Dad Martin returned with several napkins and a large towel. Mirelle took them and folded the clean linen over the open wound, binding a second napkin as gently as possible to close the laceration. There was only a hiss of inhaled breath from her son.
"Did you hear how she spoke to me, Arthur?" gasped the outraged wife.
"There's no sense in upsetting the boy. He's the one should be crying, Marian, and I notice he isn't. You never could stand the sight of blood, you know."
"Am I bleeding much, Mom?" Roman asked, suddenly concerned.
"Like a stuck pig," Mirelle informed him.
Steve came back and watched Mirelle fold in a pressure bandage.
"Doc Martin's sending the ambulance for you, Roman."
"Ambulance?" wailed Mother Martin, clapping her hand to her mouth, her eyes popping out of her head in terror.
"What's all the noise?" Nick demanded, slipping past his grandmother and thudding down the stairs. He looked at the cut incuriously and then brightened suddenly. "Hey, Roman, that's going to take lots of stitches. You should be ahead of Max Schneider then!" Nick was envious. "How'd you do it?"
"Oh, Nicholas," cried his grandmother, snatching him back from the couch. "Come away from there. You shouldn't see such things."
"Why not?" Nick was surprised. "What's wrong, Grandmother? You look kinda green."
"Nick, go watch for the ambulance," Steve said firmly.
Nick's eyes bulged with admiration and excitement. "Ambulance? Gee whiz!" He bounded up the stairs, nearly knocking Tonia down. Mirelle could hear him explaining to her and she went with him, shrieking with glee over the necessity of an ambulance coming to their house.
Steve began unfastening the heavy snowboots and chafing Roman's cold toes.
"Can you sit up, honey?" Mirelle asked. He nodded but winced as the movement jarred his arm. Steve helped and they began to remove his damp jacket. Working very carefully, they also got the sleeve off the injured arm without hurting him too much. Through the thinner fabric of the flannel shirt, Mirelle could see the bone disjointure of the forearm. Mastering a desire to be ill, she smiled at her white-faced son.
"What about a shot of bourbon?" Steve murmured to Mirelle. She nodded.
"Gee, Grandfather," Roman said, distracting himself as Mirelle rigged a sling for his arm, "I'm sorry to wreck your visit like this."
"That's all right, sonny," Dad Martin said, glancing reprovingly at his wife when she gasped. "I'm right proud of you. You just take it easy and don't give a moment's thought about wrecking our visit."
Steve came back with a shot glass and sat beside Roman.
"Let's see you knock this back, boy. Take the chill from your bones. It's the very best bourbon in the house so don't waste it."
"But you said not till I'm twenty-one," Roman protested.
"Medicinal," Steve replied. "The trick is in the wrist." He demonstrated.
"Steven Martin, are you giving that child liquor?" Mother Martin demanded, striding across the room.
"For shock, yes. Be quiet, Mother," Steve said without raising his voice. "Go ahead, Roman."
Roman took it down as if to the manner born.
"He's been practising?" Mirelle asked with a nervous laugh. She needed a jolt herself.
"You see 'em do it on TV," Roman said, also a little shaky. "That's strong stuff," he added, unable to keep from coughing but the color was coming back into his face. "It's warm all the way down."
"It does help," Mirelle said, settling him against a pillow, and then rose. "It won't take long for me to dress. Or would you rather have your father at the hospital with you?"
Roman looked anxiously from his mother to his father.
"Both of you go," suggested Dad Martin. "We'll tend the shop."
"Thanks, Dad," Steve said with obvious relief.
As he and Mirelle turned to go upstairs, they saw that Mother Martin had already absented herself. They heard Dad talking quietly to Roman.
"When's that ambulance coming?" demanded Nick, his nose pressed against the window.
"Soon, soon," Steve said. "Now look, Nick, Granddad and Grandmother will be staying with you while we take Ro to the hospital. You do everything you're told to, right smart. Understand?"
"Sure, Dad. Always glad to cooperate in an emergency," Nick said, all seriousness.
"Me, too," vowed Tonia promptly.
"What TV show does that come from?" Steve wanted to know, and there was an odd quaver in his voice.
Mirelle took his hand and dragged him into the kitchen where she poured a stiff shot of bourbon for each of them.
They had barely finished dressing when they heard the ambulance siren. Nick had thrown open the front door and Tonia was jumping up and down from excitement when they got downstairs again.
"Right down to the gameroom, sirs," Nick said, directing the attendants.
"Thanks, son."
"Did you tangle with a mountain lion, boy?" the other man asked as he saw the scratches on Roman's face that Mirelle somehow hadn't noticed yet.
"I tangled, period," Roman agreed with a wry grin.
"Don't want to jar that arm, feller, so you just use your other hand to keep it steady, and we'll just llllliffft you over here. There now." They had deftly completed the maneuver before Roman could tense up.
"Only room for one of you two in the back, so flip a coin," the attendant told Steve and Mirelle.
"You go with him, Steve," Mirelle suggested, thinking that would be better for Roman's morale. Steve hesitated so briefly Mirelle was sure she was the only one who noticed. Then he smiled encouragingly down at his son in the stretcher.
"Us men, huh?"
"Thanks, Dad."
"I'll go right to Emergency?" Mirelle asked the ambulance men.
"That's right, lady, and watch the roads. They're dangerously slippery."
"I will," Mirelle said and watched the party leave the house.
She turned to Dad Martin then, who had a comforting arm about Nick and Tonia.
"I'll call as soon as we know what's what. I'm terribly sorry that this should've happened on top of everything else."
"We should have checked with you first, before we made our plans to drop in on such a busy weekend," Dad Martin said graciously. "But we old folks get a notion and just pack up and go, come what may."
"That's the way it should be, Dad. But we do so little work in the community and the church that… well, you do understand?"
"Yes, Mirelle, I do," he said earnestly and then patted her hand. "You've got a fine boy in Roman. Go on now. He'll want you as much as his father."
"Be good, you two." Mirelle fixed Nick and Tonia with a stern glare.
"Promise!" they chimed.
It wasn't until Mirelle was driving cautiously onto the main road that she realized Dad Martin had used 'Mirelle' for the first time.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WILL MARTIN met them at the Emergency entrance and, after a cursory examination, sent Roman up to X-ray.
"Good job of first aid, Mirelle," he commented. "Has he had anything to eat today?"
"Not that I know of."
"He did have a slug of bourbon," Steve reminded them.
"He was so cold when he got in," Mirelle added.
"Won't hurt. I'll give him a general. Between the broken arm, stitches and shock, I think it'll be smarter. You better go make the admissions department happy and sign away a second mortgage."
Mirelle fumbled in her wallet for the hospitalization card.
"How long will he be in?"
"Day or two," said the doctor with a shrug and walked off to the nurse's station.
While waiting for the X-rays to be processed, Mirelle and Steve stayed with Roman, saw him comfortable in a hospital room on the adult side, Roman announced with pleasure. Martin had ordered a pre-operative shot and Roman was shortly euphoric.