Where There is Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

Chapter 12: Break the Rhythm

A little after eight the next morning, after he'd broken down and gone for a coffee in the cafeteria, Henry was finally told that Shawn had been moved to a room and could receive visitors. The coffee left on the table with two sips missing, he followed the nurse to the room on the third floor. On the way there, they passed through the waiting room to collect Gus, who'd fallen asleep again on the couch.

That time of day, there were far more bodies to maneuver around as staff delivered breakfasts to patients and family showed up for visitations. He moved through them without seeing them as anything more than shapes.

Gus was just as silent, just as focused. The last view Henry had had of his son, he'd been gasping with pain and delirium – his body torn open and bleeding. He'd been alive, but his chances had been slimming by the moment. And even with a seeming miraculous survival, there were still risks, still warnings. He could still die.

The nurse opened the door but Henry couldn't wait for her to move aside and pushed past without apology.

Shawn wasn't moving and in those seconds, Henry felt a pounding insistence that they'd been misinformed, that they were too late. But it wasn't until he saw the lift of his son's chest – the proof that there was still life, that Henry was hit with the deeper mix of emotion. Relief struck so profound that he shivered. But walking towards the bed, he was also hit by pain – fear at what his son faced as he fought through all he'd suffered.

A wheeled chair had already been placed bedside, but Henry left it to Gus to claim the bit of furniture. Standing was better. Standing meant a quicker response if he needed to grab medical assistance. Standing meant he could see more easily into Shawn's eyes. See if there was anything more to fill them other than that blank, drooped stare.

Nothing other than consciousness spoke of his son being aware.

“Shawn?” He wanted to touch his fingers, feel his wrist, feel the beat of circulation and be sure it was steady. But both hands were wrapped in bandages, his right arm secured in a sling to stabilize his collar bone. Smaller wounds along both arms and more, hidden behind his back, had been cleaned and painted rust red with iodine. Rat bites. No stopping the shudder as he saw all the gouges where teeth had sliced through flesh.

His cheeks were white, dry and patchy from dehydration and blood loss. Lips were cracked and had bled, eyes were bloodshot too. He was on a saline drip and his second unit of blood in addition to the units he'd received in surgery. Tests had shown him to be severely anemic with dangerously low hemoglobin. Packets of salve were in the top drawer of the table on the opposite side of the bed to treat his chapped lips. Henry maneuvered around the frame to get at the drawer. He needed activity and staring helplessly at his son wasn't cutting it.

A soft whisper as Gus started to speak relived him of that duty as well – tasks boiling down to one. He dug out a handful of packets, tossing all but one on the table top and tore open the top corner. Squeezing out the jelly-like substance on his pinkie, he leaned across the bed to dab it over lips that appeared to have been chewed raw.

He barely touched his son when Shawn jerked away. Breathing skipped to a pant – hissing though his nose and bypassing the measured dose of oxygen. Eyes shut and his lips pulled down. It was only seconds, though, before his expression settled again. His lips dropped slack and he didn't pull away as the ointment was brushed across broken skin.