"You're just lucky you missed your radial artery," I said.
"I can't tell you how lucky I feel." Looking at his knee, I added, "Sit here." I lowered the toilet lid.
"Do you want me to take my pants off?"
"Either that or we cut them." He sat down.
"They're ruined anyway." With a scalpel, I sliced through the fine wool fabric of his left trouser leg while he sat very still, his leg fully extended. The cut on his knee was deep, and I shaved around it and washed it thoroughly, placing towels on the floor to blot bloody water dripping everywhere. As I led Wesley back into the bedroom, he limped over to the bottle of Scotch and refilled his glass.
"And by the way," I told him, "I appreciate the thought, but I don't drink before surgery."
"I guess I should be grateful," he answered.
"Yes, you should be." He seated himself on the bed, and I took the chair, moving it close. I tore open foil packets of Betadine and began to swipe his wounds.
"Jesus," he said under his breath.
"What is that, battery acid?"
"It's a topical antibacterial iodine."
"You keep that in your medical bag?"
"Yes."
"I didn't realize first aid was an option for most of your patients."
"Sadly, it isn't. But I never know when I might need it." I reached for the forceps.
"Or when someone else at a scene might-like you." I withdrew a sliver of glass and placed it on the towel.
"I know this may come as a great shock to you. Special Agent Wesley, but I started out my career with living patients."
"And when did they start dying on you?"
"Immediately." He tensed as I extracted a very small sliver.
"Hold still," I said.
"So what's Marino's problem? He's been a total ass lately."
I placed two more slivers of glass on the towel and stanched the bleeding with gauze.
"You'd better take another swallow of your drink."
"Why?"
"I've gotten all of the glass."
"So you're finished and we're celebrating." He sounded the most relieved I had ever heard him.
"Not quite." I leaned close to his hand, satisfied that I had not missed anything. Then I opened a suture packet.
"Without Novocain?" he protested.
"As few stitches as you need to close these cuts, numbing you would hurt as much as the needle," I calmly explained, gripping the needle with the forceps.
"I'd still prefer Novocain."
"Well, I don't have any. It might be better if you don't look. Would you like me to turn on the TV?" Wesley stoically stared away from me as he answered between clenched teeth! "Just get it over with." He did not utter a protest while I worked, but as I touched his hand and leg I could feel him tremble. He took a deep breath and began to relax when I dressed his wounds with Neosporin and gauze.
"You're a good patient." I patted his shoulder as I got up.
"Not according to my wife."
I could not remember the last time he had referred to Connie by name. On the rare occasion he mentioned her at all, it was a fleeting allusion to a force he seemed conscious of, like gravity.
"Let's sit outside and finish our drinks," he said. The balcony beyond my room door was a public one that stretched the entire length of the second floor. At this hour the few guests who might have been awake were too far away to hear our conversation. Wesley arranged two plastic chairs close together. We had no table between us, so he set our drinks and bottle of Scotch on the floor.
"Do you want more ice?" he asked.
"This is fine." He had turned off lamps inside the room, and beyond us the barely discernible shapes of trees began to move in concert the longer I stared at them. Headlights were small and sporadic along the distant highway.
"On a scale of one to ten, how awful would you rank this day?" he spoke quietly in the dark.
I hesitated, for I had known many awful days in my career.
"I suppose I'd give it a seven."
"Assuming ten's the worst."
"I have yet to have a ten."
"What would that be?" I felt him look at me.
"I'm not sure," I said, superstitious that naming the worst might somehow manifest it. He fell silent and I wondered if he was thinking about the man who had been my lover and his best friend. When Mark had been killed in London several years before, I had believed there could be no pain worse than that. Now I feared I was wrong. Wesley said, "You never answered my question, Kay."
"I told you I wasn't sure."
"Not that question. I'm talking about Marino now. I asked you what his problem is."
"I think he's very unhappy," I answered.
"He's always been unhappy."
"I said very." He waited.
"Marino doesn't like change," I added.
"His promotion?"
"That and what's going on with me."
"Which is?" Wesley poured more Scotch into our glasses, his arm brushing against me.
"My position with your unit is a significant change." He did not agree or disagree but waited for me to say more.
"I think he somehow perceives that I've shifted my alliances." I realized I was getting only more vague.
"And that is unsettling. Unsettling for Marino, I mean. " Still, Wesley offered no opinion, ice cubes softly rattling as he sipped his drink. We both knew very well what part of Marino's problem was, but it was nothing that Wesley and I had done. Rather, it was something Marino sensed.
"It's my opinion that Marino's very frustrated with his personal life," Wesley said.
"He's lonely."
"I believe both of those things are true," I said.
"You know, he was with Doris for thirty-some years and then suddenly finds himself single again. He's clueless, has no idea how to go about it."
"Nor has he ever really dealt with her leaving. It's stored up. Waiting to be ignited by something unrelated. "
"I've worried about that. I've worried about what that something unrelated might be."
"He still misses her. I believe he still loves her," I said, and the hour and the alcohol made me feel sad for Marino. I rarely could stay angry with him long. Wesley shifted his position in his chair.
"I guess that would be a ten. At least for me."
"To have Connie leave you?" I looked over at him.
"To lose someone you're in love with. To lose a child you're at war with. To not have closure." He stared straight ahead, his sharp profile softly backlit by the moon.
"Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I think I could take almost anything as long as there's resolution, an ending, so I can be free of the past."
"We are never free of that."
"I agree that we aren't entirely." He continued staring ahead when he next said, "Marino has feelings for you that he can't handle, Kay. I think he always has."
"They're best left unacknowledged."
"That sounds somewhat cold."
"I don't mean it coldly," I said.
"I would never want him to feel rejected."
"What makes you assume he doesn't already feel that way?"
"I'm not assuming he doesn't." I sighed.
"In fact, I'm fairly certain he's feeling pretty frustrated these days."
"Actually, jealous is the word that comes to mind."
"Of you."
"Has he ever tried to ask you out?" Wesley went on as if he had not heard what I just said.
"He took me to the Policeman's Ball."
"Umm. That's pretty serious."
"Benton, let's not joke about him."
"I wasn't joking," he said gently.
"I care very much about his feelings and I know you do." He paused.
"In fact, I understand his feelings very well."
"I understand them, too." Wesley set down his drink.
"I guess I should go in and try to get at least a couple hours' sleep," I decided without moving. He reached over and placed his good hand on my wrist, his fingers cool from holding his glass.
"Whit will fly me out of here when the sun is up."
I wanted to take his hand in mine. I wanted to touch his face.