital towel, I sat on the edge of the bed and texted before I could talk myself into shorter version.
First to my mom: Mom its Maya Im ok at county ER stitched 4 on shin fell into fountain at work on terrace carrying tray someone clipped me I have photos papers shoes clothes kept envelope they gave me didnt sign anything coming home after
Then to my roommate Jenna: hey at ER not at gala anymore fell cut leg 4 stitches have pics and docs can you leave porch light on need dry clothes
My mom called within a minute. I let it ring once so Alvarez wouldn't hear everything.
"Maya? What happened?" Her voice was tight, that mom voice she gets driving with one hand.
"I'm discharged," I said. "I'm okay. Four stitches. I'm still at the hospital. I'll tell you everything when I'm home. Can you not freak out until I get there."
"Who pushed you? Did someone call the police?"
"Not yet," I said. "I have the papers and photos. I kept everything wet just like it was. I didn't sign anything they gave me at the house."
There was a pause. I could hear her blinker clicking.
"Okay, honey, okay. You get home safe. Text me when the car comes," she said.
I promised I would. I hung up and my hand was shaking a little so I set the phone flat.
Jenna texted back: omg yes porch is on door unlocked towels on bed.
Alvarez came back with a wheelchair even though I said I could walk. Hospital policy. She pushed me to the entrance where the night air had gone cold. The SUV was gone. I had called a regular rideshare on my own phone while the lidocaine set. A gray Toyota pulled up, the driver took one look at my towel and scrubs and popped the trunk without a question.
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My apartment stairs creaked under my dry socks. Jenna had left the light on like she said. I stood in our tiny bathroom and looked at the bandage, the borrowed pants cut to my ankle, the towel still dripping onto the mat. I set the stack of hospital papers, the photos, the shoes in a plastic bag, and the folded uniform on the dresser in the order I'd need them. I plugged my phone in to charge and left it out of the rice for now. It was warm and still on.
I sat on the edge of my bed in someone else's clothes and stared at the bag with my name on the hospital label, listening to the throb start to come back as the numbness wore off.
