Nightmares of Caitlin Lockyer

Part 19

19

I paid little attention to the nurse in the room until she started to pull the curtains closed around Caitlin's bed, blocking my view of both of them.

"No," I said suddenly, hoisting myself off my bed and pushing the curtains open again.

The nurse glared at me, anonymous to me now that her name badge was obscured by the curtain she held clenched in her hand. "I'm changing her dressings. Even if she has to share a room with you, she's entitled to some privacy."

She yanked the curtain shut again and I heard the rustle of latex and cardboard as she pulled out a pair of gloves. "Caitlin did her first practical placement for medical school in this ward and we all know her. She won't want some sleazy bastard staring at her as she sleeps." Her voice was low but loud enough for me to hear it.

I stepped into the area by Caitlin's bed, inside the curtains. "You know the last thing she said, before she passed out in the Emergency Department? She reminded me that I'd promised not to let anyone hurt her again." I stared back at the nurse. "Until she wakes up and tells me otherwise, I'm just keeping my promise. I'm not letting her out of my sight while you're here."

She raised her eyebrows and let out a snort of breath, but she didn't say another word to me. Pointedly ignoring me, the nurse snapped on her gloves and started opening the first of the large stack of dressing packs on Caitlin's bedside table. The first dressing she pulled off Caitlin's wrist revealed an open, ulcerated wound that looked painful. That's where they tied her up. There was rope gouging into her skin, caked with her blood. The nurse swabbed it with disinfectant. For a moment, the raw wound was hidden again as the disinfectant fumes stung my eyes and they started to water.

Caitlin tossed restlessly as soon as the nurse's hands touched her, mumbling something I couldn't hear. My eyes still burning, I had to move to her bedside to discern the words. "Please...you promised..." she whimpered.

At that, I dropped into the chair by her bed. I couldn't remember the last time I was this close to tears – primary school, perhaps. The disinfectant fumes didn't help. I tried to speak, but no sound came out. I cleared my throat and tried again. "It's okay, Caitlin. You've been hurt." My voice shook, but I made myself continue. "We're trying to help you get better."

The nurse snorted again, louder this time. "You're in hospital as a patient now and all of us on the clinical team here are doing our best to help you get better. Your roommate is sleazy and, if I were you, I'd wake up fast so you can ask for a room transfer."

I'd like you to wake up, too, I thought but didn't say.

I tried to focus on the nurse's hands, not the wounds she was treating. No matter what the nurse thought, I didn't want to stare at Caitlin's bare skin as she slept. Conscious and consenting was one thing, but she was neither, and she wouldn't be until she recovered, if ever. It took a real fucked-up bloke to look at her in her current state and feel anything but pity, sympathy and the fist-clenching desire to cause some righteous pain. Which I couldn't do a fucking thing about until she woke up and told me how to find them.

The grumpy nurse gently rolled Caitlin on her side so she could reach some the dressings on her back. The first one she pulled off revealed more nasty-looking ulcers and a patch of scraped skin. She reached for the eye-watering disinfectant wipes again as I winced and wanted to look away.

I wished that Caitlin was wearing more than her hospital-issue nightdress. Normally, that meant she'd be showing a whole lot of skin, but there were so many dressings on her that she seemed swathed in white, like a badly beaten angel. She may as well have been an angel fallen to Earth, she had so little with her. The police had taken all her clothes, so the hospital gown was all she had. I felt guilty for wearing the clean t-shirt my sister had brought.

It seemed an eternity before the nurse was finished, but I didn't take my eyes away from her until she left, without saying another word.

Released from my vigil, I squeezed my eyes shut. My head in my hands, I tried to knead the livid images out of my forehead with my fingers. Under every dressing on Caitlin's body were wounds that screamed of repeated abuse, over and over again during the weeks they had her.

Not for the first time I wondered how anyone could force themselves to look at that every day, job notwithstanding. I didn't know how I could stand to watch a nurse bare her every cut, bruise and break again tomorrow, or force myself to sit through this every day until she woke up.

How did she manage to survive, driving herself to keep going as those sick bastards inflicted countless wounds on her body and mind, time and time again?

Fuck. I don't know. Wake up, Caitlin, so you can tell me the answers. Fucked if I know.