Chapter 2 - THE CAST HE WANTED
Greg drove me to Morgan Foot and Ankle Clinic three hours later.
He insisted on coming inside.
By then, my toes had turned dark beneath the swelling. Nurse Kelly helped me into an examination chair and asked what happened.
“I fell.”
The answer came automatically.
I had spent years learning how to make terrible things sound ordinary.
Greg stood near the door with his arms crossed.
“She’s always rushing,” he said. “She trips over everything.”
Dr. Elise Morgan entered wearing a white coat over blue scrubs. I had met her only a few times at my sister Rachel’s house, but she recognized me immediately.
She did not reveal that we knew each other well enough for Rachel to have once mentioned concerns about my marriage.
Dr. Morgan examined the swelling without reacting to Greg’s commentary. When she pressed gently near the base of my toes, I nearly came off the chair.
“We need X-rays,” she said.
Greg checked his watch.
“How long is that going to take?”
“As long as my patient requires.”
He disliked the answer.
When the images appeared, the room changed.
Three toes were fractured. One break was displaced. The pattern extended across the top of the foot in separate points of impact rather than one direction expected from a simple stumble.
Dr. Morgan enlarged the scans.
Then she asked Greg to wait outside while the nurse prepared the medical boot.
“I’m her husband.”
“And I’m her physician.”
He remained still for several seconds before leaving.
The door closed.
Dr. Morgan pulled a stool closer.
“How did this really happen?”
I looked at the blurred scan on the monitor.
Greg believed the cast would make me dependent.
Instead, it became the first visible thing I could no longer explain away.
“He stomped on my foot,” I whispered.
May you like
Dr. Morgan did not interrupt.
So I kept going.
