“Good. What day is it?”
“Christmas Eve.” She tries to smile, then winces. “My mom’s going to kill me.”
“Is she here?“
“Yeah. She wanted to…” Emma sobs. “Surprise my dad with a real tree.”
I get back on the radio and manage to relay to Cassie who we’re looking for.
By the time that conversation is over, Rory’s coming around the corner. She makes quick eye contact with me, then looks back at the kid skating along beside where she’s walking at the edge of the trail. She’s listening to him, but her sharp gaze is taking in the scene.
She’s wearing the same Pine Harbour Little Tree Farm puffy vest that I am, over a fluffy cream sweater.
“Hi, Emma. I’m Rory. I understand you fell on your arm.” Her voice is all business, cool and competent. She touches my shoulder as she kneels down, guiding me out of the way. “Does anything else hurt?”
After doing a quick check on Emma’s head and legs, she glances around. “Let’s move everyone out of the way a bit. Can someone go and find Emma’s boots for me, please? Emma, I want to get you sitting up. Then we can slide your coat off and get your arm in a sling to go to the hospital.” She shrugs out of her vest and lays it on the ground beside the ice. “I’m going to brace your arm against your body, and Garrett is going to help get you up, okay?”
Emma’s eyes flare wide in alarm. “It hurts to move.”
“Let’s wait for your mom, then. We can cut your coat off if need be.”
“No, don’t…” Emma’s face screws up, tears welling.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Rory lowers her voice, whispering to the girl, until her panic subsides. “That’s it. Just keep breathing.”
“Oh my God, Emma!” A woman comes running along the trail. “I’m her mother.”
Rory introduces herself.
“I’m okay, Mom,” Emma says, though she looks far from it.
Rory repeats the options about the coat, and explains that the arm will hurt less once it’s in a sling. “And you know what? Once you get to the hospital and they get it in a cast, the pain will almost completely go away. Casts are literally magic. Science magic. So the sooner we can get you up, the sooner you’ll feel better.”
“I…” Emma looks up at us and starts crying again.
Rory patiently explains how she would brace the girl’s arm, minimizing the movement as much as possible.
And finally, Emma agrees to let us lift her up to sitting.
Rory uses her own arm like a firm splint, and I put my arms behind Emma’s shoulders and legs. On three, we lift her up and sit her on Rory’s vest.
Silent tears spill down her face as I ease her coat off her uninjured arm first, then Rory slides it off her almost-definitely fractured forearm next.
“Garrett, can you hold her arm against her body just like this,” Rory says. “I’ll put a sling on you, Emma, and then we’ll get your coat back on you, I know it’s cold.”
“I’m okay,” the teenager says between tightly pinched lips.
“You’re being so brave. Almost done.” Rory ties off the fabric at Emma’s neck, then deftly pulls her coat around her shoulders. “Let’s get your skates off, and your boots on, and then you’re going to very carefully walk out of here like a rockstar, with this big entourage around you to make sure you’re safe.”
Once she’s up on her feet, between Rory and her mom, I go to the skate hut with her friends to return everyone’s skates, and get my own boots on as well.
By the time I get to the tree lot, Emma is in the back of her mom’s car.
“I’ll call the hospital and let them know you’re coming,” Rory says. “Keep me posted. And I’ll come sign your cast tomorrow if you’re up for a visitor.”
Then they pull away.
Emma’s friends melt away, finding their families in the crowd.
