Chapter 6

Charity sat with Phinn for the rest of the day. After giving him the morphine, the nurses and Dr. Warshaw left him to rest. Charity didn't know if they considered his effort to sit up a success or a failure, and she wasn't sure if she was ready to know the answer yet.

Phinn slept until early afternoon, when Margaret came in with more water. The staff had been asking him to drink since the morning. After helping him drink as much as he could, Margaret stated she would return shortly.

Still sitting next to him, Charity reached up and brushed her fingers through her husband's hair. It was impossibly mussed from the bandages and the pillow. Phinn stared at her, his eyes full of devotion as well as exhaustion.

"Chairy," he said softly, reaching for her hand.

She held his fingers and chuckled as she replied, "You haven't called me that in years."

"Maybe it's time to bring it back?" he retorted gently.

She smiled. "It's a silly name for a silly young girl."

Trying to turn and see her more clearly, he returned, "There's never been anything silly about you, Charity."

She shook her head and waved him off with her other hand.

His eyes grew more serious as he continued, "I mean it. How many days have you sat here now? Waiting on me?"

She smiled at him and said, "It's been four, almost five days now."

The doctor had told him that morning, when he woke, how long it had been, but Phinn was obviously having trouble remembering.

Squeezing her hand, he said, "You must have been terribly afraid, seeing what happened to me."

Charity felt her stomach turn at the memory. She nodded, averting her eyes.

"How are the girls? Really? After seeing all that…?"

Charity smiled. "They're much better, now that they've talked to you. Helen was babbling away when Phillip and Anne took them home this morning. She hasn't talked like that in days. Caroline rolled her eyes, so I'd say things are feeling normal on that front."

Phinn laughed lightly, and then winced.

"Phinn…" Charity grew serious, wishing she could do something to end his pain.

Closing his eyes momentarily, he returned, "I just need a few more days. I'll heal up and things will be fine."

Charity couldn't argue with him. She saw no reason to dash hope. Phinn had always been optimistic, even facing the greatest of obstacles.

Margaret returned with a tray of supplies. She set it on the table on the opposite side of the bed from Charity and said, "We have to change the bandages and clean the wounds, and then we'd like you to try to eat something, Mr. Barnum."

He glanced at the nurse and her tray of tonics and tools, and grimaced.

Charity squeezed her husband's hand, released it, and stood to address Margaret. "I'd like to help, if you'll allow it. I mean, I'd like to learn how you're caring for my husband's wounds, so I can be of use."

Margaret looked at her as if trying to assess her capability. Charity could tell that the nurse only looked young. Her slight frame belied her age and experience. Finally, she said, "All right. A lot of women can't stomach it, but we can try."

Charity squared her shoulders and said, "I'm not just any woman."

In spite of his exhaustion and prone state, Phinn laughed.

Margaret allowed herself a smile as well, and then she began explaining what she had on the tray. Before touching her patient, she asked him, "Do you remember what Dr. Warshaw told you this morning?"

Phinn looked up at her and said, "I know there's a lot wrong with me."

"We're going to start with the wound to your head, Mr. Barnum." She carefully began to remove the wrapped bandages, showing Charity the gash to the back of her husband's head.

Charity felt her stomach churn, but she swallowed past it. In the early years of her marriage, she had not only given birth to her own children, but she had sat with several of her friends in the building where she first lived with Phinn, while they gave birth. She had seen women almost bleed to death. She had seen one child removed from his mother's womb with a scalpel. The mother did not survive. It wasn't talked about how much blood and death a working class woman of childbearing age could see in her lifetime. Charity drew on the experience to shore herself up, refusing to faint like a high-society wallflower.

Margaret handed the bottle of carbolic acid to Charity and said, "We put it on the bandage, then wrap it tightly over the wound. Watch for the stitching."

Charity did as she was told, carefully covering the ugly, jagged wound on the back of Phinn's head while Margaret carefully held his head off of the pillow. Phinn was quiet, but she could tell by his rapid breathing that he was in pain. After the first bandage, Margaret handed over more, and Charity wrapped her husband's head carefully.

When they'd finished, Margaret said, "Underneath that gash to the back of your head, Mr. Barnum, there is a break in the bone. The doctor could see it when you came in, the gash was so bad. It should heal with time, though."

Margaret was repeating what the doctor had said this morning, having guessed correctly that Phinn didn't remember.

"How is your vision?" she asked.

"I can see my wife," Phinn stated.

"Well, I suppose that's good," Margaret agreed. "But if you have trouble seeing her, or anything else, Dr. Warshaw wants to know."

Phinn nodded.

Margaret pulled the blankets back, revealing the length of her patient's body. The thin gown he wore could not conceal that he was thinner. Charity could only imagine what several more days without food would have done to him. Margaret carefully pulled the gown, which was more of a long vest, from his arms. Phinn tried to help, in spite of his obvious discomfort. With his upper half now bare, Charity startled, then tried to conceal her reaction from her husband. His torso was mottled with bruises, mostly on the right side.

Gently, Margaret explained, "These are from landing on the packed floor. They appear to be just on the surface, but there could be damage to the ribs, underneath. We can't be sure, and they also heal with time. Dr. Warshaw had us looking for trouble with his breathing, at first."

Charity watched as Phinn's chest rose up and down with each steady breath. She could tell he wasn't thrilled at being stared at like a research specimen, especially by someone other than his wife.

"Luckily," Margaret continued, "he seems to be breathing normally."

She allowed Charity to help her husband back into the gown. Then, Margaret lifted the blankets covering Phinn's right leg. She pushed them carefully to his hip, exposing his entire leg. Then, she carefully began to unwrap the splint and bandages stabilizing his whole leg.

When his leg was exposed, Charity drew a sharp breath and she was sure Phinn saw her reaction this time.

"I still have a leg, yes?" he quipped.

Charity couldn't laugh at his attempt at humor. His right leg was ugly shades of black, purple and yellow. The bandages had covered another gash, this one along the outside of his thigh. The stitches that ran the length of it looked like ugly teeth marks marring his skin. There was a smaller wound in his shin that had the same sutures.

Margaret explained, "This is where the bone came through." She indicated both wounds. "The doctor thinks they're in place now, but time will tell."

Charity followed her lead in cleaning, bandaging, and resplinting the wounds. Phinn closed his eyes, and Charity could sense his pain. When the right leg was done, Margaret pulled the blankets back down and exposed his left leg. She explained that the lower left leg had a more simple fracture, based on the bruising to his calf. The nurse left the splint alone, because the skin had not been broken.

When they were finished, Margaret said, "As the doctor said this morning, the wound to your back is one we cannot see. It's in the lower back, and only time will tell us how it will heal." She hesitated. "But we will keep trying to have you sit up each day." She pulled the blankets back up over him.

Charity adjusted the blankets further while Margaret went to fetch a meal tray. The nurse came back shortly with a bowl of broth and some more water.

"We want as much of this in you as you can tolerate," Margaret stated. "If it's motivating, I'll be back with more morphine once you've eaten."

Phinn tried to smile. "Never had morphine before today, but I'll say it's worth forcing down bland food."

Margaret set the tray down next to the bed, and Charity agreed to help him eat. Margaret left them alone to check on her other patients.

Carefully rearranging the pillow behind her husband's head, Charity helped him eat a few bites of broth. She was glad that he seemed hungry in spite of his pain and fatigue. She helped him drink some of the water, then placed the glass back on the tray.

Reaching out and seizing her gently by the upper arm, Phinn pulled her in close to him. She tried to avoid his torso, now that she'd seen all the bruises, but he pulled her in anyway and kissed her softly. Then he said, "I love you, best of wives and best of women."

She pulled back and looked at him, confused.

"From the correspondence of Alexander Hamilton, to his wife, Eliza. I read it in one of Caroline's school books," Phinn explained. "They had a great love story, apparently."

Charity kissed him again. "Not as great as ours, I'm certain."

Phinn kiss her harder, until she pulled away and insisted he eat.

"Charity," he finally waved off the broth, "Phillip isn't telling me everything about the circus, is he?"

She swallowed hard, remembering Phillip's rushed explanations in the corridor of the hospital when Phinn was unconscious. She thought about the newspapers he showed her daily. The story of Phinn falling had made the front page the day after it happened. Charity would have shredded it to pieces had Phillip not insisted he needed to know what the press was saying. Now, she also knew he was trying to fend off the Board of Trade. She was afraid to tell Phinn, however, because he needed to get well.

But Charity simply couldn't lie to him.

"People are asking questions. Writing crazy stories. Same as always," Charity explained. "And the Board of Trade has been investigating. But they say it was an accident. No one's fault. Not even yours."

Phinn looked up at her, his eyes searching.

She set the bowl down again and went on, "I love you Phinn. I love you more than my own life. The only thing that would destroy me as badly as losing you, would be losing one of the girls. I love the circus because it's you, Phinn. But you have to let Phillip handle this. You trained him. You know he can do it. So you have to let him."

"Charity, I can't just lie here and…"

She leaned over him again, cupping his face as she spoke. "Phinn, your leg...it looks bad. And that is the truth. It scares me. It makes me hurt for you. All of it does. And they're going to come in here in the morning and…" She struggled with the memory of his awful scream. "Let Phillip handle it. Please just get well. Because I want to see you in the ring again as much as anyone, and I fear…"

He pulled her face close to his, so they were cheek to cheek, and said, "Okay, Chairy. Okay."