The Tender Vine (Diamond of the Rockies #3)(130)

As usual, Dr. DiGratia said nothing about what he looked for or saw, but Quillan had learned to read his expression. He wasn’t dying today, he assumed.

“Open your shirt.”

Quillan tucked the paper slip into the page, set the book beside him, and unbuttoned his shirt.

Dr. DiGratia probed his abdomen, which hurt most when encouraged by the doctor’s fingers. Then he worked the same magic on Quillan’s ribs. Though he winced, Quillan could tell they were healing.

“Very good.” A surprising accolade. “Vittorio.”

His son came in carrying a pail of river rocks. He set it by the wall and joined his father at the couch.

“Planning to stone me?” Quillan’s wry humor earned him the older man’s glance.

“I brought you something to use instead of my books.” He removed several rocks from the pail, placing them on the floor, then lifted the pail to the bed, holding the handle up.

Quillan caught his meaning and gripped the handle. The weight of the rocks was as much as he could lift left-handed, and it sent an ache through the collarbone. He crossed his right arm over his body and tried it with that one. Again a pain in the bone that had broken, and he could hardly raise it.

“You can adjust the number of rocks.”

Quillan realized the benefit to that; much better than trying to raise an ungainly stack of books. “Thank you.”

Dr. DiGratia pointed to the book at his side. “That will do you no more good. It’s in Italiano.”

“I know.”

“I’ll return it to the shelf.” He held out his hand.

Quillan rested his palm atop the book. “If you don’t mind, I’ll muddle through it still.”

The doctor raised his brows. “You are reading Italian?”

“Somewhat.” Quillan felt defensive. Would the doctor tell him he had no right to their language, to understand their culture and beliefs?

“Giuseppe Mazzini”—he pronounced it Matzini—“was a visionary for the unification of Italy. But he was a republican. Unlike Garibaldi, he did not want the nation unified under a king.” The doctor shrugged.

“His writings are very powerful. May I?” Dr. DiGratia lifted the book.

He opened to the page Quillan had marked and translated: “ ‘The family is a country of the heart. There is an angel in the family who, by the mysterious influence of grace, of sweetness, and of love, renders the fulfillment of duties less wearisome, sorrows less bitter.’ ”

Quillan pictured Carina, and in her all of that: grace, sweetness, love. It did render life less bitter. But he suspected the writing didn’t refer to one individual, but an entity created by the whole, the family.

The doctor read on. “ ‘The only pure joys unmixed with sadness which it is given to man to taste upon earth are, thanks to this angel, the joys of the family.’ ”

As the doctor read, Quillan felt his spirit shrink. That was what Carina knew, what she valued, what she tried to give to him. But was it what God intended? He felt the doctor’s eyes on him, but couldn’t meet them, to see there the exclusion he thought didn’t matter. But it did. Hearing those words made him realize it did. Was God torturing him?

Dr. DiGratia set the book on the table. “Vittorio, the saw.”

Quillan looked up sharply. A saw could mean only one thing. Vittorio brought it, and Dr. DiGratia began cutting the cast from Quillan’s leg. Quillan watched with trepidation. What would he see when the plaster came off? A mangled piece of meat, no longer useful? A weight to be dragged along with a crutch?

The plaster peeled off like the bark of a log. The flesh inside was like hairy chicken skin. A jagged scar rose red and angry along the thigh, which was thinner by half what it had been. Quillan moved his toes and felt the awful flexing of what muscle remained. Dr. DiGratia felt the thigh deeply, and Quillan shrank as much from the unaccustomed sensation of touch there as from pain.

“Why do you want to know Italian when in America Italians learn English?”

Quillan tore his eyes from his leg. Was the doctor trying to distract him? “Carina speaks Italian.”

“Carina speaks five languages.” The doctor raised Quillan’s leg at the knee, feeling the break just above it.

That was the worse of the two, Quillan could tell. It hurt as the doctor rotated the leg between his palms, studying his work. He flinched at the hands on his skin, the motion of a leg unused to motion, the bending joint, stiff and sore, and most of all, the flaccid muscle. He forced himself to respond to the doctor’s last remark. “Italian is the language of her heart.” He met the doctor’s glance.

“Take his arm, Vittorio.” Dr. DiGratia swung Quillan’s right leg to the floor.

His waxy yellow foot turned red, and Quillan hissed his breath sharply between his teeth at the shooting pain and maddening tingle. Vittorio caught him by one arm, the doctor by the other. Quillan resisted. He didn’t want to try the leg and fail. “The worst is the leg will not bear your weight.” Fear seized him.

The doctor spread his hand between Quillan’s shoulder blades with a soothing warmth. Quillan tried unsuccessfully to release the knotted muscles, to hide the binding tension of that fear. He felt ashamed and at the same time protected. If he never stood, he’d never know, never face life as a one-legged man.