“Yeah,” he answers.
“We’re going to the hospital so you can feel better.”
“Okay,” Olly says.“I feel bad.”
“How bad?What do you mean?”I ask.
“Like… like… I ruined the campout,” he says through muffled tears.“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“No!You didn’t ruin anything,” I assure him with a smile.“That’s the thing about campouts.Anything can happen.Right, Venus?”
“That’s exactly right.Everything will be okay,” she says.“We’re together.We know what to do.You’ll be fine.”
Traffic is thankfully light this early on a Sunday morning.She navigates the few miles to the hospital and pulls up directly to the emergency department’s front doors.She helps me get Olly out of the truck and starts to follow us inside, leaving the Jeep with its doors open.
A security guard stops us at the door.
“Can’t park there, ma’am,” he says gruffly.
Venus leaves us to deal with the car, and I rush inside with Olly.A few people are scattered in the oversized waiting room, but a nurse assesses the severity of Olly’s injuries and takes us through to the emergency department.I carefully set him on a bed in a small, curtained-off section of the ER as the nurse asks questions and enters information into the computer.When the doctor arrives and begins his exam, I peek outside the curtain to find Venus.
She’s at reception, looking slightly wild with her loose hair and distressed expression.I wave her in our direction.She meets me just outside the curtain with a sigh of relief, her hand circling my elbow.
“Is he okay?”she asks.
“Of course, he is.Thanks to you.He’s with the doctor now.”
A shuddering breath escapes her, as if the morning’s events are just now catching up to her and shaking her free of her steady calmness.
I lead her inside the curtained section.Olly sits upright on a bed.Her bloody scarf lies unraveled beside him.
“Nasty cut you got there,” the doctor says genially.
Olly nods, looking weepy.
Venus hesitates near the curtain, but I pull her along with me to the bed.
“How’d it happen?”the doctor asks.
“I was showing Buster, the dog, how to climb a tree,” Olly says, almost proudly.“But I fell.We were camping.”
The doctor chuckles.“An excellent pastime.I take my family camping every fall when the leaves start changing.We don’t climb trees, though.”
Olly’s shoulders slump.“Yeah, I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Whatcha got there?”the doctor points to Olly’s closed hand.He loosens his tight grip to reveal Mango.
“It’s a fossil.Venus gave it to me.It’s a snake named Mango,” Olly answers with a smile.
“Cool,” the doctor says.
He performs a neurological exam, testing Olly’s vision, balance, and coherence.
Finally, the doctor turns to us with a wide smile.“Relax, Mom and Dad.The head wound is superficial…”
Venus’s eyes meet mine with relief and uncertainty.She expects me to correct him, but I don’t.She is his mom right now, and a damn good one, too.My smile grows with hers, like she knows what I’m thinking.
“We need an X-ray of that arm, though.”
