A wedding in December by Anita Shreve

Author:Anita Shreve [Shreve, Anita]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-07-25T21:13:01+00:00

A Wedding in December

“Mr. Finch?” she asked.

“Yes, Louise. It’s Innes.”

“Oh God,” she wailed, reaching for him. He allowed Louise to feel his face and hair. Her fingers were blunt, unpracticed. Briefly he closed his eyes.

“They are all dead!” she cried. “All dead.”

“Who are all dead, Louise?” Innes urged.

“Mother. Father. Hazel. All dead.”

“How do you know this?” Innes asked, trying to keep his voice calm. Louise could not actually have seen the bodies, he guessed, not to judge from the blood-soaked gauze at her eyes.

“The man who found me told me. He said they were all dead.” Louise began to tremble uncontrollably, and Innes bent forward to hold her. A rank smell rose up from the back of her blouse. She had, in some way, soiled herself.

“Sister,” Innes said. “This woman must be bathed.”

“Now, sir?”

“Yes, now,” Innes said, standing. “In hot water. And then I’ll want to remove the bandages.”

“Sir, it is two in the morning.”

“It is of no consequence to me what time it is,” Innes said.

“There is no hot water, sir.”

Louise reached out to Innes. “Don’t leave me,” she cried. Innes took one of Louise’s hands as the nursing sister began to wheel her in the direction of the bathing room. The large wooden wheels were nearly silent on the lino floor.

“Why can’t she walk?” Innes asked the sister.

“Her anklebone is broken, sir. Crushed.”

Innes bent to lift the blanket from Louise’s feet. A hastily constructed cast was on her lower right leg.

“I’ll be within earshot,” he told Louise. “Just outside the door. You’ll be able to hear me and talk to me.”

Innes watched as Louise was made to lie on a cot. With some expertise, the nursing sister removed Louise’s clothing and bathed her. Innes saw that the cast would have to be remade. He hoped the bones would not have to be reset. He did not turn away from the sight of Louise’s nakedness. The small white breasts, the taut stomach, the swollen right leg. From time to time, Louise called out to him, and Innes answered her.

“Something will have to be found to calm the woman,” he said to the nursing sister.

“There are no medicines,” the sister answered.

When Louise had been bathed and put into a hospital gown, Innes moved closer to her and took her hand. “I’m going to remove your dressings and have a look at your eyes,” he said.

“They hurt,” Louise said, but Innes noted that some of the hysteria had left her voice.

As gently as he could, and with the nursing sister standing to one side of him with a basin, Innes cradled Louise’s head and unwound the gauze. The damage was considerable. In the right eye, most of the external muscles of the ball had been severed, and it protruded from the socket. It would have to be removed. In the left eye, a laceration of substantial depth sliced across the cornea and extended into the skin beyond the eye.

“I can’t see,” Louise said.

Louise, Innes knew, would be blind for life.

Agnes, sitting against the headboard, put the notebook in her lap.

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