The year of the Lucy

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MIRELLE was roused from deep slumber with a suddenness which she immediately identified as alarm. She had had the experience twice before. She lay for a moment in bed, gathering her senses, aware first that it was early. She could see the whirling of snow outside the window and wondered if she had been deceived about the hour by the grey skies. Her watch read 4:30 but it had stopped. She looked for the alarm on Steve's bureau. It was gone. Then she realized that it must be Sunday and Roman would have taken the alarm clock to wake himself up for the morning papers.

She threw Steve's robe around her and went into the children's bedroom. Nick was fast asleep in the bed, Tonia was on the cot but Roman was gone. She closed the window and saw a figure pulling a sled, coming down the hill. She watched for a few seconds until she identified the walker as Roman.

He must be cold, she thought, he's hugging himself. She glanced over at the clock and saw that it was 8:30. She could go back to bed for maybe half an hour, but the feeling of uneasiness was too pronounced. She went downstairs to fix coffee for herself and was momentarily surprised to see Mother Martin already in the kitchen. For a few minutes she had forgotten that problem.

"Everyone is lazy this morning," her mother-in-law said in a somewhat pleasant voice.

"All except Roman. He's been out delivering papers."

"On a morning like this?" Her pleasantness deteriorated quickly.

"Certainly. Neither rain nor snow nor dark of night…"

"That's for postmen, not children."

"Roman's had that paper route for two years. He saves his money regularly and he's very responsible about serving his route on time."

"Well, I don't see that it's at all necessary for him to have a route."

"It isn't. But Roman wanted to do it and as he's always been an early riser, he might as well serve papers."

Mother Martin was unconverted.

Mirelle took her coffee into the dining room and was about to sit down when she saw that Roman had turned into the driveway. She couldn't imagine where he'd found that long red sock and why did he have on two different…

Mirelle ran to the front door and threw it open.

"Are you badly hurt, Roman?" she called, trying to keep her voice calm.

"My leg's cut, Mom, and I think my arm's broken. I'm sorry about the pants," he said with equal calm.

Mirelle dashed down the steps now, disregarding the cold wind and the snow over the tops of her light houseshoes. She resisted the impulse to pick him up in her arms. Mother Martin had come to the front door and when she saw Roman, she started to scream. As Mirelle guided Roman into the hall, her mother-in-law was upstairs, pounding on Steve's door, on her husband's, incoherently shouting disaster.

Mirelle led Roman down to the studio, arranged him on the couch. She threw a blanket about him and smiled reassuringly.

"How did it happen? Before or after?"

"After," and Roman grinned despite his pain. "Started to sled down the big hill and skidded into a storm gutter." Then he grimaced, rolling his eyes at the volume of his grandmother's screams.

Mirelle eased the torn pants away from the gash in his leg: probably from the sled runner, long and nasty. The shin bone was visible. Steve and Dad Martin came clattering down the stairs as she tore the pants leg off at the thigh.

"Steve, call Will Martin. Possible fracture of the right arm, eight inch laceration, deep on the shin bone, from a sled runner. Dad Martin, please get me some towels, dishtowels, napkins, anything that's clean in the laundry. There may be sheets in the dryer."

"Oh, that poor child! That poor child!" Marian Martin's keening was a counterpoint to Mirelle's instruction. "Oh, this is what happens when you don't take proper care of your children. This is what happens…"

"If you can't stop that caterwauling immediately, please go to your room," Mirelle said, turning to look up the stairs at the distraught woman. "The boy will be all right but your hysterics are completely unnecessary!"

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.