soap on the inner side of his right forearm. Looping the towel rope around the arm to cover the bar, she twisted it tight. As the makeshift tourniquet pressed down on the artery, the blood suddenly stopped flowing.
“Hold that,” she commanded Josh, her tone leaving no room for argument. As he grasped the towel with his still-bleeding left hand, she grabbed the belt from a robe that was hanging inside the bathroom door and made a second tourniquet to stem the flow of blood from the boy’s left wrist. “There,” she said as she finished. “Now you just hold still a minute while I take a look at this.”
Turning on the water, she rinsed the blood away from the wounds on Josh’s right wrist, and felt a wave of relief. At least he’d cut across, and the bones of his forearm had prevented him from cutting too deeply. Just a nick, really. “Where’s the adhesive tape?” she demanded, and Josh mutely nodded toward the medicine cabinet.
As she began taping up the wound on his right wrist, the door opened and Brenda, her face almost as pale as Josh’s, wriggled into the cramped space. “They’ll be here in five minutes. Is—Is it bad?”
Mabel Hardwick kept working as she talked. “Not so bad as it could be. Looks a lot worse than it is. When they get here, you go with him in the ambulance, and I’ll stay with the baby and start cleaning up.” Looking up for the first time, she saw the shock and panic that seemed about to overcome Brenda. “Don’t you even think of falling apart, Brenda MacCallum. Lots worse than this has happened to me, and nobody ever saw me getting ready to faint. Now you go throw some water on your face, and get your purse!”
The sharp words cut through the fear that had gripped Brenda. They set her in motion, automatically doing precisely as Mabel Hardwick had commanded. By the time the ambulance arrived a few minutes later, Brenda was ready, her wits gathered around her once more. The medics insisted that Josh lie on a gurney, despite his objections. As Brenda followed them down the stairs to the waiting ambulance, she called back to Mabel.
“Call the café, will you, Mabel? Tell Max I won’t be back today.” Not waiting for a reply, she ducked into the ambulance and crouched by the stretcher as one of the medics slammed the door. As the ambulance screeched out of the parking lot, its siren wailing, she gazed down into Josh’s pale face.
“What happened, honey? What on earth were you doing?”
Josh looked back at her for a moment, then his eyes shifted away. “I just wanted to get out of the way, that’s all,” he said, his voice barely audible.
For the first time since she’d seen Josh standing in his room, his wrists spurting blood, she realized that his cuts had not been some kind of terrible accident.
Her son, her wonderful, brilliant, ten-year-old son, had tried to kill himself.
The half hour Brenda spent in the small waiting area at the front of the emergency room of the county clinic seemed like an eternity. She’d called the café herself, and been relieved when Annette had answered the phone rather than Max. Annette had assured her that Mabel Hardwick had already called, and told her she wasn’t to worry about anything. Max had even said she shouldn’t come in tomorrow if she didn’t want to. He was planning to send a pie down to Josh. He was working on it right now, and putting in twice as many pecans as usual.” ’Course he had to say something about having to ‘bribe the little shit,’ just so he can keep some decent help around the place, but that’s just Max,” Annette finished. “Now don’t you worry about a thing. Soon’s I get off, I’m coming over to your place and fix dinner. And no arguments, okay?” Then, even precluding Brenda’s thank-you, she hung up.
Briefly, Brenda considered trying to contact Buck MacCallum, but quickly gave up the idea. She’d long ago decided that trying to collect child support from him was a fruitless endeavor. In truth, for the last couple of years she hadn’t even been sure where he was living. Feeling desperate, she found herself dialing her parents, waiting apprehensively at the empty sound of ringing at the other end. They had moved away from Eden five years ago, when her father had decided it was time to go into business