The Night My Nephew Called Me

The doctor

I did not get to say what I wanted to say next, because the curtain moved and the attending physician came in. She was maybe forty, dark hair pulled back, reading glasses pushed up on her head, and she had a way of moving that was calm and unhurried and completely in control of the room, which I recognized, because good medics move that way too. Her badge said Dr. Alvarez.

She looked at the chart, then at all of us, and something in the way her eyes went around the room told me she had already made some decisions.

“I’d like to keep him a little longer for observation,” she said. “Just to be careful. And I need to do a few more checks.” Then she turned to Sharon and Wayne, polite as could be, and said, “Would the two of you mind stepping out to the waiting area for a bit? We’re tight on space back here and I’ve got another patient coming into the next bay.”

It was smoothly done. It did not sound like anything. But I have moved people out of a room before when I needed them out of a room, and I knew exactly what I was watching.

Wayne did not like it. I saw it flick across his face before he covered it. “I can stay,” he said. “I’m his dad.”

“It’s hospital policy when we’re doing the additional checks,” Dr. Alvarez said, pleasant and immovable. “It won’t be long.”

Sharon touched Wayne’s arm, and the two of them went out through the curtain, and I heard their steps go off down the hall. Wayne’s phone was already coming back out of his pocket.

Then Dr. Alvarez turned to me. “You’re the uncle?”

“Roy Latham. His dad was my brother.” My voice did something I did not expect, caught for a second. “His dad passed. Four years ago.”

She nodded slowly, and something in her face softened and hardened at the same time. “Would you stay with him?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She looked at Cody, and she said, gentle, “Bud, I’m going to go check on a couple things. Your uncle’s going to sit right here.” Then she looked back at me, and she lowered her voice, and she said the thing the triage nurse had been handing me sideways an hour before.

“The injury pattern,” she said carefully, “doesn’t fully line up with a fall. There are some inconsistencies. I’ve made a note. I want you to understand that I’m required to make certain calls when I see what I’m seeing.” She held my eyes. “I think you already understand me.”

I did. God help me, I did.

She stepped out, and the curtain settled, and it was just me and my brother’s son under the buzzing lights.

What he actually said

I did not pounce. Thirty-one years taught me that a frightened person does not open up to pressure, they open up to safety. So I did not stand over him. I pulled the little rolling stool over next to the bed and I sat down low, lower than him, so he was looking down at me instead of up, and I put my hand on the blanket near his good hand, not grabbing it, just there.

“Cody,” I said quiet. “It’s just us now. Nobody’s coming in. You called me because you needed to tell me something. So tell me. I’ve got all night and I’m not going anywhere and there is nothing you can say that will make me leave. You understand? Nothing.”

He started to cry. Not loud. The worst kind, the kind that a kid tries to hold back so it comes out in these tight little pulls of breath. I have seen grown men cry like that at scenes, when they are trying to be strong in front of somebody and it is not working.

“It wasn’t the bike,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “I knew when you called me. Take your time.”