The Broken String Read Online Free PDF Page B

to me again. “This is the most terrible thing you could do to me,” she said. “To your father and me.”
    “Are you going to hit me?” I almost wanted her to. I wanted to feel the sting of a slap instead of the sting of her words.
    She grabbed my shoulders and shook me hard. “I can’t even think of a way to punish you that matches this crime!” she shouted.
    Danny turned and I heard him running down the stairs. I didn’t blame him for trying to get away from her, but I felt deserted. Then suddenly from downstairs came the loudest crash. It seemed to echo up the stairs, and a second crash followed. My mother let go of me, turning her head in the direction of the sound. She ran out the door and down the stairs and I stood where I was, terrified, gripping the edge of my father’s desk behind me. I heard her screaming and shouting, while beneath her fury, Danny yelled words I couldn’t understand. I left the office and walked quietly down the stairs. From the bottom step I could see through the living room and into the kitchen, where two of the Franciscan Ware plates lay in pieces on the tiled kitchen floor. I couldn’t see my mother, but Danny stood in the center of the room, holding a third plate in his hands above his head. He was ready to smash it as well, and I knew he had saved me from my fate upstairs. Or at least he had tried.
    Now he’d be facing a fate of his own.
    ***
    The lights in the hospital corridor emitted a weird yellow glow that reflected off the nurse’s glasses as she described Danny’s condition to me. It seemed like only minutes since a car had met me at the airport and whisked me to the hospital in Landstuhl after my mostly sleepless flights. I felt grimy and weary and spacey as I stood in the hallway with the nurse, a psychologist, and a chaplain.
I’m too young for this,
I thought, trying to absorb what they were telling me. My knees were wobbly and my head was light. I wished we could sit down to have this conversation, but there wasn’t a chair in sight in that long hallway.
    But Danny was alive. That was the one piece of information that had made its way into my exhausted brain. Part of me ached to see him, but another part was afraid, and with every word from the nurse, my fear intensified. I knew I was catching only bits and pieces of all she was telling me, but that was enough to terrify me.
    “Projectiles shoot out in all directions … designed to destroy bones … rip muscles … some internal damage to his GI system … rebuild his leg once he gets to Walter Reed in the States.”
    I wanted to ask her to slow down—I couldn’t take it all in—but I didn’t seem to have enough air in my lungs to speak.
    “He’s had two surgeries to remove shrapnel,” she continued, “but there’s a long way to go. The doctors aren’t sure they’ll be able to save it, but that’s the goal.”
    “Save … what?” I asked. My brain was stuffed with cotton.
    “His leg,” she said, and she went on to describe the injuries to his leg, but once again I could take in only every third or fourth word.
    “He’s in and out of consciousness,” the psychologist added.
    “He’s going to live, though, right?” I finally managed to ask.
    The nurse hesitated. “None of his injuries is life threatening in and of itself,” she said, “but taken together, he’s had a terrible blow to his body.”
    “Not to mention his emotional state,” the psychologist said. “He’s going to be in the hospital for a very long time and he’ll need all the support you can give him.”
    I looked around desperately for someplace to sit down in this barren, yellow-lit hallway. My legs were giving out, and I thought I would have to simply sink onto the floor. The chaplain sensed my distress and clutched my elbow.
    “She needs to sit,” he said.
    “Let’s move in here.” The psychologist pointed to the left … or maybe it was to the right? I couldn’t have said. I let myself be led along by the