Lightning Read Online Free Page A

corridor in the direction the woman and the other doctor had gone.
    Carver didn’t at all like the way this was going.
    A long time passed, even according to the clock on the wall. Two nurses entered the waiting room, sat side by side in plastic chairs, and exchanged copies of papers from folders they were carrying, then left. Later an elderly man wearing work clothes came into the room, glanced at the TV, then at Carver, and sat down on the sofa. He leaned sideways as if reaching for his wallet but instead pulled a paperback book from his hip pocket, crossed his legs, and began reading intently. Carver got only a glimpse of the title: something about angels.
    “Mr. Carver?”
    Carver looked up to see the surgeon, the one with the badly wrinkled green gown who’d left earlier with the woman, standing near him. He was a weary-looking, fiftyish man who would soon be as bald on top as Carver but for now combed his hair sideways in a pathetic attempt to camouflage his gleaming scalp.
    As he parted his lips to ask Carver’s identity again, Carver nodded. There was a lump in his throat that made him afraid to try his voice.
    The doctor, whose name was Galt, according to the plastic tag pinned to his gown, understood and smiled.
    “Beth’s going to be okay,” he said.
    Something heavy and dark seemed to shift from Carver. He leaned back in the chair with relief and wiped at his eyes with his knuckles.
    Dr. Galt looked around, then at the cane leaning against Carver’s chair. “Want to come with me?”
    Carver nodded and stood up.
    He followed the doctor down the corridor to a small, neat office with a desk, an extra chair, and a small, round table with a vase with artificial flowers in it sitting precisely in its center. There was no sign of the woman or the young man from the waiting room. Carver sat down in the chair in front of the desk. Dr. Galt sat on the edge of the desk and crossed his arms. There was a window behind the desk. Carver could see numerous birds fluttering in a tree on a patch of grassy ground near the parking lot. It was a happy scene, another world.
    “How seriously is she hurt?” Carver asked.
    “Concussion, and we picked some broken glass out of her.” Dr. Galt paused. “And a badly bruised hip and abdomen.” He stared at Carver uneasily, with a tired compassion.
    It took a second for what he’d heard to hit Carver full force. Hip and abdomen! “The baby?”
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Carver. She lost the baby.”
    “You’re sure?” He knew it was a stupid question even as he spoke; the words had simply slid out from between his lips.
    Dr. Galt treated it like any other question. “Yes. We’ve already done a D and C. We had no choice.”
    Carver listened to his own breathing for a while. “Does she know?”
    “Not yet. She won’t be conscious for at least another few hours.”
    “Because of the anesthetic?”
    “No, we used locals on her. She hasn’t yet regained consciousness from the blow on the back of her head and the trauma from whatever struck her pelvic area. We surmise a heavy object or piece of debris propelled by the force of the explosion hit her there. That might have been the impact that sent her out through the glass doors, where the paramedics said they found her. All her cuts are superficial, needing only a few stitches to close some of them.” Dr. Galt studied Carver for a moment, then forced a smile. “The thing is, Mr. Carver, she’s alive. You might have lost them both.”
    Carver swallowed. Beth was alive. But the baby . . . again, like her first pregnancy.
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Carver. I can tell you it’s still possible for her to bear children. That’s something.”
    “Something,” Carver agreed. He was sweating. The room was cool but he could feel his clothes sticking to his flesh.
    The doctor straightened up from where he was perched on the edge of the desk. “I’d better get back to my patients. You going to be okay?”
    Carver nodded and stood up,