Chapter 7: Healing
The following day they made
it a family project to check in on their neighbor’s house and go to visit them
at the hospital. Karen called the Batcherlys at the hospital to get an update
and found that Mr. Batcherly was doing well. Mrs. Batcherly humbly requested a
change of clothes and her car to be brought to the hospital. She told them
where to find everything. The house had been left unlocked. Johnathan drove the
Batcherly’s car, the rest piled into the van, and they took the trip to the
hospital, which was a half hour away in a slightly larger town. The hospital
served most of that part of the county.
The older kids had each made
Mr. Batcherly “get well” cards, and Karen had packed them a lunch as well. When
they went up to the ward where the couple was, the hospital staff was a bit
surprised by the large group of people in the hallway, but they directed them
to the correct room. “How are you doing Mr. Batcherly?” said Karen. “Please,
call me Jim.” He said in a solemn and matter-of-fact way. He was looking pale
and rather frail and tired, and his leg was wrapped up in an impressive amount
of gauze. He said to them in a rather scratchy voice, “I think I owe you two a
heaping debt of gratitude, if not my life… Thank you.” There was a moment of
silence. In the corner, Mrs.
Batcherly was sitting, looking ragged and tired. “Yes. Thank you.” She echoed.
She was not her usual verbose self. Karen found her lack of conversation
especially disturbing. It was an indication of how much stress the woman was
under. Mr. Batcherly, Jim, cleared his throat, “Uh, the doctor let me know the
cost of those vials of anti-venom Mr. Katz. Somehow, “thank you” isn’t enough.
I’ll see if I can’t pay you back for those. We have some insurance. Hopefully
they will cover some of it, and what they don’t, I will. It just might take me
a while.” Johnathan said, “Please don’t worry about that too much… Jim… I only
did what anyone would have done if they could have. I had that anti-venom as
part of my research.”
The kids had been standing
quietly at the door. At Karen’s cue, they now crowded in and each gave Mr.
Batcherly the cards they had made and told him they hoped he felt better soon. He
and his wife were so touched there were tears in their eyes. Karen asked after
their kids and they told her that their son was on his way down to see him and
would be there that afternoon. The other two were too far away, but knew what
had happened and were very relieved that their dad was O.K. They visited for a
little while and had a pleasant time and then left when the nurse came to
check on things.
Mr. Batcherly was in the
hospital for a few days after that. It seems he had a heart condition which
complicated things. There was some damage to his leg that couldn’t be fixed,
but several rounds of anti-venom were given to clear the poisons from his body.
Recovery was slow, but he was soon able to go home. He had a cane afterwards
though, and moved very slowly.
Word got around about what
had happened. Mrs. Batcherly was a gossip at heart and couldn’t help telling
people all about why they had been in the hospital. Suddenly people were being
much nicer to the Katzs. Not everyone was, but enough were that being out
around town felt less hostile or dismissive and more friendly overall. One or
two acquaintances even came up and commented to Karen that they couldn’t
believe what her husband had done, and that it was nothing short of miraculous.
It was as if a little bit of glow was attached to those close to the local hero
of the moment, and people wanted a piece of that. Nobody ever saw Johnathan,
however. He was home working on his research and stoutly refusing to go anywhere, but they wanted to get to
know his family just the same.
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