Page 27 of Brother to Brother

“You usually are,” I said tucking the phone between my shoulder and ear so I could turn a socket wrench and get a bolt off my latest project.

“Yeah, I usually am, but not with a sick kid… I just figured you’d want to know in case things get ugly.”

“Ugly how?”

“Could be anything,” she said, “A snotty nose, rapid diaper changes, throwing up…”

“The joys of mommyhood,” I said sarcastically and I think I heard her smile, which she still hadn’t really done since getting here; leastways not around me. “Thanks for the warning,” I said.

“No problem.”

“See you later then.”

“Yeah, bye.”

I put in the rest of my hours and headed home, giving Mel a call before I headed out, it took her a while to answer and she got the phone right before it went to voicemail.

“Yeah, hello?”

I could hear Noah squealing in the background and Mel sounded frazzled, “Not sick I take it?”

“One awful diaper later he was right as rain, I think he just had an upset tummy because he’s acting fine now. Noah, stop running!”

“Was calling to check and see if you needed anything from the store for him but it sounds like you’re all good.”

“All except for him making up for lost time,” she said and I could hear her blow her bangs off her forehead. Yep. Definitely worn out chasing after the kid. Of course, it wasn’t like Mel ever seemed fully rested. “Noah, I said stop!”

“I’ll let you go so you can rein him in,” I said and she said something but evenIheard Noah hit, a loud thump coming over the line followed by him crying in the background.

“I’ve got to go!” Mel cried and the line went dead. I sighed and tucked my phone away, starting up my bike. I knew something was wrong when about three minutes into my eight minute ride home my phone started buzzing off the hook. It stopped, probably when it went to voicemail, but then immediately started up again.

“Aw shit,” I muttered under my breath and poured on the speed. I parked the bike and took the stairs two at a time, my keys already at the ready to get into the apartment. Mel sat at the dining table, Noah in her lap, a wad of bloody paper towels pressed against his forehead while the kid justscreamedin those hiccupping sobs. Mel was white as a fuckin’ sheet and sobbing just as hard as her son.

“What happened?” I demanded and she was tripping over herself to get it out, talking so fast I couldn’t understand her, Noah screaming even louder over her and it was so fucking noisy and he was obviously bleeding and it looked bad… fuck!

I finally had to grip the back of my head with both hands, fingers laced and take a few deep breaths so I didn’t scream at them both to just shut the fuck up and tell me what the fuck had just happened. Finally, I put it together from Mel’s babbling that Noah had been running around the apartment, unsteady as fuck being a fairly new walker, hell, toddlers his age were always unsteady, it was what it was. He’d tripped over his own damn feet and had crashed headfirst into the doorjamb to the bedroom, except he’d gone down just right and had hit his head on the corner of the strike plate, where the thing from the doorknob went into.

“Alright, legit, let me see,” I ordered and she pulled the paper towels away. That was going to need a stich or two. No doubt about it. “Right, we’re going to the hospital, gimme your keys, I’ll drive. You try to keep him calm; can you work on that? Can you do that?” I asked over the noise of Noah’s rhythmic howling. God, it was enough to drive anybody nuts.

“I don’t have insurance for him!” she cried and I looked at her.

“Doesn’t matter, I’ll figure it out, but let’s get that looked at, come on.” I grabbed her keys off the counter where I spotted them and we rushed down to her cage. I didn’t bother dealing with my cut on account of the emergency, and had already decided we were lucky to be nearest Doc’s hospital. I opened the back door for Mel and she got in the cage, I got in the front.

“What if they think I hurt my son?” she asked and I shook my head.

“If anything they’re gonna take one look at me and thinkIhurt him,” I told her. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, the important thing is to get him looked at. That’s what we’re doing. One problem at a fucking time,” I grated and I knew I sounded pissed. I wasn’t pissed at her, or anyone for that matter. I guess I was more pissed that there wasn’t anything I could do other than what I was doing and that didn’t seem like very damn much at all. I couldn’t fix this one, and that chapped my fucking ass.

We pulled into the parking lot at Doc’s ER and I let Mel out the back door, “Go in, get everything going, I’ll be right there.”

She nodded and carried Noah in, she hadn’t let him go since I’d gotten to them, and I didn’t see that changing. I parked the car and took a couple extra deep breaths, hitting the steering wheel a couple of times to vent before I went in there and tore into any hospital people, making this any worse than it already was.

I got out the car and went in, to find no sign of Mel and Noah, they were in the back already. Good. I went that way and ignored the nurse behind the admin desk who yelled out, “Sir, you can’t go back there!” The fuck I couldn’t, Noah was blood. I’d be damned if anybody would keep me from him.

I found Mel and Noah in an alcove and sat down. A hospital security guy pulled back the curtain a second after me.

“It’s okay,” Mel said, “he’s my baby’s uncle.”

“You can’t be back here without one of these,” the admin desk nurse said holding up a ‘visitor’ sticker. I plucked it from her fingers and stuck it on the front of my cut.

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