Men in Trees

A bad story with a good ending: Ray was driving to Round Rock from New Jersey last Saturday night, to move here, and had made it as far as Texarkana when he was cut off in traffic, causing him to run off the road and into a tree. He was airlifted to East Texas Medical Center in Tyler with two broken arms. I drove out there that night, and Sunday he had surgery to repair a broken left humerus (upper arm, that is, and it took a metal plate and 27 stitches), and bone fragments and hanging ligaments (connected to the bone fragments) in his right elbow.

My parents, his mother, and his sister all came to help and to visit. It was the first time he'd met my parents. Now he has a cast on the right arm to immobilize the elbow, but is able to do quite a lot with his left arm, which is good. But that doesn't keep him from staying perched on the couch, demanding scones, quiches, and tea, and referring to me as "the help" and to the dogs as "Niles" and "Geoffrey".