Ron Rash - Chemistry and Other Stories

Pemberton opened his eyes and looked out the window and it was as if the train were crossing the bottom of a deep clear lake, everything slowed by the density of water — Campbell entered the office to call the hospital, workers came out of the dining hall to watch the engine and lead car pull away. Chaney emerged from the stable, his half arm flopping uselessly as he ran after the train.

By the time the train pulled into the depot, the towel was saturated. Serena had not made a sound the whole way, and now she’d lapsed into unconsciousness. Two orderlies in white helped Serena off the train and into the waiting ambulance. Pemberton and the hospital doctor got in as well. The doctor, a man in his early eighties known for his bluntness, lifted the soggy towel and cursed.

“Why in God’s name wasn’t she brought sooner?” the doctor said. “She’s going to need blood, a lot of it and fast. What’s her blood type?”

Pemberton did not know and Serena was past telling anyone.

“Same as mine,” Pemberton said.

Once in the hospital emergency room, Pemberton and Serena lay side by side on metal gurneys, thin feather pillows cushioning their heads. The doctor rolled up Pemberton’s sleeve and shunted his forearm with the needle, then did the same to Serena. They were connected now by three feet of rubber hose, the olive-shaped pump blooming in the tubing’s center. The doctor squeezed the pump. Satisfied, he motioned for the nurse to take it and stand in the narrow space between the gurneys.

“Every thirty seconds,” the doctor told her. “Any faster and the vein can collapse.”

The doctor stepped around the gurney to minister to Serena as the nurse squeezed the rubber pump, checked the wall clock until half a minute passed, and squeezed again.

Pemberton raised his shunted arm and gripped the nurse’s wrist with his hand.

“I’ll pump the blood,” he said.

“I don’t think …” the nurse said.

Pemberton tightened his grip, enough that the nurse gasped. She opened her hand and let him take the pump.

Pemberton watched the clock and when fifteen seconds had passed he squeezed the rubber. He did so again, listening for the hiss and suck of his blood passing through the tube. But there was no sound, just as there was no way to see his blood coursing through the dark-gray tubing. Each time he squeezed, Pemberton closed his eyes so he could imagine the blood pulsing from his arm into Serena’s and from there up through the vein and into her heart, imagined the heart itself expanding as it refilled with blood.

Pemberton turned his head toward her. He listened to her soft inhalations and matched his breathing exactly to hers. He became light-headed, no longer able to focus enough to read the clock or follow the words passing between the doctor and nurses. Pemberton squeezed the pump, his hand unable to close completely around it. He listened to his and Serena’s one breath, even as he felt the needle being pulled from his forearm, heard the wheels of Serena’s gurney as it rolled away. He still heard their one breath, the pulsing engine of blood inside their veins.

PEMBERTON WAS STILL on the gurney when he awoke. The doctor loomed above, an orderly beside him.

“Let us help you up,” the doctor said, and the two men raised Pemberton to a sitting position. He felt the room darken for a few moments, then lighten.

“Where is Serena?” he asked. The words came out halting and raspy, as if he had not spoken in months. He directed his eyes toward the clock until he was able to focus enough to read it. Had one been on the wall, he would have checked a calendar to know the day and month. He closed his eyes a few moments and raised forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. He opened his eyes and things seemed clearer.

“Where is Serena?” Pemberton said again.

“In the other wing,” the doctor said.

Pemberton gripped the gurney’s edge, prepared to stand up, but the orderly placed a firm hand on Pemberton’s knee.

“Her constitution is quite remarkable,” the doctor said, “so unless something unforeseen occurs, she’ll live. But the baby is dead. And your wife’s uterus, it’s lacerated through the cervix.”

“And that means what?” Pemberton asked.

“That you and she can have no more children.”

“But she will live?”

“Yes,” the doctor said. “She will live.”

The orderly and doctor helped Pemberton off the gurney.

“You gave a lot of blood,” the doctor said. “Too much, so be careful. You could pass out.”

“Which room?” Pemberton asked.

“Forty-one,” the doctor said. “Crenshaw here can go with you.”

“I can find it,” Pemberton said and walked slowly toward the door, past the corner table where nothing now lay.

He stepped out of the emergency room and down the corridor. The hospital’s two wings were connected by the main lobby, and as Pemberton passed through he saw Campbell sitting by the front doorway. The highlander rose from his chair as Pemberton approached.

“Leave the car here for me and take the train back to camp,” Pemberton said. “Make sure the crews are working and then go by the sawmill, make sure there are no problems there.”

Campbell took the Packard’s keys from his pocket. As Pemberton turned to leave Campbell spoke.

“If there’s someone asks about how Mrs. Pemberton and the young one is doing, what do you want me to say?”

“That Mrs. Pemberton is going to be fine.”

Campbell nodded but did not move.

“What else?” Pemberton asked.

“Dr. Carlyle, he rode into town with me,” Campbell said.

Pemberton tried to keep his voice level.

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know. He said he was going to get Mrs. Pemberton some flowers but he ain’t come back.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Three hours.”

“I’ve got some business with him I’ll settle later,” Pemberton said.

“You ain’t the only one,” Campbell said as he reached to open the door.

Pemberton stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Who else?”

“Chaney. He come by a hour ago asking where Dr. Carlyle was.”

Pemberton took his hand off Campbell’s shoulder and the worker went on out the door. Pemberton walked across the lobby and up the opposite corridor, reading the black door numbers until he reached Serena’s room.

She was still unconscious when he came in, so he pulled up a chair beside her bed and waited. As late morning and afternoon passed, Pemberton listened to her breath, watched the slow return of color to her face. The drugs kept Serena in a drifting stupor, her eyes occasionally opening but unfocused. A nurse brought him lunch and then supper. Only when the last sunlight had drained from the room’s one window did Serena’s eyes open and find Pemberton’s. She seemed fully cognizant, which surprised the nurse because the morphine drip was still in her arm. The nurse checked the drip to make sure it was operating and then left. Pemberton turned in his chair to face her. He slid his right hand under Serena’s wrist, let his fingers clasp around it like a bracelet.

She turned her head to better see him, her words a whisper.

“The child is dead?”

“Yes.”

Serena studied Pemberton’s face a few moments.

“What else?”

“We won’t be able to have another child.”

She remained silent a few moments, and Pemberton wondered if the drugs were taking hold again but then Serena spoke.

“Better this way, just us. We should have known so from the very start.”

Pemberton nodded and squeezed Serena’s wrist, felt again the strong pulse of their blood.

V

On an evening three weeks later the sun’s last light soaked into the western ridgetops. Night thickened but offered no stars, only a rising moon pale as bone. Pemberton and Serena ate alone in the office’s back room. Serena had ridden out to supervise the crews for five days now. Her face was haggard evenings when she returned, but the clothes no longer hung loose. She’d taken the eagle with her that morning, which Pemberton believed the surest sign of her recovery.