RECKLESS by Ruth Wind

Author:Ruth Wind [Wind, Ruth]
Language: por
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 11

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Ironically, because they said he couldn't sleep, Jake wanted nothing more than to slip into oblivion. All day, his eyes felt grainy and dry, and a thudding headache pulsed at the base of his skull. By evening, he was so exhausted he could barely focus on anything, a state that was not unfamiliar. He'd had maybe four hours sleep in the past forty-eight. In that time, he'd gone dancing, got drunk, gone sailing, been burned and crashed his car.

Dr. Richards came in just before dinner, a tall black man with a half-moon of head showing between wings of salt-and-pepper hair. Jake didn't miss the slightly awkward gait of a man with a false limb, and he wondered which battle had claimed the real one.

"Hello, Jake," the older man said, holding out an enormous hand. "I guess Dr. Hardy has told you she referred you to me."

"She told me." Jake shook the offered hand and tried to struggle into a more dignified sitting position. It was hard. Every damned muscle in his body screamed a protest over any kind of movement.

As if he understood Jake's need to be more than an invalid, the doctor smoothly bent and cranked up the bed. "Better?"

"Thanks."

"Nasty accident, I hear."

"Yeah." Jake looked away from the knowing eyes behind sturdy glasses. He wanted to add something, but couldn't think of what it might be.

"How does the car look?"

"Haven't seen it yet." He lifted a shoulder. "It's probably totaled."

Dr. Richards pointed to a chair. "You mind if I sit down a minute?"

"Go ahead."

"I won't keep you long, but I want to get an idea where you are, so when you're feeling better we can figure out how to treat you."

Jake grimaced. "I'm not sick or anything."

"No, Ramona said the trouble is insomnia, which she believes is related to posttraumatic stress."

"That's what she says."

"You disagree?"

The man had a great voice, Jake thought idly. James Earl Jones deep. That made it easy to listen to him. With great effort, Jake swam unsteadily through the fog of his exhaustion to consider whether he thought Ramona was right. The effort was too much. He felt a rising irritation and a piercing kind of pain through the middle of his solar plexus. "Look, Doc. I have no idea. I only agreed to take the sleeping pills because my mother was fussing over me day and night. I thought it would get her off my back."

"Did they help?"

He nodded. "For a while."

"Are you willing to try something else?"

"I guess." At the moment, he felt like be could sleep a couple of million years with no problem.

"All right, then." The doctor stood up. "When you get to feeling a little better, call me at the VA home and make an appointment, and we'll see what we can work out."

Jake nodded wearily. Couldn't hurt. Suddenly, he remembered Harry and swore aloud. "Doc, is Harry Goodman one of your patients?"

"No, but I see him nearly every day. Is there a problem."

"Yeah." Jake couldn't very well ask the man to smuggle in beer and cigarettes.

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