Page 67 of The Girls of Pearl Harbor
Eva smiled and gave the soldier a pat on the arm before continuing on, checking dressings and trying to take temperatures despite the mercury being so hot it was useless, until she ended up beside Grace.
‘How is he today?’ Grace asked. ‘Still grumpy as a bear with a thorn?’
Eva groaned. ‘Worse, if that’s even possible. I know it’s a lot for him to take in, what’s happened and all, but he’s so ungrateful.’
Grace gave her a quick hug. ‘Then tell him that. There’s nothing that says we can’t be honest with our patients. Show him that spitfire of a woman I met in Pearl Harbor. You remember the one who barked orders as if she were a sergeant?’
Eva laughed. ‘Have you and your sister been talking again? Because I’m not under any delusions that he’s Charlie, not after the way he’s treated me.’
‘Then tell him the truth. It’s about time he heard it instead of you pussyfooting around him.’
She took a deep, shaky breath. Her old confident self seemed hard to remember now; it was as if the bombings had stripped her of everything that used to make her feel alive. When Charlie had died, a piece of her had died too. ‘Promise you’ll come pick me up off the floor if it doesn’t work?’
Grace grinned. ‘Oh, it’ll work. Trust me.’
Eva turned and straightened her shoulders, staring at Arthur’s bed. ‘You’d better be right,’ she muttered.
She marched back over to Arthur, smiling to herself as she approached him. He could be rude to her all he liked, and it wasn’t her problem if he was ungrateful for his life being saved. She was going to smile and chat with him and thoroughly ignore his behavior until he started showing her the respect she deserved.
‘How are you doing now, Arthur?’ she asked. ‘It’s time for me to check your dressings and take your temperature.’
He didn’t even look at her. ‘I thought I’d already told you to go away?’
She kept smiling. It actually made her feel better just keeping her smile intact, grinning away like a Cheshire cat.
‘Arthur, I’m sure you can understand that I have a job to do. So I’m going to go ahead and do it, and you can either talk to me and enjoy the company, or you can sit there all full of misery, but either way I’m doing my job. Are we clear?’
He turned then, and she nearly lost her nerve. His sharp blue eyes met hers, and just when she thought he was going to smile back, just when she thought that gaze was going to soften, he slapped her hand away without saying a word.
Eva ignored him, swallowing down her anger as she reached for him again. This time when he slapped, he connected with her metal tray of equipment, including the bowl of saline water that she had in case his wound needed to be cleaned.
The liquid dripped down her front. It wasn’t the wet patch she cared about—it wasn’t large and would dry soon enough; not to mention it was better than blood splatter, which she’d become all too used to—it was the way he just turned and stared the other way as if he’d done nothing. Without saying a word. She’d seen this behavior before, knew exactly what a bully looked like, because she’d grown up with one as a father, and she wasn’t ever going to let anyone treat her like that again, no matter what the excuse.
Fire rose within her as she breathed, feeling her nostrils flare as she waited for him to apologize. Eventually she bent and retrieved her things before straightening and considering the man lying on the bed before her. What was wrong with him? How could he be so rude, so nasty, when he’d managed to survive an accident that should have killed him!
‘You owe me an apology,’ she said quietly, gritting her teeth as she waited.
Arthur didn’t say a word.
‘It’s my duty to nurse you to the best of my abilities, and I don’t appreciate you making my job so difficult,’ she continued, grabbing the sheet this time and pulling it back so hard he didn’t have a chance to stop her. Holding the sheet out of reach of a man not used to balancing with one leg was cruel, but so was he.
‘Get away from me!’ he yelled.
Eva’s heart beat fast and loud as the ward seemed to fall silent behind her. She had the distinct feeling that she was being watched, that all eyes were on her, including Arthur’s.
She took a step closer to him, refusing to break his steely gaze. When they’d rescued him, carrying him desperately to the hospital, she’d stared into those eyes and thought they reminded her of the ocean. Now, they were so cold they reminded her of ice.
‘You let me do my job as quickly as I can, I leave you alone,’ she said. ‘We don’t have to talk, we don’t have to have any other contact, but you need to let me check your wound.’
Arthur looked like he was going to explode, and she had no doubt that if he’d been able to walk, he would have swung his legs down and marched off, never to be seen again. But that was the problem—he couldn’t walk away no matter how desperately he wanted to, and her heart broke to see such a strong, capable man struggling.
He never replied, but he did finally look away, and she tentatively touched the bandage around his stump, methodically checking the color of his wound and making sure there was no gangrene or other infection setting in. Arthur had had general surgery as well, to repair damaged internal organs, and she carefully raised his shirt to check that was healing. He grunted when she touched him, and she hesitated before stepping back and letting out a breath she hadn’t even known she was holding.
‘Thank you, Arthur,’ she said, pulling up the sheet and tucking him back in. ‘I’ll come by soon with your lunch and to see if you require any morphine.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ he muttered.
She paused, wondering if she’d already pushed him far enough or whether she needed to be assertive again. Eva studied his face, the strong angle of his jaw, the broad shoulders that were impossible not to notice even as he sat slumped in his bed.
