More Than a Feeling

Chapter 6

Morning sun filtered through the blinds and onto the patchwork quilt. Dean squinted and rolled over. The recliner was empty, and silverware clinked in the kitchen: Ruthie was already up. He pushed himself up on one elbow. At the foot of the bed lay a neatly folded pile of clothes. A black t-shirt and a long-sleeved flannel sat on top of his freshly washed jeans.

"Good morning," Ruthie said from the kitchen. She nodded at the clothes. "You dress a lot like my dad."

"He had good taste." Dean paused. "Are you sure you're okay with me taking these?"

She opened a carton of cream and poured some into a saucepan on the stove. "People always said he'd give anyone the shirt off his back. Yeah, I'm sure."

This girl had just lost her dad, and apparently her job, too. But here she was, taking care of a total stranger, feeding him, giving him her dad's clothes. He hadn't handled his own dad's death quite as well. Sitting there in bed, his arms could still feel the reverberations of metal smashing glass, iron denting steel. He'd taken his anger and grief out on the Impala.

Ruthie's voice pulled him back into the present. "How'd you sleep?"

"Like a drunk baby."

Ruthie laughed. Her laugh sounded like comfort, like the taste of apple pie. He made a mental note to try and make her laugh again.

She filled a large bowl at the sink, laid a washcloth over the rim of the bowl, and headed toward the bed. She set the basin and a bar of soap on the side table, and took a seat on the edge of the bed. "Let's see how you're looking." While she leaned over him, carefully peeling back the gauze, he noticed how the yellow sweater she was wearing brought out a hint of gold in her eyes. Almost like the spokes of a wheel, the gold radiated out through the dark brown.

She glanced over at him, and he quickly dropped his gaze.

"There's a bit of red here," she said. "It's probably just inflammation, but I want to get you on antibiotics as soon as we can get to town, just to be safe."

"You're the expert."

She stood up. "You can't submerge in water, but we need to keep the whole area clean and dry." She gestured at the bowl. "So this is your shower. Get cleaned up and dressed; I'm going to shovel the front walk."

Dean sat up and threw his hands out to the sides. "What's a guy got to do to get a sponge bath around here?"

"Be unconscious and hypothermic," came the dry reply as she disappeared in to the hallway.

He heard Ruthie stepping into her boots. A door opened, and a cold draft breezed through the cabin while she shoveled a place to stand on the front porch. He waited until the door closed, cutting off the chilly breeze. Dean pushed the covers back, gingerly turned and swung his legs over the side of the bed, and started washing up. When he was finished, he took more gauze and tape from the side table and covered the stitches again. Ruthie had made it look easy, but he felt clumsy trying to hold the gauze in place while managing the tape. In the end, the gauze was crooked and there were lumps in the tape, but it would do.

Pulling on his jeans sent darts of pain through his side, but he didn't feel any of the cuts reopen. The t-shirt was trickier, but he managed. It wasn't until he was on the last few buttons of the flannel that he realized how much the process had exhausted him. His whole torso ached, and the room was doing a slow spin. He sat down heavily on the bed just as Ruthie came back inside. Her cheeks were flushed pink and she was a little out of breath.

She beamed at him as she pulled off her heavy coat. "Look at you! I wasn't sure you'd be able to do it."

Dean shrugged, as though it was nothing, and he wasn't about to pass out.