Page 83 of Marriage (Red, White &) Blues

He pulled his phone to call an ambulance.

“You don’t have to?—”

“Glory, you’re bleeding and I’m not chancing a spinal cord injury.” As he gently moved more sticky hair to give a description of my injuries to the 911 operator, I tried hard not to make any noises, but I hurt all over. That tended to happen when you got attacked by a sofa. They were large and imposing. I wasn’t sure how sofas were allowed around the unsuspecting public. Talk about a menace to society.

We needed marches or riots in the street to ban all sofas from polite society. Where was the outrage, the uproar surrounding these weapons of mass destruction? We needed to protect the children!

Maybe I might have been a bit concussed.

After about ten minutes, sirens blared outside. Then we heard a knock on the door. “It’s open,” Blake called. The door cracked revealing two paramedics who took in the scene as they approached us as my husband reiterated the story of what happened

“There a reason you didn’t hire a mover?” the male medic asked.

Blake threw a death glare my way. “Couple’s bonding,” he deadpanned.

“Oof,” the medic answered. “My wife knows better.”

That was when the female medic, the one kneeling down to assess me, jerked her head up. “Are you kidding? Anymore bonding and we’d be glued together.” Busted.

“Okay, well as fun as this is, how about we get my wife to the hospital?” Blake asked it as a question but we all heard it as the command he meant it. The medics walk back outside to get the stretcher, wheeling it inside. They lower the legs, stabilize myneck and back, and move me onto the hard bed. Then locking the legs back in place, they roll me out to the back of the ambulance.

They closed the door on Blake.

A couple of people in scrubs met us at the doors to the emergency room “Car accident?” the woman asked.

“It was a hit and run,” I tried to tease. “A sofa.”

“A sofa?” the woman asked.

“Moving furniture.” Mr. Medic took over explaining for me. “She lost her footing on the stairs and tumbled backward. The sofa they were carrying down got away from them.”

Mrs. Medic started rambling off all the things the doctors needed to know. My head hurt and with this damn immobilizer around my neck, I couldn’t stretch to search for my husband. Iwantedmy husband. Worry eased right as they start moving me because Blake shouted out, “Gloria.”

“He’s with me,” I said. They kept rolling, but a little slower to give him the chance to catch up. He holds my hand while they wheel me into an exam room.

The doctor ordered several tests: a CAT scan, an MRI, and a few other tests that I couldn’t remember because my head hurt too much to pay attention. And only after she sutured my head wound closed. It took eleven stitches.Eleven. By some miracle I only had a minor concussion. But A sprained ankle, a deep sprain. But then they informed me of a hairline fracture in my collarbone closest to my shoulder—the reason my arm and shoulder hurt so much. They fitted me for a sling to keep me from making my collarbone worse. But since I couldn’t walk on my ankle yet, and I couldn’t use crutches, the doctor ordered me a wheelchair.

A wheelchair? Could this day get any worse? “How are we going to finish moving the furniture out?” I asked and both Blake and the doctor stared at me like I might’ve needed my head injury reassessed.

The doctor said, “I’m afraid that moving furniture is out” at the same time my husband snapped, “Are you kidding me?”

“Well, I wasn’t… but now I am?”

“Glory, do you realize how injured you are? Do you realize how much worse it could’ve been? I amnotready to become a widower. FYI, Iwill neverbe ready for that. You have to stay healthy because I can’t lose you. We’re hiring movers.” He pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket to prove his point but also to get movers to the house ASAP, for certain. I knew my husband.

“You have movers on speed dial?” I asked.

“No. I have Maisie on speed dial.”

“You can’t bother her on her day off.”

“Okay, do you want to deal with her when she finds out you were this injured and we didn’t bother to call her?” he asked, his words dripping with sarcasm.

“No.”

Once I got the okay to blow this popsicle stand, I sat in my motorized wheelchair waiting for my husband to bring the car around. Then I was in the car. Then we were on our way home.

Now I needed answers.

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