Arlene Sachitano - Quilt As Desired

"Are you okay?” she heard through her closed window. She looked up without moving her head. A curtain of black clouded her vision. Anger quickly chased it away. Aiden stood beside her car, his hand on the door.

He repeated his inquiry. She clicked the locks, and he opened her door. He crouched down beside her

"What happened?” he asked.

Harriet slumped toward him and began to cry. He held her until she stopped shaking.

"You scared me,” she finally managed as she pulled herself out of the awkward embrace.

He was dressed in a black suit that had probably fit him before he'd gone to Africa. Now it was slightly baggy, but on his hardened body and with his tan and long hair, it made him look like he'd just stepped off the catwalk in Milan. Harriet's head hurt, but she wasn't blind.

"I was driving back home after Mom's viewing and I saw you creeping through town. It looked like you were kind of weaving. I got worried, so I followed you."

His voice was soothing. She could see why he made a good vet. He was used to dealing with patients who couldn't talk back or say where it hurt.

"Someone hit me in the head,” she rasped, her throat suddenly dry again.

"Where?” he said.

"Down by the docks."

"No,” he said, a small smile playing across his lips. “Where on your head?"

She pointed. “Don't touch it. It hurts."

He ignored her request and gently worked his fingers from the sides of her skull toward the bump. He stopped each time she gasped.

"Look at me,” he said.

She slowly turned, moving her whole upper body. He pulled his Mag-Lite out of his pocket.

Her eyes burned, and she blinked as he shone the light in each eye.

"Look at my finger,” he said and moved it across her field of vision. “Your pupils look okay, and your eyes are tracking, so that's good, but I think we need to get you to the emergency room. We'll take my car. Let me pull up beside you so you won't have to walk far."

He moved his car then supported her as she shifted from the driver's seat of hers to the passenger seat of his.

"It's going to take a little longer, but I think I'll drive you directly to the Jefferson County Hospital in Port Townsend. There's an urgent care clinic in Foggy Point, but I'm not sure if they can do a CT scan or not."

Harriet didn't have the energy to argue. She was so glad someone else was in charge at this point she would have gone anywhere with him.

She wanted to sleep during the hour-long drive, but Aiden said he couldn't let her sleep until she'd been checked over. She felt as though she were permanently stuck somewhere between asleep and awake. She knew Aiden talked to her but couldn't remember the next day what they had talked about.

At some point during their drive, he must have called the hospital. He pulled into the ambulance circle, where they were met by a nurse with a wheelchair. Harriet was pushed into the triage area while Aiden parked the car. She was in cubicle one when he returned. A white-haired doctor with a golf-course tan was examining her, pretty much repeating the tests Aiden had done.

"You're a very lucky young woman,” the doctor said. “That's a nasty lump on your head. We'll take a few pictures to make sure you didn't crack your skull and keep you overnight to see if we can knock that headache down a little. We can also give you something for the nausea. I don't expect to find anything. I think you'll probably have a headache for a few days, but that should be all. I'll leave you a prescription for some pain medication to help with that when you get to your room."

"Thank you,” she whispered.

The doctor smiled and left the room.

A nurse in teddy-bear-print scrubs came in and gave her an injection in her hip; Aiden turned discretely away. When the nurse was gone, he came over to where she sat on the gurney and gently put his arms around her.

She tried to talk. She wanted to explain why she'd gone to the docks and about Misty.

"Hush,” he said. “We can discuss this tomorrow. For tonight, just try to relax and let the medicine take effect."

Harriet's sleep was punctuated by hourly wake-up visits by the night nurse. The nurse would take her temperature and blood pressure, and by the time she fell asleep again it would be time for the next hourly check.

Each time she woke she saw Aiden, who didn't seem to be bothered at all by the night nurse, as evidenced by the slow, steady breathing she could hear coming from his chair.

When grey light filtered through the slatted blinds on the narrow window in her room she gave up all pretenses. The next time the nurse came in, Harriet was sitting on the side of the bed, her legs dangling over the side.

"Okay, I'm finished with this game,” she announced.

Aiden sat up. “What's going on?” he asked, and looked around as if he didn't know where he was.

"I'm out of here, that's what's going on. Ouch!” Harriet said, and winced as her feet hit the floor.

The nurse took a good look at her and went for the door.

"I'll call the doctor,” she said as she left the room.

The doctor came in, pronounced Harriet able to travel, gave her a prescription for pain medication and instructed her to return for a check-up in one week. Aiden brought his car around to the front entrance, and a nurse wheeled her into the misty morning.

"Where to now, milady?” he asked when he had her safely buckled into the passenger seat.

"Home,” she said. “I just want a hot shower and a couple of hours sleep in a bed that doesn't have a plastic sheet."

"Do you think that's wise?"

"Right now I don't think anything."

"First someone breaks into your studio and wrecks everything, and then someone whacks you on the head and leaves you for dead. I'm no detective, but I have to think someone isn't too happy with you. The last thing I think you should be is a sitting duck, and that's exactly what you'll be if you go home."

"I don't really have a lot of options. Besides, I have a business to run."

"Let me think a minute,” he said. “My studio would be a little cramped."

"And not obvious at all,” Harriet said. “Sarah Ness would have it all over town before my bag was unpacked."

"There's tons of room at my mom's house."

"Oh, yeah. That would be real comfortable for all of us. Your sister hates me. You hate your uncle. We could have a great time together."

"Have you got a better idea?"

"Yeah, I go home to Fred, and you go back to your family.” She leaned her head against the car window. “And I really can't talk about it anymore."

She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Aiden was guiding his car down the wooded drive that led to Mavis Willis's cottage.

"I can't just drop in on Mavis like this,” Harriet protested in a voice barely above a whisper. “It's only what o'clock in the morning besides."

"It is seven-fifteen, and we both know Mavis gets up earlier than that."

Mavis greeted them at the door in a plaid flannel bathrobe that had once belonged to her husband.

"What have we here?” she said and took Harriet's free arm. Aiden let go of her other one and followed them into the sitting room of the cottage.

"Sit,” Mavis said, and guided Harriet into a tan corduroy recliner. “Go get a pillow from the bed in that room next to the bathroom,” she ordered Aiden and pointed toward a short hallway.

He returned with a down pillow, and Mavis gently wedged it under Harriet's head, taking the pressure off the lump and relieving her pain considerably.

"Go put the kettle on,” she continued in that voice mothers use and kids of every age obey without question.

"Now,” she said to Harriet as soon as he was out of earshot, “tell me what happened before he gets back."