Wrangled (14 page)

“Please,” I answered. “No one has answered
me straight when I ask if he’ll be okay. Why? Please tell me straight. Not
knowing is worse than hearing bad news.”

“Very well. Your son sustained multiple
bites from a prairie rattlesnake. The good news is that this particular snake
didn’t have the Mojave toxin, so there’s a good chance your son will recover
fully.”

The breath whooshed out of me so fast that
I got dizzy, even though I was still lying down.

“Are you all right?” the doctor asked.

“Yes, go on.”

“Unfortunately, it may be a long recovery
process. We’ve run into a few problems that I’d like to address. First, we
think he’ll have a better chance to avoid kidney damage if we put him on
dialysis. We need your consent to do that.”

“Tell me what it means, in simple terms if
you will. And then I’ll sign the consent papers.”

“All right, I’ll have a technician come and
explain it to you. The other thing we need is his dad.”

“What? Why?”

“When they took your blood this morning,
didn’t they tell you he has a rare blood type? Yours doesn’t match.”

“How can that be? I’m his mom.”

“Well, put simply, some of his genes, the
molecular level code that tells his body whether to grow tall or short, whether
to be a blond or a brunette, all of that, come from you, and some come from his
dad. Since his blood type and yours don’t match, that must have come from his
dad. We would like to give him a blood transfusion right away to cut down on the
amount of poison that’s circulating. So, we need his dad.”

I stared at him, frightened out of my wits.
“Isn’t there another option?”

“Is there a problem, Mrs. Nielsen?”

“Yes, there’s a problem. His dad’s in an
Arizona prison. He can’t come here.” I wondered if I had just uttered my son’s
death sentence.

The doctor frowned and didn’t speak for a
minute. “Okay, we’ll send to Casper or Cheyenne for it. Don’t worry, Mrs.
Nielsen, the dialysis will help a lot. I apologize, I didn’t know about your
husband.”

“We’re divorced,” I said, automatically. It
was always easier to say that than explain the whole bizarre truth.

“I see. Do you have any more questions,
Mrs. Nielsen?”

“No. Thank you doctor. So, he’s going to be
fine?”

“We can hope so. There can be complications,
but we’ve done everything we can to prevent them, and you did get him here in
less than an hour after he was bitten. That’s a big plus.”

The doctor left, then, and I was left alone
to think about all of the things that could have gone wrong, or that had gone
wrong. If we had been out in the desert somewhere, instead of at the ranch, or
if Russ hadn’t called ahead to guarantee the bill, since we had no insurance
yet. But worst of all was the legacy that Al’s father had left him, a rare
blood type that wasn’t on hand here where he needed it, and that I didn’t
match. That made me sick. I hated that he even had his father’s name, or that I
went by it so there would be no confusion.

~~~

We had been through the dialysis and
settled in a room in the intensive care unit when a commotion outside let me
know that my family had arrived. By this time, I no longer needed the gurney or
the vital signs monitor. I’d been discharged, though of course they allowed me
to stay with my son through all of his treatments. In addition to the dialysis,
they had given him several more vials of anti-venom. I learned later that in
the first twenty-four hours, he’d had over thirty vials, and that while I slept
in those jerky, interrupted periods, the staff at the hospital had fought for
Al’s life harder than I knew. When I asked why he stayed asleep most of the
time, they said it was because of the pain medications. I was glad. At least my
baby wasn’t in much pain, as far as we could tell.

I got up from the chair where I was watching
him sleep, and went into the hall to shush the girls. To my surprise, Tali was
in Celeste’s arms, and only Ciara was with her.

“Where are Amber and Janey?” I asked.

“In the courtyard entertaining the kids.
We’ll switch off in a little while, but we thought you’d want to see Tali. My
little girl was staring at me with big round blue eyes, her thumb in her mouth.
When I reached for her, she made no move to come to me. Stung, I fought back
tears and said, “Celeste, what’s wrong with her?”

“She’s ready for her nap, but also, have
you looked in a mirror?” Her tone was grim.

“No, why?”

“Go look.”

I stepped into a restroom just a few doors
down, and for the first time since we’d arrived, looked up at myself in the
mirror. What I saw shocked me and made me understand too well why Tali wouldn’t
come to me. My long blonde hair, pinned up in a topknot and bun neatly
yesterday morning, was sticking out in stiff, dirty strands from the mess that
had been the bun. My eyes had such deep, dark circles around them that it
appeared I had two black eyes, and I looked like I’d aged ten years. Horrified,
I started pulling pins out and finger-combing my hair as best I could. If Al
woke up and saw this face, it might scare him back into unconsciousness. Tali
had been brave not to cry.

When I came back out, Celeste was standing
at the door with a brush. I took it and went back inside. Fighting the snarls
in it, I managed to get my hair under control, though it still looked greasy to
me. It wouldn’t look better until I could get a shower and wash it. Newly aware
of my condition, I also realized I smelled pretty rank. Though I was torn about
it, I could see that I was going to have to go home and get cleaned up, and
soon. I went back out into the hall.

“Celeste, do you think…”

“Yes. I called in for me the same time I
called your office this morning. I’m off tonight, and I’ll sit with Alma while
you go home and get cleaned up and spend some quality time with Tali. Then you
can come back and trade places with me.”

I hadn’t even thought about work. Consumed
with guilt, before I left the hospital I called Mr. Clark. “I’m so sorry! I
wasn’t in very good shape to remember to call this morning,” I confessed.

“Annalee, don’t you worry about that. How’s
your little man?” he responded.

“He’s holding his own, thank you. The
doctor says it may be a long recovery. I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m sorry our benefits didn’t include
health insurance, Annalee. I know it’s going to be rough, and you can’t afford
to be off for very long. If you can make arrangements for after, I can give you
this week off with pay.”

“Oh, thank you so much!” I breathed. I
never expected that kind of concern from my employer. I liked him well enough,
and he seemed like a nice guy, but he didn’t have to do that. I remembered my
real estate licensing exam, scheduled for Thursday, and told him I’d be sure to
get there. I was going to have to rely on my sisters, all of them, not just
Celeste, but that was one good thing about a big family. There was always
someone you could count on.

Who I couldn’t count on was my children’s
father, serving a five-year sentence in Arizona for sexual intercourse with a
minor under fifteen, Amber being the primary complainant because she was only
fourteen when Jed brought her into the covenant. The judge was inclined to add
the one-year sentence that each of the rest of us would have brought,
consecutively, but didn’t want to give Jed a reason to appeal. If I had
anything to say about it, he would never see Al or Tali again, but it could be
a legal fight if he chose to make it one.

For some reason, though it was the one
thing he didn’t choose to do to us, the thing I was maddest about was his
genetic contribution to Al, his AB-negative blood type. It meant that I could
never give blood directly to Al, since I was O-positive. The doctor explained
that only in the rarest of emergencies would they do a direct transfusion
anyway, since most of the time they’d want to be sure  someone’s blood was
safe. They had only considered it for Alma because of his dangerous situation.
I would need to have Tali’s blood tested, too, to save time if an emergency
ever arose for her.

I also couldn’t count on Cody, but I’d
forced myself to put any thoughts of him aside in the month we’d been away from
the ranch. As far as I knew, Cody and I were over. So it annoyed me when my
thoughts constantly turned to the wish that he were here to hold me, to tell me
it would be okay, and to tease and reassure Al like he used to when he played
with the kids. I mentally kicked myself for letting them get close to him. They
didn’t really remember their biological father, but they missed Cody.

It was a shock almost as bad as seeing Al
in pain on the ground when I learned that he may have to stay in the hospital
for as much as a month. Even though it was a not-for-profit hospital, the bills
were going to be staggering, and we had no insurance. My salary and the fact
that I was sharing a house with Celeste meant that we weren’t eligible for
Medicaid; I made too much money. But, like many low-income people, I didn’t
make enough to afford insurance. I was still trying to sort things like that
out, and hadn’t yet signed up for the affordable health care alternative. I had
three months to do it, I thought, and there were so many other things to take
care of. Now we were in big trouble for money, as well as needing the support
of all my family to be with Al in the hospital once I needed to go back to
work.

By Thursday, the date of my real estate
licensing exam, I had more or less pulled myself together. Ciara, Janey and
Amber had worked out a schedule for one of them to be with Celeste and me at
all times, while the others took care of all the children, including Tali, at
the ranch. While I worked and Celeste followed her usual schedule, one of the
others was there with Al in the hospital. Then she’d babysit Daniel while I
took over the hospital shift. Al continued to be sedated quite heavily, so
after nine p.m. we left him to sleep, though I worried about him every minute I
wasn’t with him. I even managed to study some for my exam while sitting with Al
while he slept.

So, on Thursday morning, I took the car and
drove to the exam venue in Casper, determined to pass the first time. I needed
to be able to make some serious money, and this was the quickest pathway I had
available. I finished the multiple-choice exam in less than half the time they
gave me, worried that I hadn’t paid enough attention to the questions. But, I
had learned with the GED prep studies with our tutor that more often than not
when I second-guessed a multiple-choice answer, I had the right one in the
first place. So, I took a deep breath, turned in the flash drive with my
answers, and drove back home to see my baby and wait.

It would be two weeks before I’d have the
results of my exam. Knowing that I needed something to sustain me in that time,
and exhausted from the ordeal with Al, I took Janey back to the ranch and
handed over the keys to the car to Ciara. I was going to spend the weekend with
Tali, and Ciara would be back to trade places with Amber by the time I was
ready to go home.

I didn’t even think about Cody being there,
since most weekends were devoted to rodeos. But there he was, unloading Abo
from the horse trailer as we drove up. He looked up, saw me through the window
and waved as if he hadn’t even noticed I wasn’t living at the ranch anymore. My
heart lurched at the sight of him, tall and handsome as always, with that
slight squint against the Wyoming summer sun, and knew I was in trouble. I
still wanted him, so badly. All the weeks of trying to forget had been a waste
of time.

Cody ambled over as I parked the car, and
leaned on the roof before I could open the door. Janey glanced from him to me
and jumped out of the car, saying she’d see me later. I couldn’t ask her to
stay without raising a question in Cody’s mind, so I let her go and steeled
myself to speak to Cody.

“Hi. How’ve you been?” I said, taking the
bull by the horns.

“Not so good. I hear little Al was
snake-bit. How’s he doin’?” Why that should concern him escaped me, but I did
the polite thing and answered.

“He’s holding his own, that’s all. Not much
progress yet. He was bitten several times.” A tear rolled down my cheek as I
thought of Al and wondered if he’d miss me while I was out here with Tali. He
didn’t respond much when I would arrive at the hospital and kiss his little
face, and it broke my heart. But the nurses assured me that it was just the
meds they were giving him to keep him comfortable and to counteract the venom.

“God, Annalee, that’s plumb awful. I’m so
sorry it happened.” Cody looked genuinely sorry, thawing my heart toward him a little.

“Thank you. Cody? I think you guys owe Bill
an apology. There must be a rattler nest somewhere near the corral, and that
must have been what spooked Abo last year.”

A thoughtful expression crossed his face as
he answered, “You could be right. We’d better try to find it before somethin’
else happens. I’ll talk to Russ.”

“Okay, that’s good. I need to get into the
house, I haven’t seen Tali in days. See you at dinner.”

“Wait, Annalee, don’t I get a kiss or a hug
or nothin’?” He had opened the door and was holding out his hand to help me out
of the car.