Before I Wake Read Online Free Page B

forefinger, timing her pulse with his wristwatch. Untucking the stethoscope from his pocket, he gently folded back the bedclothes and raised the gown she was wearing.
    I stepped back a little, tasting bile. Her body seemed to be a mess of bruises, mottled black and purple, bandaged in places.
    He noticed me staring. “It’s not as bad as it looks. Just bruises, from the impact of the truck and from the fall.”
    I nodded.
    â€œWe’ve bandaged up the worst of the contusions. They’ll clear up pretty quickly. Nothing to worry about there…” He snapped the stethoscope in his ears and leaned over her, placing the cold metal disc just under Sherry’s left nipple. He stared out into the middle distance as he listened, moved the stethoscope and stared into the distance again.
    He nodded slowly as he straightened up, lowering Sherry’s gown and tucking her back in.
    Then he carefully lifted her eyelid with his thumb, moving the forefinger of his other hand slowly across her line of vision before taking a small light from his pocket and following the path of his finger with it.
    He slid the light back into his pocket and made his notations in her file before he spoke. “Well, all of her vital signs are stable. Her heartbeat is a little slow and her temperature is a bit high, but that’s to be expected.”
    â€œWill she…” The words were out of my mouth before I realized it, and I wished immediately that I could take them back.
    â€œWill she be all right?” he asked.
    I nodded.
    He took the briefest of moments before he spoke.
    â€œIt’s still too early to say, one way or another. We just don’t know.” He shrugged. “But we are going to do everything in our power to ensure Sherilyn’s full recovery. Everything we can do.”
    I smiled wanly at him.
    â€œOkay?”
    I nodded. “Okay.”
    â€œGood. Now I’m going to get you some dinner and we’ll see to it that you get a cot in here.” He turned toward the door but then stopped. “I want you to take care of yourself, okay?”
    I nodded again.
    Â 
    File of Barrett, Sherilyn Amber
4/24 18:25
    Notes: bp 90/60, P 54. Pupils sluggishly reactive. Glasgow Coma Scale 6. Low grade fever. Bibasilar rales and increasing oxygen requirements. Possible early ventilator associated pneumonia. Start ceftriaxone and gatifloxacin now.
    S. McKinley
    Â 
    KAREN
    I pulled the chair to the foot of Sherry’s bed and angled it so that I would be able to see when Simon returned. I looked up every time someone passed the open doorway. Nurses wouldstop and glance in, ask me if I wanted anything. An orderly brought dinner, covered with a plastic lid, and left it on the table without a word.
    I waited for my husband, listening to the machine breathe for my daughter.
    â€œMrs. Barrett?” The man in the doorway was a dark shadow against the bright lights from the corridor.
    â€œYes?”
    He took several steps into the room, a tall stranger in a black coat, clutching a battered brown book to his chest. The light from above Sherry’s bed reflected off the smoothness of his head, from the wire rims of his glasses and from the white of his clerical collar.
    â€œMrs. Barrett, I’m—”
    â€œNo.” I shook my head. “No. We don’t need you here.”
    He let the hand holding his Bible fall to his side. “Mrs. Barrett—”
    â€œI’m no longer in the Church,” I said.
    He nodded. “I understand. But faith can be a comfort and a source of guidance in these times.”
    I shook my head. “Did my mother call you? Did she?” Calling a priest to come to the hospital was exactly the sort of thing my mother would do.
    â€œNo, I was making my rounds.”
    â€œPlease…I don’t need you. We don’t need you.”
    He nodded as if he had heard that response before. “There’s a chapel here, if you change your