Nathan Jones - First Winter

After that Lewis’s mom insisted on joining her husband in quarantine to care for him, heedless of the rest of the family’s worry about her catching the horrible illness. She argued that they all would’ve caught it by now if they were going to, but either way she couldn’t keep watching Lucas suffer alone while helpless to do anything for him.

In the following days Lucas didn’t improve, but he at least seemed comforted by his wife’s presence. He was even able to rest a little easier. Truthfully none of them were resting well, sick with worry for him, but they counted the days with him, knowing each one brought him closer and closer to getting better.

100 days was an eternity, though.

As the days passed Lewis constantly drove himself to distraction due to worry, lack of sleep, and constantly finding little to do. Everyone in the family experienced that, but Lewis always felt the drive to be doing something to make things better, when there wasn’t anything he could do. He went out when he could, weather permitting, and he did all the chores, but in his downtime he couldn’t concentrate on reading any of the texts from his archive, or much of anything else.

Most of that was his constantly building guilt as his dad’s condition worsened, as Lewis was forced to watch him suffering knowing his store of medicine could’ve made all the difference. And he didn’t have it.

His family wasn’t blind to his mounting agitation. His dad finally insisted he come in and move his reloading equipment into the main room, so he’d have a repetitive task he could sink his concentration into. It would also be an excuse for Trev to come over every now and again, which might help relieve the mood in the house.

Lewis gratefully complied, and from that point worked reloading almost nonstop in his spare time, even when Trev wasn’t around. Jane usually worked alongside him, seeming grateful for a chance to impose artificial isolation on herself in the crowded confines through intense concentration on her work. When Trev did come to help Deb often tagged along, and she proved a welcome distraction for his mom and Mary, engaging them in conversation and offering her constant support.

It helped the days pass as the mood in the cabin grew more and more grim, in direct proportion to Lucas’s worsening condition. But no matter how hard Lewis concentrated, it never left the back of his mind that it had been in his power to make things better if he could’ve just held some medicine back. That he’d failed his dad when he needed him most.

And then on the night of the thirteenth day, which marked three weeks from the beginning of his illness, Lucas’s condition took a drastic change for the worse.

Lewis was wakened from fitful slumber to the sound of his dad screaming and coughing at the same time. He lurched out of bed while Jane was still starting awake beside him, rushing to the door and throwing it open.

“Dad?” he asked into the dark room. His question was met by the sound of crying. At first he thought it was his mom, and then with shock he realized it was Lucas. “Dad!” he said again, alarmed.

In his entire life Lewis had heard his dad cry less than a handful of times, and most of those were in particularly touching movies. His dad was remarkably stoic when it came to pain, from stubbing toes to more severe injuries. He seemed to have a superhuman ability to suppress any knee-jerk response to the pain until he could get himself under control.

And now he was screaming and crying.

Lewis felt tears coming to his own eyes as his dad answered in a broken voice. “It’s noth-AGGH! No, I can’t shrug this aside. It hurts too bad.” He fell silent, breathing raggedly through his sobs.

After ten or so seconds Lewis’s mom spoke up, sounding nearly frantic. “He broke another rib during a coughing fit a half hour or so ago.”

Lewis felt the presence of people crowding the door with him, Jane and Mary. “I’m going to get the light,” he said, already reaching for the switch. When the LED Christmas lights flooded the room with blue-white light, giving him a clear view of the scene, he wished he hadn’t.

His dad was sitting rigid against the pillows at his back, sucking in shallow breaths to avoid moving. Tears streamed freely down his face, which was a mask of agony and despair. His mom had her arms wrapped around his shoulders in a way that didn’t put too much weight on him, and she was crying too.

Lucas met Lewis’s eyes for a moment then looked away, ashamed even though he had no reason to be. He looked at Jane and Mary, just as briefly, then sucked in another shallow breath to speak. “Right after it first broke it felt numb. I knew it was bad, but there wasn’t any pain so I hoped.” He shifted slightly, even that making him grit his teeth in pain. “It’s directly behind the center of the lung. The others don’t hurt too bad during a coughing fit, or at least the pain is manageable. This one…” He groaned. “It’s torture. It’s worse than torture. Every time I cough it’s going to be agony. For weeks before it heals, if it even can when the coughing is constantly aggravating the break. I can’t do it.”

He broke down crying again.

Mary threw her arms around Lewis, face pale and barely keeping from sobbing herself. He held his sister tight, tears streaming down his own face as he was overwhelmed by the helpless sensation of watching someone he loved suffering something this horrible, unable to do anything about it. His dad was already exhausted, already in pain, barely eating, blacking out during coughing fits. And now this?

It wasn’t fair. A good man shouldn’t have to go through this.

“I’ll get Langstrom,” he said.

He expected his dad to protest, in spite of his condition, and was almost surprised when instead he replied desperately. “Please do, quick. Please, let him be able to do something.” He lowered his voice to a terrified whisper. “Please, God, don’t let me cough again.”

Lewis turned and rushed to get into his cold weather gear. There was no hope of his dad’s cough miraculously stopping, so they had to do something. Anything.

Jane got dressed with him, whispering that she’d get Terry. During their flurry of activity Mary hovered near the door to the adjacent room staring inside. She was so distressed she didn’t even hum, and her shoulders shook with silent sobs.

Finished first, Lewis left his wife behind and burst outside, wading through snow well above his knees with a thick crust that shattered into chunks at every lurching step. They had cleared a path between most of the shelter group houses, and the road was clear as well, but he cut a direct path to the house the surgeon was staying in with his family and Carrie Grant.

Langstrom didn’t complain about being woken up, and neither did his family or the young veteran sleeping on the other side of a basic partition. The surgeon quickly pulled on his own coat, hat, and gloves and grabbed his bag, instructing Lewis to describe the problem as they hurried back to the Halsson cabin.

When they burst through the door into the pale blue LED light Lewis caught a glimpse of Langstrom’s expression before he put on a mask from his bag. That brief look told him everything he needed to know about how serious this was.

The surgeon quickly pulled on gloves as well, not latex but thick rubber that could be sterilized after use, then entered the room and made his way over to Lucas. “Describe where the break is for me,” he said briskly, ignoring the older man’s tearstained face and shuddering sobs.

With Lucas’s help he pinpointed which rib was broken. He was kind enough not to try to confirm it by touch, which would’ve only caused more pain. “Lewis, get a clean cloth and pack some snow into it,” he said in the same brisk tone. “I’d like to try to reduce the swelling. Then we need to tape it if you have any available. I realize athletic tape is probably too much to ask, but packing or masking tape isn’t bad. Duct tape will work but, well, it’s going on skin.”