“Goddamn,” I hissed. “That hurts!” The nurse, her name today was Angie although I would have called her Satan, put her hand to her mouth in mock horror.
“Language, Raven. There are kids here.” Her blue eyes crinkled in amusement as she held me by the gait belt tucked up near my armpits because it couldn’t be cinched lower on my belly.
I was in pajamas, the pair had gone on a shopping spree and bought me an entire wardrobe. Somehow, one of them had let it slip I was of royal blood. Ya think they’d want to keep my identity quiet in case Flora or her goons caught wind of my whereabouts.
Anyway, the day after I woke up, physical therapy came in and made me get up to walk the halls. Ten feet left me pale and shaking. That nerve block had worn off in pins and needles, then full sensation came back and that was a bitch. Made me cry into my pillow and when Nurse Peg came in my cubicle with the needle, I almost kissed her. She scolded me, told me not to wait till it got bad but to call her.
Now, Angie was bitching because I complained I was hurting. “Don’t be a baby,” she said. “All you did was stand up. Come on, you can walk, can’t you? Just to the end of the hallway.”
I looked. It was like a quarter mile. The end wavered. I wanted to wipe sweat off my forehead but was afraid to let go of her arms. Earlier that morning, I’d suffered through the packing procedure where the doctor had removed yards of soiled gauze from my belly and repacked with fresh antibiotic infused sponges, replacing the mesh that held my intestines in. Wrapped me with gauze and an ace bandage that was more like a back brace. After that, I rested. I’d kept my eyes closed the entire time, I had no desire to see what my insides looked like and only opened them when the doc told me he was finished. He had a soft voice and strong hands yet a delicate touch.
“You into sports, Raven?” he’d asked.
“No. I’m homeless,” I’d answered. He’d looked shocked.
“You don’t go to school, either?”
“I’m not illiterate,” I defended. “I study. Ask me anything.”
The next ten minutes he quizzed me on American History, Politics, Math and English and I only missed one answer, what year was the treaty signed by the Seminoles and the US Government. It was a trick question, the Seminoles to this date had never signed a treaty. Technically, they’re still at war with the US.
Murphy was a stickler for me keeping up with my lessons and was a font of trivial information.
Before I knew it, we were at the end of the corridor and on our way back where Corwin and Merlin waited with the wheelchair. The nurse had followed discretely behind chatting perkily with both of them, flirting even. I noticed that every female in the vicinity were interested in both men.
“Ready to go back to bed, Raven?” Merlin asked.
“Yeah,” I heaved a sigh. “Look, I don’t feel right calling you Dad. Or Gramps. Can I just call you Corey and Merle, like your friends? And where is that Ghost thing?”
“You call us whatever you’re comfortable with, Raven. Bill has been busy getting your birth certificate, passport, ID so you can be legal on this Shadow if you make that choice,” Corey said as he pushed me into my new room, still on the PEDS floor but out of the ICU.
Carefully, I kicked the leg rest out, stood up and transferred to the bed. Both of them helped me lift my legs up onto the mattress. I still had that line in my dick so peeing wasn’t a problem, I wore a bag on my leg so I could go places. At night, one of the nurses switched it over to the bigger one that hung underneath. Talk about embarrassed, nothing like having an older woman messing with your junk. They were really anal about how much was going in and coming out. Except for crapping, I still wasn’t on solid food so I didn’t have to use the bedpan.
“When can I have a shower?” I mumbled.
“Not until your belly’s closed up. I’m sure one of the nurses would love to give you a bed bath,” Merle grinned.
I gave him a dirty look and lowered the head. Closed my eyes and rested my hands on my chest.
“Looks like he’s laid out in a funeral home, doesn’t he, Dad?” Merle snickered. “Oh, Ghost is here, on my finger till I need him.”
“Aren’t you the King of the Courts?” I asked grumpily. “So, who’s minding your throne while you’re gone?”
“Ministers. I like to delegate,” he turned to his father. “Dad, where is Raven going to recuperate? I don’t think the Courts is the safest place for him, he doesn’t seem to have an...alter ego.”
“Alter ego?” I questioned.
“Murphy has another form, the gargoyle. Well, so do the people who live in the Courts, a demon form, sort of,” Merle explained.
I opened one eye. That was interesting. “Can you show me?”
“Not here. It’s a bit large for these surrounding, not to mention scary.”
“Cool. Can you change too, Corey?”
“Only my underwear,” he said and I laughed.
“Will you bring me something to read? Maybe some crosswords or a chess set?” I asked sleepily.
The nurse knocked and stuck her head in. “Mind if I hook him back up to his feeding? Then, I’ll be back to take him to his dye test. You can wait here or come with,” she offered. “It takes about 15 minutes. If it’s good, you can have beef soup and tea, Raven. Interesting name, that.”
“Whoopee,” I said. Closed my eye and before I knew it, I was sound asleep. She had to wake me up for dinner, the results of the contrast test were good, nothing was leaking and the pictures showed the dye streaking for the finish line.
I drank the whole cup of unsweetened tea and half a cup of beef consomme. I hated to admit it but it tasted a lot better than I expected and filled me up faster, too. I went right back to sleep after and didn’t notice when both of them left.
I woke twice during the night when the nurses came in to check on me. Once she popped me with a pain shot and my head got all floaty. The next time it was the new shift changing and the nurse was so fine, a redhead with freckles and blue eyes only a few years older than me. Her name was Penny and she was from Australia, her accent was just one more point to lust after.
Breakfast was more broth, chicken this time. I found it really salty but she let me have crackers in it, I managed to finish the whole bowl and two cups of hot tea.
Joy, joy. The head nurse said the doc had okayed the removal of the catheter and wanted me to start using the toilet. Still, I was supposed to keep track of how much pee I was making, they had one of those ‘hats’ in the bowl. These people were freakishly interested in my body fluids.
Just my luck, it wasn’t the cute nurse that took the damn thing out but some guy. I know he was a nurse and all but it creeped me out that a guy was touching me there.
Blood suckers were next and then the dude that looked at my stomach, poked around and read my chart. They had one of those dry-erase boards with my name, room number, diet and vitals, the nurse’s name, my aides, techs and doctor on duty written in plain view. The date I saw, with astonishment indicated that Christmas was only a week away.
“Is there a tree?” I asked and the doc nodded.
“Real pretty blue spruce in the lobby and another artificial tree at the nurse’s station. Want to see?”
He wasn’t the surgeon who had cut me open but a student trailing the doctor, he looked like a big farm kid from a corn state. Slowly, I emptied myself from the bed into the chair and we made an early morning detour to the nurses station where an improbable neon blue tree was dressed in three different garlands, glass balls, bows, lights and candles with candy canes and an Angel at the very top. It was tacky and beautiful, something I had seen only once before and wished for these last thirteen years. Had never had being homeless and poor. No one had ever given me a Christmas present and only Murphy had ever celebrated my birthday.
“I’ve never had a Christmas,” I said wistfully.
He studied me curiously. “Your dad and grandfather didn’t raise you?” I knew he was seeing their designer suits, expensive outerwear and gold watches. They certainly didn’t appear deprived.
“No, I was...I only found them a few weeks ago. My mom died when I was three. My...uncle raised me.”
“Where is he? How did you get hurt?” He pointed to my stomach.
“My aunt did it. Feud with the rest of the family,” I explained. “Her...pit bull caught me with it’s claws.”
“Huh. Doesn’t look like a dog tear. Was it tested for rabies?”
“I dunno. I guess so. I want to go back to my room.”
He brought me back and I spent the next couple of hours playing with the cable TV. TV wasn’t something I had much use for. There were sets in the shelter but mostly, they were programmed on religious channels and my knowledge of series was nearly nil. Although I had seen some episodes of The Voice and the Sci-Fi hit Dominion.
Murphy would let me use the local libraries and I’d watched videos on their computers seeing some episodes of Game of Thrones and Homeland. Been hooked but it’s real hard to follow a series when you’re homeless. I read, though. Every book I could get my hands on and Murphy didn’t censor anything. If it was in print, I could read it and I did. From Voltaire to the Iliad, to Koontz and Child, Lee, Sandford, Faust, Dickens and Montaigne. He asked me to tell him the gist of each novel and asked questions on the contents. We discussed each book and made me defend my opinions so that I learned both the broad view and the narrow. I was amazed at the depth and breadth of Murphy’s knowledge.
Needless to say, I was in hog heaven watching the cable channels although my attention span was only about twenty minutes before I fell asleep.