4

By the time her parents arrived, Lacey was in surgery. The doctor didn’t even end up using a speculum. Once she was unconscious, he took one good look at her, and decided she needed more than he could do in that exam room.

She didn’t let go of my hand even as she went under, and so I had to pry her fingers off. They were bruised and bloody. Her right forefinger was missing a nail. The other nails,

carefully polished the night before in a pretty white, were ragged and broken.

Poor baby. She had put up a hell of a fight.

I stayed in that exam room after she left, filling out paperwork, signing forms giving my permission for the surgery, knowing none of it was legal, but also knowing that Franklin would arrive soon and redo everything.

The nurses didn’t talk to me while they cleaned up, and I was grateful. It took all of my strength to concentrate on the forms. They floated in front of me, small type against a white background, asking for things I didn’t know.

But I did sign the consent form. That was the one the nurses were the most concerned with. They needed it before Lacey went into surgery, a procedure I didn’t remember from any previous time I’d been around a hospital. I seemed to recall surgery first and signatures later.

Most of the time, however, I either wasn’t related to the patient or I was the patient, too ill to sign anything.

This time, I still had trouble. My shaking hand nearly wrote William T. Dalton, my real legal name. I stopped at the top of the T, leaving it off at the very last minute. I was not William T. Grimshaw, not according to my driver’s license. I was William Grimshaw, no middle initial, and that was how I had signed everything for the past two years.

The fact that I nearly blew my own cover showed how shaken I truly was.

After I signed the consent form and they whisked Lacey away, I sat for a few minutes, my hand over my face. I’d seen a lot in my life, I’d lived through a lot, and none of it had hit me like this—not as an adult, anyway.

Maybe it was the last straw after the difficult year. Maybe it was Lacey’s pretty face, swelling and bruised, her eyes unfocused and terrified.

Maybe it was simply the fact that I knew that little girl, that little arrogant reckless intelligent girl, would never be the same.

I blinked hard against my palm, swallowed several times, and nearly jumped out of my chair when a hand touched my shoulder.

I whirled, ready to do battle, but it was only the first nurse, the thirtyish one. She was looking at me with great compassion.

“She’ll be all right, Mr. Grimshaw. Doctor Fahey is one of our best.”

I shook my head, not sure I could trust my voice. I swallowed again, cleared my throat, and nearly contradicted her. But I couldn’t even speak what I was thinking.

“Thank you,” I said, and meant it. “Thank you for helping her.”

“Young thing like that,” the nurse said softly. “All that Civil Rights stuff hasn’t changed everything, has it?”

It took me a moment to understand her meaning. Black women had gotten raped through most of our history in the United States, first by the men who owned them, and then by the men who thought they were uppity.

“Oh,” I said, “things have changed a little. I could bring her here, and Doctor Fahey would help her, no questions asked.”

The nurse smiled. I realized then that she had gotten me out of myself, made me think about something else, at least for a moment. I wasn’t used to being seen so clearly, but then, I wasn’t used to being this emotionally close to the edge, either.

“She will be all right, Mr. Grimshaw,” the nurse said with a lot of conviction. “She’s got those little boys who came to her defense, and she’s got you. She’s got a good family. That will help.”

I almost said, It hasn’t helped so far, but I realized that wasn’t true. Bad things happened to everyone, and Lacey was in the hospital because of her family. Because of Jimmy, who had had the presence of mind to save her.

Jimmy, who was still being strong somewhere outside of the emergency area.

I couldn’t rely on an eleven-year-old forever.

I thanked the nurse and finished the paperwork, feeling a little calmer. Or at least, superficially calmer. I had set the emotions to one side. I would deal with them once we knew what had happened to Lacey and how it had happened so close to the school.

I had a lot of questions, and I was going to need a lot of answers.