Chapter 10: The Town Car Beyond The Iron Gates
By late morning, the patient room had become a sealed box around the same problem. The dressing was clean for now, but the skin beneath it remained swollen and uneven, red fading into bruised gray at the edges. I kept one gloved hand near the tray while I watched Liam breathe. The oxygen concentrator gave its steady mechanical murmur. His right leg lay trapped in the external fixator, metal rods rising from the mattress like a structure built around a body that had stopped cooperating.
I checked the clock, then checked him again.
The care itself was not the only danger. Every hour I spent repeating the same cleaning without a physician, supplies, or a clear plan made the estate feel less like a workplace and more like a locked room. The ten-thousand-dollar payment waited somewhere beyond the next few days. Tommy's treatment waited farther away, measured in money I did not have and time he could not afford to lose.
Liam's pale eyes followed me as I secured the edge of the dressing. He did not reach for my wrist this time. He only watched, hostile and exhausted, as if my hands were another form of control.
I removed my gloves and went to the door.
The corridor was brighter than the bedroom, though the cold light through the tall windows did little to warm the marble. Leo stood near the entrance hall, still and composed in his dark suit. He did not block my path. He did not need to. The great doors behind him and the iron gates beyond them belonged to the same arrangement: quiet, expensive, and difficult to challenge.
Through the glass, I saw the tinted town car parked on the circular drive.
It looked ready without looking occupied. Its dark windows reflected the stone manor and the pale sky. Beyond it, the road curved away between towering evergreens, narrowing as it descended. I could follow that road toward the city, toward hospitals and pharmacies and people who could evaluate a wound that was beginning to exceed what I could manage at a bedside.
I could also be gone from Liam's room.
The thought carried two consequences at once. If I left without a replacement, he would be alone with an infected wound, a fixed leg, and pain that could worsen faster than anyone noticed. If I stayed without seeking more help, I might be choosing the appearance of employment over the substance of nursing. The estate's distance protected privacy, but it also turned every delay into a decision.
I crossed to the gate controls and rested my hand above them. The iron gates stood closed at the end of the drive. No one came through. No one left. The town car remained where it was, its engine silent.
In my pocket, my phone felt heavier than it should have. I could call for supplies, but I had no guarantee they would arrive this far out. I could ask Leo to prepare the car, but that would still leave Liam. I could make a list of what the room lacked and force the household to confront the gap without abandoning my post.
I returned to the bedroom.
Liam's eyes opened before I reached the bed. I placed the morphine syringe and the unused supplies where I could reach them, then moved the reading lamp closer. I wrote the time of the last dressing change on a sheet of paper and set it beside the bed. Below it, I listed the supplies needed and the warning signs I was watching: spreading redness, rising heat, new drainage, confusion, a change in his breathing.
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It was not a solution. It was a line drawn against passivity.
I pulled the chair beside the mattress and sat where I could see both Liam and the door. The town car waited beyond the gates. The road waited beyond the trees. For the moment, I would not leave him, but I would not pretend staying was enough.
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