When I got back to the room, Esther was sitting up in the bed. Evidently she’s managed to rinse her arm off in the bathroom, but it was still oozing blood into the towel she’d brought with her. She took a couple of the ibuprofen tablets first, then had me clean and rinse off the wound with the alcohol. I knew that had to hurt, but she didn’t make a sound.
When I had cleaned it out as best I could, she looked up at me and said, “Hand me my knife.” I couldn’t figure out why she wanted her combat knife, but I fished it out of her pocket and gave it to her anyway. “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath, “now I need you to stitch up the wound.”
“Wait a minute,” I protested. “I’ve never done anything like that. I don’t know how.”
She looked at me grimly. “If you don’t sew it up, it’s going to continue to bleed and I could go into shock. Don’t worry, I’ll walk you through it.”
Reluctantly I threaded the needle and knotted the thread at the end. When I was ready she picked up her knife, put the handle in her mouth and bit down on the rubberized grip. With a gulp I started trying to sew up the wound.
I heard her gasp and whimper around the knife, and once she took it out of her mouth to tell me to pull the stitches tighter. Several times I thought I was going to be sick, but seeing her courage shamed me into pressing on until the job was finished.
When I’d tied off the thread, I smeared the antibiotic cream all over the wound. She spat out the knife and looked down at my makeshift surgery. “Not bad for an amateur,” she said, and then fainted. That frightened me, but her breathing and pulse seemed normal. I propped her on her back and used a spare pillow to elevate her feet. Then I covered her up with a blanket and waited.
After a few minutes her eyes fluttered open. When she caught sight of me her lips flashed a little smile. “Don’t worry, Thomas, I’m alright, now; I just feel very weak. Let me sleep a little and I’ll be fine.” Then she closed her eyes.
Once Esther’s breathing told me she had gone back to sleep, a wave of exhaustion swept over me. The assassination attempt, Henry’s death, the revelations I’d heard, and now my impromptu surgery on Esther all combined to sap any remaining energy out of me. I got up and turned out the lights in our room, then sat down, kicked off my shoes and tossed my keys and wallet on the nightstand. There was nowhere else to sleep except the floor, and I didn’t think I could handle that, so I slid in beside Esther. I was out like a light when my head hit the pillow.
December 29
The sky was light when I woke up, and I was embarrassed to discover that I had cuddled up to Esther with my arm around her waist. I gently extracted my arm, hoping not to wake her. I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea. She still seemed to be asleep, so I pulled on my shoes, grabbed my wallet and the keys, and went out to the car to find some food for us.
Fortunately there was a fast-food place near the drugstore I’d found last night, and I was able to pick up a sack of breakfast sandwiches and a couple of large coffees. When I got back to our motel, Esther was awake and sitting up in bed. At her request I changed the bandage around her arm. I was pleased to see that the bleeding had stopped and that there were no obvious signs of an infection.
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