At the Seams

Chapter 5: Day 1 - 8:34 am

Chapter 5: Day 1 - 8:34 am

Sam hears the ambulance coming from three blocks away. He raises his chin from his chest, wipes the spittle from his sticky lips, and forces himself up. For a few seconds, Sam leans crookedly on the toilet tank. His legs and knees feel weak and shaky, like he has just sprinted. Sam takes a deep breath, trying to regain control of his shocked body. When he exhales, he feels calm enough to reach the front door without tumbling down the stairs. Not a bad idea, a whisper from the darkest corner of his limited imagination, you two could be a pair of veggies. Like peas ‘n carrots! Hee! Sam splashes his face with cold water from the sink, then leaves the bathroom before he can scare himself sillier.

Sam rushes the short distance from the bathroom to the bedroom door, desperately trying to remain collected. Profound grief keeps his eyes safely averted to his feet.

Once out of the bedroom, some of Sam's strength returns and he trots across Mary's Rabbit Hole to the stairs. He doesn't look at any of her colorful treasures.

Sam runs down the stairs and through the front hall to the door. He doesn't look at Mary's picture hanging over the table.

He opens the front door and emerges into the sunshine to await the paramedics. In the moments before they arrive, Sam marvels bitterly at the day’s serene beauty. Some part of Sam wants a meteor to tear through the clouds above his head and rain fiery despair upon this picturesque spring morning. That part of Sam can't comprehend how it could be any different.

The EMS van, deafening sirens blaring, pulls around the corner onto Sam's block and up to the curb before his house.  A stocky, strong-looking man with fair skin and dark hair, wearing a nametag that reads E.J., emerges from the driver’s door and greets Sam shortly, then asks after his patient.

"She's in the house, upstairs in the bedroom." Sam turns to lead the EMTs toward the house, wishing like hell he could just stay out in the sunshine.

E.J.'s partner, an attractive black woman with green eyes and a buzzed head, climbs from the back of the van, hands E.J. a blocky case, then pulls out a collapsible rolling gurney. When she straightens and closes the door, Sam reads "Eve" on her nametag, then leads them toward the house.

As he walks, Sam tries to describe the horrors he witnessed. Again and again, words betray him and details elude his descriptive skill. He struggles and fails to answer Eve's question. His throat constricts in his frustration and floundering. His heart quails at his dreadful surety that he cannot help Mary. He gives up, finally, only glancing over his shoulder to look back at Eve. Her eyes widen, her cool mask slipping at what she glimpses on Sam's face. "I have no clue what is going on in that bedroom, but it is fucking freaky," Sam says, his mouth contorting as if tasting something bad. In the split second he meets her eye, he isn't sure if Eve understands the seriousness of his statement; she has replaced her stoic expression. "Just follow me," he says, his words like bitters on his tongue. "You can tell me what the hell is going on."

They continue on silently, until Sam stops outside the bedroom door. "She's in there," he says, his voice a scuttling tumbleweed on desolate hardpan.

Eve enters the bedroom, quietly excusing herself as she slips past. E.J. pauses and puts a reassuring hand on Sam's bicep. "We'll take good care of Mary, okay?" Sam leans against the doorframe, grateful for E.J.'s panacean words. Then he ducks into the bedroom, watching miserably as the paramedics briefly examine the comatose woman on the bed. They throw furtive glances Sam’s way as they brace her bruising neck, and slide a stiff board beneath her yielding body and strap her up.

They ask no questions as they work. They make no comments. They hoist Mary silently, carefully, onto the gurney and make for the door. As E.J. passes him, Sam, desperately lonely unlike anything he’s known since childhood, makes eye contact. Even that simple reminder of belonging, if to nothing more specific than the human race, might carry him through another five minutes. Sam finds none of the warmth he anticipates in the paramedic’s eyes. A stone wall replaces that previously sympathetic gaze, and Sam feels his stomach twist.

Trying to attribute the EMT’s morose, dismissive vibe to no more than his own overworking imagination, Sam follows the quiet EMTs through the Rabbit Hole and down the stairs. He grabs his wallet from the table next to the front door and jogs to the ambulance. Just as Eve reaches to close the ambulance door, Sam climbs into the back. "Were you leaving without me?" he asks, genuinely befuddled.  Eve doesn't answer, only closes the door and commands E.J. to step on it.

Speaking calm encouragements to her patient, Eve hooks an I.V. to Mary's right hand. When she's done, she meets Sam’s eyes. Sam feels he knows what it means to meet a black hole. "What's your name," she says, disinterested, only going through the motions.

"Sam Conlin."

“Well, Sam Conlin, I think you might have some interesting questions to answer when we get to the hospital.”

Eve’s gaze is flat, weighted, like an anvil in Sam’s face. Sam is first confused, then suspicious, as he reads a silent accusation on Eve’s delicate features. He runs her last sentence through his head again, understanding dawning unpleasantly on him. Sam meets Eve’s eyes, fierce, senseless rage burning like scotch in his veins. He has had too much, just too much. He leans forward and enunciates carefully. "Fuck off, you sanctimonious bitch."

Eve ignores him and busies herself with Mary. Sam stews in silence the rest of the way to the hospital.