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The woman, a wife, the nurses think, because he’s got that nervous energy and a shiny cheap gold ring, rushes into the ward, frantic, panicked. She asks a nurse abut her husband. The nurse asks for his name, the woman answers. “What happened?” the nurse asks, and the woman sys “I don’t know, they just called to and said come. I don’t know” the nurses promises to get news and leaves. The woman stays, all nervous and shaking. The wanders around, too nervous to sit. Hospitals smell terrible she thinks. They smell of sickness and death and tears. She wanders down to Pediatrics, but soon finds the cries of babies and the pervading smell of soda pop-and-licorice candy laced vomit was too much, and she rides the elevator back up, in a daze, to the seventh floor. A nurse finds her, and says, “Your husband is still in surgery, Mrs. Chambers. We’ll let you know” she nods. What else could she do? Sadly she thought, all the seemed to be doing now was following the tug of the whirlwind current of circumstance. Hours earlier, she had been standing by the sink in the yellow lemon kitchen that had come that way when they bought the house, chopping potatoes. Then there came a ring or tow from the also yellow telephone, the old spinning dial ones, and life gave her a swift, steel toed boot kick to the gut. Accident. Her husband. Hospital. Come quick. She sits, red leather handbag strap sliding down from her shoulder to her elbow. The chair is smelly and uncomfortable, but her feet hurt. There is a lying on the bed in front of her, in jeans and a red jacket. He doesn’t look like a patient. “Hi” she says. She doesn’t know why. “Hey yourself” he says. He sits up a little, and she sees his right arm is missing. She stares, and he catches her eye, and she blushes, because she knows it’s rude. “I’m here for a checkup” he says “I lost in a bike crash. Hurt like hell. Spent weeks in the hospital. But the worst part? Aint the fact that I had to learn about how to do everything again. It’s the fact that every night, I go to bed, and I dream I got my arm again. The dreams aren’t special or nothing. Just me, living a normal day, with both my arms. Then I wake up, and I see it’s gone again. Every fucking day, like losing it again. Every day is like the day I woke up in the hospital, my momma crying. Every day I lose my arm again”. “I’m sorry she says. “So am I.” They sit quietly, but they know the conversation isn’t over. It isn’t the silence strangers, but the silence of fiends when words fail to come. “My husband had accident. A car, I think. I don’t know what happened. The police called me and told me to come. He might lose and eye, or leg, or his life. I don’t know. I’m waiting. What if I can’t do it? What if I can’t love him if he hasn’t got legs?” the man nods, and gets of the bed. He kneels next to her and puts his hand on hers. “You can, or you can’t. When the time comes, you’ll know. Then you live with it. It’s all we can do, really” then a nurse calls his name, and he goes with her. Mrs. Chambers sits where she is, and stays there for a while, legs crossed, eyes unfocused staring at the wall. At the two hour mark, she walks up the one armed man’s bed, and lies down. She goes to sleep, and wakes hours later when a nurse comes to tell her her husband’s out of surgery and asking for her.