Chapter 69: What He Cannot Feel

When they reached the Lennox house, Jonah was mending a net.

He sat on an overturned crate beside the house with the torn section stretched across both knees. A wooden shuttle moved through his fingers while his son sorted cork floats on the ground nearby. Sarah stood at the washing line with one sleeve pinned between her teeth and two shirts under one arm.

Jonah saw Carrick first. "If this is another examination, I’m starting to charge."

"You still owe me for the last one," Carrick said.

"Then put it on my bill."

Sarah took the sleeve from her mouth. "You also owe me a kettle."

"I repaired the kettle."

"You made it leak somewhere else."

Jonah pulled the next knot tight.

Severin watched Jonah’s left hand hold the netting steady while the right passed the shuttle through. He saw no shaking or weakness. Jonah never favored the hand.

Leo stopped outside the rope fence. "We need to follow up on something."

Jonah’s fingers stopped on the next knot. "About me?"

"About how long you were in the refuge," Carrick said. "You were down there longer than most people I’ve treated."

"And now that matters?"

"We don’t know," Leo said. "That’s why we’re here."

Jonah glanced at Sarah, then at Ruth, who had come carrying Carrick’s small medical case. "Fine. But if you find something wrong, tell me before I leave. Don’t wait until I’m gone."

Leo answered at once. "Agreed."

Carrick began with questions while Jonah finished the row of knots in front of him. He worked through strength and balance, sleep and headaches, whether Jonah’s sight or coordination had changed, whether anything hurt, and whether he had started dropping things since returning to normal work.

"Normal enough," Jonah said.

Carrick asked whether anything tingled or burned. "No," Jonah said.

Ruth crouched near the boy and moved the basket of floats out of the way before standing. "Any numbness anywhere?"

Jonah’s hands stopped. Sarah was already watching him. "What?"

"It’s nothing."

Carrick waited while Jonah rubbed the outside edge of his left palm with his right thumb. "This bit. Couple of fingers too."

"How long?" Ruth asked.

"Few days."

Sarah stared at him. "You’ve had a numb hand for days?"

"Two fingers."

"Those are still part of your hand."

"Most of it still works."

Sarah did not laugh. Jonah lowered his left hand onto his knee. "I thought I’d slept on it wrong. Or pinched something. It doesn’t hurt."

"Which fingers?" Carrick asked.

"The little one. Ring finger. Mostly."

"Constant?"

"Think so."

"Any pins and needles?"

"No."

"Has it spread?"

"Maybe a little into the palm."

Carrick had already opened the case. "I want to examine it properly."

Jonah glanced at the net. "Here?"

"At the clinic. Better light."

Sarah reached for the torn net before he could object. "Go."

"I can carry that."

"I know. Leave it."

Sarah kept hold of the net until he stood.

The clinic was close enough that nobody bothered with a carriage. Ruth kept questioning Jonah on the walk. He had dropped no tools or lost grip strength, and there was no numbness elsewhere. He also remembered no unexplained weakness or movement in the fingers.

Carrick’s examination room smelled of boiled cloth and carbolic. Jonah sat beside the window with his sleeves rolled back while Ruth cleared the corner of the table. Leo and Rafael stayed near the wall. Severin took the place by the door.

Carrick started with the right hand. "Tell me when you feel this."

He touched the palm with a folded corner of clean cloth, then the fingertips. Jonah answered each time.

Carrick moved to the left. "Same?"

"Yes."

He touched another spot, closer to the outer edge of the palm.

Jonah hesitated. "Less."

Carrick moved nearer the little finger. "Anything?"

"Barely."

At the fingertip, Jonah shook his head.

Ruth took over the notes while Carrick repeated the comparison with the blunt end of a small metal probe. The boundary became clearer with each pass.

The thumb and first two fingers were normal. Sensation dulled across the outer palm, worsened through the ring finger, and nearly vanished in the little finger.

Carrick tested the back of the hand next, then asked Jonah to spread his fingers, close them, grip two of Carrick’s fingers, and resist while Carrick pressed against them.

"Strength is good," Carrick said.

"That means I can go back to the boat?"

"No."

Jonah released Carrick’s fingers.

Ruth warmed one metal spoon in a cup of hot water and cooled another in water from the pitcher. Jonah distinguished them easily with the right hand. On the left, he got the first few placements right before he began guessing near the outer side of the palm.

"Cold," he said.

Ruth had used the warm spoon. She tested another spot without comment.

"Cold again."

This time he was right.

Carrick took the spoons from her and set them down. He used the blunt end of a pin, then the point lightly enough not to break skin. Jonah could tell the difference on the healthy side. Inside the numb area, sharp and blunt became uncertain, then meaningless.

Ruth marked three small points along the edge of the dull area and copied the shape into her notebook. She tested the ring finger twice more, first along the outer side and then closer to the middle. Jonah’s answer changed, but not where Carrick seemed to expect it.

"It doesn’t follow one clean line," she said.

Carrick studied Jonah’s hand. "It could still be pressure on a nerve, but the spread is wider than I’d expect."

Severin did not know the anatomy Carrick expected. Jonah used the hand normally despite barely feeling part of it.

Ruth turned the palm toward the window and paused.

Jonah leaned closer. "What?"

She touched the skin just below the little finger.

A narrow cut crossed the heel of Jonah’s palm, shallow enough that Severin had missed it. One end sat outside Ruth’s marks. The other ran into the numb area.

Jonah turned his hand toward the light. "When did I do that?"

"I was about to ask you," Ruth said.

He rubbed his thumb near it, careful not to touch the cut itself. "No idea."

Ruth cleaned the cut and wrapped it lightly. Jonah watched her hands now.

Carrick asked, "Any other cuts you didn’t feel?"

"Not that I know of."

"Anything healing differently?"

"No."

"Any twitching?"

"No."

"Ever catch the fingers moving on their own?"

"No."

"Cramping?"

Jonah looked up. "That all part of a numb hand?"

"It can be," Carrick said.

From there, he moved on to older injuries and whether the numbness had changed since morning. The questions were narrower now, each one tied to the part of the hand Ruth had marked.

Rafael opened his notebook. "The patient from earlier spent less time in the refuge."

Jonah flexed the wrapped hand. "The man from the rescue?"

"Yes. No numbness so far."

Jonah had stayed below far longer, through the resuscitation and afterward, until Carrick was satisfied his breathing would hold.

Carrick closed the medical case. "You can’t compare them cleanly."

"Why not?" Severin asked.

"One nearly drowned and the other nearly bled out. Different injuries, different risks. Jonah could have damaged a nerve during the rescue. He may only be noticing it now that he’s using the hand more."

"Could drowning do it?" Jonah asked.

"It can injure more than lungs," Carrick said. "So can being trapped in gear. So can weeks of recovery and then going back to work before I tell you to."

Jonah leaned back in the chair. "There it is."

"Still true."

Rafael wrote for several seconds. "Then we check the others who stayed longer and see if it repeats."

"That’s as far as I’d take it for now," Carrick said.

Leo stepped away from the wall. "Then we don’t call it anything yet. Ruth checks the area every day. If the numbness spreads, your grip weakens, the fingers move on their own, or that cut changes, you tell Carrick or Ruth."

Jonah said, "And the refuge?"

"Stay out unless there’s a medical emergency. Other than that, carry on as normal."

Jonah stopped flexing the hand and looked down at Ruth’s marks. "Can it get worse?"

Carrick did not answer quickly. "I don’t know."

Severin remembered the net shuttle passing through that same hand without trouble. Nothing in the yard had looked wrong.

Carrick reached for the pin again. "One more test." ℯℓ.

Jonah offered the left hand. Carrick said, "Don’t watch."

Jonah turned toward Ruth while Carrick touched the point lightly to a place near the base of the little finger, outside the numb area.

"Sharp," Jonah said.

Carrick moved inside Ruth’s marks. Jonah said nothing.

"Anything?"

"No."

His little finger jerked away from the point. Carrick’s hand stopped. "Did you move that?"

"I don’t think so."

"Again. Watch this time."

Jonah turned back to his own hand.

Carrick waited until Jonah’s hand was still, then touched the pin to another point inside the numb patch.

Jonah kept watching the pin. Carrick asked, "Feel that?"

"No."

The ring finger and little finger pulled away from the point.

Jonah stared at them.

Ruth said, "Did you do that?"

"No."