Knitting Bones Read Free Page A

when the call was answered, “It’s go for the transfer. We’ll be leaving here within half an hour. Right.” Her tone grew tender. “Bye, sweet-ums.”
    Betsy rang for the nurse, who helped her pack up her belongings: two bed jackets (knit by loyal customers of Crewel World), five pairs of bed socks (ditto), a potted plant, a half-eaten box of chocolates, a toothbrush and other bathroom items, a pair of crutches, a carrier bag of medicines, and several printouts of instructions for home care. These were put in a cardboard box, which was balanced on the arms of the wheelchair after Betsy was helped into it. She managed not to groan.
    Then Jill wheeled her down the broad corridor to the bank of elevators, stepping back when a car arrived with a nurse, two attendants, and a patient on a gurney. “So, you want to go horseback riding again this weekend?” Jill asked Betsy while they waited for the patient to be wheeled out. An attendant was maneuvering a wheeled stand holding up two plastic bags each half full of a clear liquid, which was dribbling down a hose into a needle taped to the back of the patient’s hand. He was an unconscious man with dark hair showing under the edge of his bandages and a lot of facial cuts and bruises.
    Betsy made a tsk sound of pity, as Jill pushed her into the car and punched the button for the ground floor. Then, “No,” said Betsy, chuckling, as Jill’s question suddenly registered, “not this weekend. Maybe next if the weather is nice.”

    T ONY Milan was vaguely aware that he was moving. And not walking but riding. In a car? A very distant alarm went off at that thought. But no, he was lying down. Maybe…maybe he was on a horse. No, of course not. Silly idea. He was doped up, and by the familiar muffled feeling it was on some kind of downer, something stronger than pot. Prescription pills, maybe, the good kind.
    Rolling, rolling, rolling—wasn’t there a song with those words? A cowboy song. Something about a horse? Whoops, the rolling had stopped. And there were voices, a woman and a couple of men. Maybe a couple of women. His clothing was being messed with, he seemed to be dressed in sheets. Toga party? And now they were moving him, rolling or pushing him, he was sliding. Was he being mugged? He opened his mouth to protest and suddenly what they were doing hurt and he let out a kind of soft yell. One of the women said, “Hush, take it easy, you’re all right,” and covered him with something, like another sheet. But damn, his whole left side hurt, and his head, and the back of his hand, and his knee, and his right ankle…before he could finish his inventory, he was drifting back into the comfortable haze that only OxyContin can bring.
    And then someone was calling his name. “Tony? Tony Milan? Wake up, Tony!” He opened his eyes and a dark-haired lady with brown eyes and an Aztec face was bending over him. He had no idea who she was.
    He tried to ask, but his throat hurt and all he managed was a croaked, “Ur? Oo-oo.”
    “My name is Margaret, and I’m your nurse,” she replied, just as if she understood his question. “You are in Hennepin County Medical Center. You had an accident with your car. Do you understand that?” She was talking as if to an idiot. Of course he understood. “Wah,” he said, which was nearly a word. “Hah, how—” Better. Lick lips and try again. “Howah lon I behn heah?” He seemed to have developed a foreign accent.
    “Three days,” she said.
    That seriously surprised him. He’d never gone on a toot that lasted that long before. “Th-thu-reeeee?” The drawn-out vowel was because something started stabbing him in the chest. Only one arm seemed to work, he reached to touch the sore spot. Was she poking him?
    “Lie still, don’t try to move,” she said. “You have some broken bones.”
    “Ah?”
    “Don’t you remember the accident?”
    “Uh-uh.” He’d been in an accident—was that because he’d been on a toot? Tony