Chapter 8 - Dr. Bennett Was Careful
My follow-up appointment was six days later.
Dr. Bennett wasn't technically my ongoing doctor, but he had asked to review the radiology addendum before I left the ER, and the orthopedic clinic was in the same hospital.
Jason did not come.
I asked Lauren.
She sat in the waiting room reading celebrity news on her phone and pretending not to watch me every time I shifted in the chair.
The wrist was healing where they expected.
The ribs would take longer.
I asked about the older fracture.
The physician pulled up the images.
“Radiology describes healing consistent with an older injury.”
“How much older?”
“Several weeks, possibly longer. Bone healing isn't a stopwatch.”
“Could it be July twelfth?”
“It could.”
“Could it be Thanksgiving?”
“Less likely for that specific fracture, based on healing.”
I breathed out.
Good.
One answer.
Then:
“Was there anything older?”
She pointed to another area.
“There are signs of a prior healed injury here.”
My stomach tightened.
“How old?”
“Long enough that today's scan isn't going to date it precisely.”
I thought about Thanksgiving.
She continued before I could decide.
“And I want to be careful. A prior healed fracture doesn't tell us who caused it.”
“I know.”
“Do you remember a fall last winter?”
I did.
Immediately.
Ice outside my office.
I had gone down hard near the parking structure.
My shoulder and back hurt for days.
Margaret had been in Florida.
I almost laughed from relief.
The doctor frowned.
“What's funny?”
“Nothing.”
But it wasn't nothing.
For a week I had been looking backward at every bruise as though Margaret might own it.
She didn't.
Some accidents were still accidents.
Some pain had no villain.
That distinction mattered.
Then the physician said:
“The healing rib fracture is different because you remember a specific incident in the relevant period.”
“July.”
“Yes.”
“Could the washing machine impact have caused it?”
“It is possible.”
“Can you prove it?”
“No.”
I appreciated her immediately.
She did not turn medicine into certainty it could not support.
Then she said:
“The ER note also mentioned concern about the number of injuries you've described over the last year.”
I stiffened.
“I fell on ice.”
“Yes.”
“And down stairs.”
“Yes.”
“That's two.”
“And the laundry-room impact.”
“Three.”
“The pantry incident did not necessarily cause a fracture.”
“I know.”
She waited.
I heard myself.
Too defensive.
Not of Margaret.
Of my own ability to understand my life.
The physician said:
“You don't need every old injury to be connected before the incidents you've described matter.”
I looked down.
My wrist brace rested against my lap.
She asked whether I had a safe place to recover.
“Yes.”
“Is your mother-in-law staying in your home?”
“No.”
“Your husband?”
“No.”
That surprised her slightly.
“He's staying with a friend.”
“Was that your choice?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She didn't smile.
Didn't congratulate me.
She just entered the answer.
Before I left, she recommended follow-up with my primary doctor because the amount of injury from the stair fall had been significant.
Nothing on the images screamed a hidden bone disorder, she said, but if I had concerns about bone health, my regular physician could decide whether further evaluation was warranted.
No dark disease.
No medical twist that explained everything away.
I was almost disappointed.
A diagnosis would have been simpler.
Something inside my body making me fragile.
Instead, the most relevant finding was brutally ordinary.
Someone had shoved me.
More than once.
Outside the clinic, Lauren handed me coffee.
“Well?”
“One old injury was probably ice.”
She nodded.
“And?”
“The rib could be July.”
She stopped walking.
“Could.”
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“Does that change anything?”
I thought of Jason.
Of Margaret.
Of myself standing in the laundry room after hitting the machine and accepting an explanation from a man who had watched it happen.
“No.”
Then my phone buzzed.
Jason.
I almost ignored it.
The message read:
I gave a statement this morning.
I stared.
Lauren asked:
“To who?”
I called.
Jason answered.
“What statement?”
His voice sounded tired.
“The police.”
My chest tightened.
“Why?”
“Because you shouldn't have to decide whether I tell the truth.”
I said nothing.
Then he added:
“I told them about July too.”
May you like
And that created a new problem.
Because I still hadn't decided how much of our marriage I wanted turned into a case.
