Almost during the last hour of decision, the infection began to respond. There was a second operation in July, very delicate and intricate, close work with muscles, tendons, nerves, to achieve optimum functioning of the hand. He healed with such miraculous speed — a facility reserved to small healthy boys — that he was able to go back to the hospital for the final operation in late August, a relatively minor one to readjust repairs previously made in the index finger and thumb.
By the time he started school in the fall, the bandages were off. The hand was slightly but not obviously misshapen. The orthopedic surgeon was quietly proud of his work, of the restoration of an estimated 60 per cent of function. But Chris often wept with frustration at the hand that would not follow the commands of the mind and, when it did so, was so girlishly weak. He had a series of exercises that he tended to overdo. “By the time he is twelve, he will have eighty per cent function,” the doctor said. “Perhaps later it will become more. He will adjust, and never notice it.”
When your only son is injured, it is degrading to think of money. You get the money, somewhere, and you don’t think about it, at least very much. The hospitalization covered a small part of the expense. Ben had the optimistic feeling that he could recover the rest of it from the Department of Public Instruction. He had a local lawyer, Harold Crady, look into it.
Crady finally reported back. “I’ve been around and around on this thing, Ben. The insurance company takes the stand that their coverage does not extend past taking the kids to and from school, or on special instructional field trips. This was a picnic, not authorized by the company, and the bus was not being driven by a regular driver.”
“Who was driving it then?”
“The brother of Chris’ teacher. The Public Instruction people take the stand the bus was ‘borrowed’ without sufficient authorization. The driver has no personal liability coverage, and he hasn’t got dime one, Ben.”
“Then what do I do?”
Crady shrugged. “You could file suit against the Public Instruction Department and the insurance company and the driver.”
“You don’t sound enthusiastic.”
“Because I don’t think you’d get anywhere. You’d just be making a bad risk of more money, Ben. Take your loss. That’s the best thing you can do.”
Hospital, surgery, anesthesia, nurses, operating room, and outpatient care came to $3006.65. Hospitalization covered $401.20 of this total. It was particularly ironic that Harold Crady’s bill for legal services in the amount of $100 had to be considered a part of the expense of the accident. Ben Weldon raised the $2700. He cashed the last few Government bonds. He had been trying to forget that he owned them, so that he would leave them alone. He got a little over $900 for them. He borrowed against the cash value of his insurance, a final $1000, bringing his insurance borrowings to an even $4000, on which interest at 6 per cent was piling up, and leaving him a cash-value equity of a little over $100. He went down to the Lawton National Bank. His 180-day note had been whittled down to $1100. He paid the interest to date and had it rewritten for $2200, with the overage deposited in his checking account. Mr. Lathrop Hyde, the vice president, was cordial enough, but Ben Weldon thought he detected a certain reluctance, an almost imperceptible reserve and skepticism. There had been Hydes in Lawton Valley back when New York had been a full day’s trip away by carriage. He never could feel entirely at ease with what Ginny in her more irritable moments called the aborigines. They all seemed to have an emotional resentment toward the new people, which was at odds with their pleasure in making money out of the explosive growth of the area.
On leaving the bank Ben was uncomfortably aware that interest alone on his debts was costing him a little over a dollar a day, and all reserves were gone.
That night he and Ginny had to drive into the city to attend a theater party that was a professional obligation. Three couples from National Directions, with Ben the junior in rank, and the president of a client firm in Dallas and his wife, a Mr. and Mrs. Blessing.
Sometimes such evenings turned out to be fun, and Ginny had enjoyed many of them. But this night Mrs. Blessing relayed her apologies through her husband to the people she had never met. She was confined to her hotel bed. Something had upset her, possibly the New York City water. Mr. Blessing stated that Myrna was very sensitive about water. He was to go right ahead without her, and, clearly, he had been going ahead very effectively at the hotel bar.
Ben had been in conference with the man, and had admired the agility of Hank Blessing’s business brain. He was a big freckled man with a fringe of gray-red hair, small pale-gray eyes. In the present negotiations with National he was in the dealer’s chair and was capable of squeezing every last advantage out of it.
It astonished Ben that a man so coldly shrewd in conference could be such a total after-hours boor. Service at dinner before the theater was infuriatingly slow, providing a chance for Hank Blessing to proceed further with his self-inflicted paralysis of the cerebral cortex. He dominated the table with increasingly coarse tales of his homespun beginnings, while the three National executives and their wives sat with glazed smiles inadequately concealing acute distress. A man alcoholically convinced of his own irresistibility and charm will nearly always focus all of it on the nearest beautiful blonde. Ginny became Hank’s rebellious target.
They were late to the theater. Hank made a horrible racket in the aisle as they were finding their seats. He managed to plant himself beside Ginny and mumbled further exploits to her, ignoring the shushings, until he went soundly asleep. The play could have been excellent. The leading lady was sick. Her understudy ran through the part as though anxious to make a late date, drowning out her cue lines, yelling the tenderest passages.
Hank came up out of sleep at the final curtain, refreshed and ready to go. Ben was able to beg off, using the sitter as an excuse.
As they drove north on the parkway, Ben became aware of Ginny’s ominous silence. There had been other horrible evenings, to be sure, but they had always been able to make jokes on the way home.
“Charming guy, that Hank Blessing,” he said at last.
“Utterly.”
“We’ve been going around in a tight little circle with that guy. We ought to get it all locked up tomorrow.”
“And I went around in a tight little circle, too, darling,” she said hotly. “Two drinks he spilled on me. And I’m so tired of being pawed I could scream.”
“Come now, honey. You weren’t—”
She whirled in the seat to face him. “How could you keep track of what was going on? You were too busy thinking about how you’re going to... lock it all up tomorrow.”
“Honey, really now—”
“Don’t you really-now me, Ben Weldon. We used to go out together, a million years ago. Now when we go out, there’s an angle. I get dragged to town to prove that the young executive gets married just like ordinary people do. And I’m told that it’s my job. I’m helping you get ahead, or something. Well, I’ll keep right on doing it, because I suppose it’s part of the bargain, but you might as well know I consider it cynical and degrading, and I hate every minute of it!”
She flounced around and began to stare out her window at the night, as far from him as she could get.
“I wasn’t aware of the fact I was torturing you,” he said stiffly.