33 The Return of Bowie Bravo

by Christine Rimmer

  Johnny’s T-shirt-wrapped fist shot into the air. “This way?”

  “That’s it. Just right. The blood doesn’t pump so hard when you keep the wound up above your heart.”

  “Above my heart,” Johnny repeated in a dazed and wondering tone.

  Bowie, as calm as their son—and even more white around the mouth—spoke to her then. “I’m guessing he’ll need some stitches. We should call Brett.…”

  “I’m on it.” She turned.

  “There’s a phone here,” he said.

  But she was already dashing back the way she’d come. The truth was, her mind had gone blank. She couldn’t remember her own sister’s number. And in the house, she had it on auto dial. She grabbed the phone the minute she was back inside, hit the right button for Angie’s house.

  Brett answered. “Bravo residence.”

  In a breathless rush, she told him that Johnny had cut his hand and probably needed stitches.

  “Wrap it tight and keep it elevated,” he said.

  “Done.”

  “Good. Bring him over to the clinic, then. I’ll meet you there.”

  She hung up and whirled to run back to the barn. But Bowie and Johnny, with his small, bloody fist high, were already coming up the back-porch steps. She held the door open for them. “Brett says he’ll meet us at the clinic.”

  Bowie asked, “Sera asleep?”

  “I’ll just get her.” Glory started to whirl away again, this time for the stairs.

  He caught her arm. “Wait.” She froze—and blinked down at the sight of his big, warm hand wrapped around her elbow. He let go instantly. “I just mean, why wake her up?” he asked carefully. “I can take him—or stay here with her and you can go.”

  Johnny gazed up at Bowie. “We should go,” he said gravely, his fist still up in the air. “Mom can watch Sera.”

  Glory wanted to burst into tears. Her son needed stitches and he hadn’t once cried or clung to her. Plus, he had actually volunteered to let Bowie take him.

  She was happy about that—or at least, she knew it for the breakthrough it was. He was a great kid. And it looked like he might actually begin to forge a relationship with his father, after all.

  Still, her mother’s heart ached. He was growing up so fast. She’d never realized—how swiftly it was all going to happen, how quickly he would grow up and start to claim his independence, a state that set him apart from her.

  Bowie, still way too white around the mouth and grim around the eyes, deferred to her. “Glory?”

  She made herself nod. “Yeah, you two go on. I’ll stay with Sera.”

  Now he looked doubtful—or maybe more like scared to death. “You sure?”

  “Come on, Bowie,” Johnny insisted. He actually got hold of Bowie’s sleeve with his uninjured hand and gave it a tug. “I need to see Uncle Brett right now. ’Cause I need stitches.”

  Bowie seemed to shake himself. “All right, let’s get going.” He fumbled in the pocket of the jacket he must have thrown on when she ran for the phone. The keys jingled in his hand.

  Johnny was already headed for the front door, rubber boots clump, clump, clumping past the stairs. Bowie sent her a last, desperate glance over his shoulder as he went after him.

  The front door opened. And then it shut. A minute later, she heard Bowie’s SUV start up outside.

  She put her hand against her aching heart and whispered, “Drive carefully,” even though they were already gone.

  The lights were on at the clinic when Bowie pulled into a parking space in front.

  In the backseat, Johnny barely waited for the car to stop moving before popping the latch on his seat belt and jumping out. Injured hand still held high, he raced up the steps and grabbed the doorknob with his good hand. It was open.

  Johnny threw the door wide, “Uncle Brett! I’m here and it looks like I’m gonna need stitches!”

  Brett called, “Back here, Johnny!”

  Johnny bolted across the reception area to the open doorway that led to the exam rooms. Bowie followed, hating himself for what had happened.

  The lights were on in the first exam room. Brett signaled them in. “So, what’s happened here?”

  The blood—so dark, so red, so much of it—had soaked through the torn section of T-shirt. Bowie felt sick every time he looked at it.

  Johnny waved his bloody fist triumphantly. “Bowie told me not to touch the knife, but I touched the knife.” Now he looked at Brett with serious eyes. “Uncle Brett, it was very sharp.”

  Brett sent a glance at Bowie and Bowie saw the glint of humor in his brother’s eyes. What was so funny? Not a thing, the way Bowie saw it. The kid could have bled to death. And Bowie knew whose fault that would have been.

  “Let’s have a look.” Brett snapped on exam gloves. “Can you take off that jacket and get up on the bench by yourself?”

  Johnny got the jacket off without much trouble. “Here, Bowie.”

  Bowie stepped up to take the jacket. There was blood on the sleeve. And also on the sleeve and down the front of his airplane pajamas. Bowie felt sick at the sight. All that blood. And now the poor kid would need his hand sewn up. Why? Because his long-lost, would-be dad didn’t have sense enough to keep a sharp knife out of his reach.

  At least Johnny was taking it all in stride. He proudly got on the stool and clambered onto the examining bench. “Will I have to have a shot? Bobby Winkle had a shot that time he had those stitches in his knee. Remember that, Uncle Brett?”

  “Yes, I do.” Brett swung a steel tray on a stand in front of Johnny. “Okay, put your hand here.”

  “Below my heart?”

  “I think we’re safe to try that now. The bleeding seems to have slowed a little.” Johnny held out his hand and Brett unwrapped the bloody strip of cloth. “Okay, now, this might sting.” He went to work cleaning the gash.

  Johnny was a trouper. He shut his eyes tight and tipped his head back. And said “ow” only twice. After the cleaning, it was time for that shot Johnny had asked about.

  “This will numb the area.” Brett delivered the injection smoothly, with little fanfare.

  Bowie couldn’t bear to watch. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked away and hated himself some more. Johnny whimpered when the needle went in but quickly regained his composure.

  And his excitement. He watched, fascinated, as Brett stitched him up. “Wow, nine stitches. That’s a lot, huh, Uncle Brett?”

  Brett bandaged him up. “Yes, it is. And you shouldn’t have touched that knife.”

  “I know. I was bad.” The big brown eyes turned Bowie’s way. “I’m sorry, Bowie.” Bowie gave him a nod.

  Brett said, “But as far as getting the stitches goes, you did very, very well.”

  Johnny’s brown eyes shone. “I didn’t cry once, did I?”

  “Nope, not once.”

  “Do I get a tattoo?”

  Brett snapped off his gloves, dropped them in the trash and grabbed a clear glass bowl from a shelf by the sink. “You get two.”

  Johnny proudly fished out two temporary tattoos. One of a skull and crossbones, the other of a yellow shield with SuperKid printed in red across it. “Thank you,” he said.

  Brett gave him a wink and turned to Bowie, who stood near the door again, wrapped up in his own personal hell, reliving that moment when Johnny screamed. “Don’t disturb the bandage for forty-eight hours,” Brett said. “Don’t let him get it wet. After that, you can apply fresh antibiotic cream and a clean bandage. Children’s acetaminophen or ibuprofen if he has any pain. He should come back in a week. If the area around the stitches gets red or swollen, give us a call.”

  Bowie gaped at his brother, the doctor. “Uh, gotcha,” he said, thinking about those
words red or swollen. What if the hand got infected? Bowie would never forgive himself.

  Brett grinned and handed him a small folded pamphlet. “Instructions for care of the injury. Just in case you forget.”

  “Great.”

  “Nine stitches,” Johnny crowed. “Bobby Winkle only got eight. Isn’t that right, Uncle Brett?”

  “That’s right.” Brett took him under the arms and swung him down from the examining bench. “Be careful with that hand, now.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  Glory was standing at the bay window in the family room, waiting for them, when Bowie’s SUV pulled up in front of the house again. She watched as Johnny ran up the front walk, his right hand wrapped in a snow-white gauze bandage. Bowie followed after him at a more sedate pace.

  As soon as her boy reached the porch, she went through the arch into the front hall so that she was waiting there when he pushed open the door.

  “Mom!” He ran to her, arms outstretched. Her heart aching—but in a good way now—she gathered him in. “Mom, I had nine stitches! Nine! And Uncle Brett said I did very, very well.”

  She hugged him tighter. “Oh, you are a brave, brave boy.”

  Too soon, he was squirming to be free again. “I have to keep it clean and not get it wet and go back in a week.”

  She straightened to her height again. “It’s all very exciting. Hang up your coat and take off your boots and maybe we should have a little hot chocolate before you go to bed.…”

  He was already easing his injured hand free of his coat sleeve, beaming up at her. “Hot chocolate. I think that’s a good idea.”

  “And give me that coat.” There was blood on the sleeve. “I’ll soak it overnight. You’ll have to wear your old coat tomorrow.”

  “’Kay.” He handed it over.

  She folded the jacket over her arm and glanced at Bowie, who stood by the door, his head hunched into his collar and his hands in his pockets. “A little hot chocolate, Bowie?”

  “You know, if everything’s all right now, I think I’ll just go on out to the barn.…”

  Was something wrong? Yeah, it had been scary, but everything had worked out all right. Still, he didn’t sound so good. She frowned at him.

  But he was already focused on Johnny again. “Good night, Johnny.”

  Johnny was sitting on the bottom stair taking off his boots. “’Night.”

  “Care instructions—for his stitches,” Bowie muttered, holding out a folded piece of paper. She took it from him. And then, without another word, he eased around her and headed for the kitchen. A moment later, she heard the back door open and close.

  Johnny drank his hot chocolate and then went up to brush his teeth a second time. He was already in bed wearing clean pajamas when she went in to say good-night.

  He confessed in a solemn tone, “Bowie told me not to touch the knife, but I did. I told him I was sorry.”

  “Good.” She smoothed his silky hair back off his forehead. “It all turned out okay, and I’m so glad about that. But what you did was wrong. Sharp things are not for kids.”

  “I know. I just wanted to hold it.”

  “If you wanted to hold it, you should have told Bowie. Then he would have either shown you the safe way to hold it, or explained why that wasn’t a good idea.”

  “I know, Mom. It was dumb, what I did. I won’t do that again.”

  “All right, then.”

  Reluctantly, he asked, “Will I have to have a big time-out and stay in my room after school for a whole month or something?”

  “Hmm. Well, I don’t think a time-out is necessary. I have a feeling you won’t be grabbing any knife blades in the future.”

  “No, I will not,” he vowed. “Never, not ever.”

  She bent and kissed his cheek. “Does your hand hurt?”

  “A little. Maybe.”

  “I’ll be right back.” She went and got him a kids’ ibuprofen and water.

  He took the pill. “There.” He passed the glass back to her. “I’ll be just fine now, Mom. You don’t have to worry.”

  “I’m so glad. Good night.”

  “’Night.” He snuggled right down and shut his eyes.

  She turned off the light, quietly shut the door—and right then, from the room next to Johnny’s, she heard Sera fussing.

  A half hour later, she had Sera fed, changed and back in her crib. Then she got Johnny’s blood-spattered pajamas out of the bathroom hamper and took them downstairs to soak them with the jacket.

  She ended up standing at the folding table, staring out the window above it at the barn.

  The light was on in the workshop. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, worried it briefly and let it go with a sigh as she admitted to herself that she was concerned about Bowie.

  He’d seemed so grim when he brought Johnny back from the visit with Brett. And he’d said no to hot chocolate—even though it would have meant a few more minutes with the son he was trying so hard to get closer to.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Mind your own business, Glory. Just leave the guy alone. She needed to turn out the lights, lock the doors and go to bed. After all, she deserved every minute of sleep she could get. Sera would be awake again and making a racket in a couple of hours at the most.

  But there was just something about that lonely light shining in the workshop window. She couldn’t turn and walk away from that, not after she’d seen that lost, glum look on Bowie’s face.

  So she got her jacket and grabbed the baby monitor from the kitchen counter and went out the back door.

  The last thing Bowie expected that night was a knock on the workshop door. He was sitting on the cot, his head in his hands when that knock came.

  He dragged himself to his feet and went to answer. It was Glory, her arms wrapped around herself against the icy night air, clutching the baby monitor in one fist, her eyes very dark and troubled-looking. “What’s up?” A terrible thought came to him and panic unleashed its claws. “Johnny?” He croaked the word.

  “Relax,” she said, and even put on a smile. “He’s fine. Sound asleep. Mind if I come in?”

  He stepped back and gestured her inside.

  She hesitated. For a moment he thought she would simply turn and go back to the house, which would have been fine with him. Or so he tried to tell himself.

  But then she moved forward. He shut the door behind her and then stayed there, back to the door, waiting for some word from her, some explanation as to why she’d come out here.

  She set the monitor down and slowly circled the space, moving first to the working side of the room, stopping by the new table saw, pausing again at his lathe and yet again at his router table. “Got all your new tools ready to go?” she asked with an oblique glance. At his nod, she continued her slow circuit of the room. Finally, she stopped by the stove and held her hands out to warm them. “Cold out.”

  “Yeah,” he said, still waiting. And still wondering what she had on her mind.

  She took off her jacket and draped it over the back of an old wooden rocking chair. Finally, she gestured at the cot and the open duffel bag half-full of his clothes. “Planning a trip?”

  Out of nowhere, he wanted a drink. Jack Black straight up. A double.

  The desire shocked him a little. He’d come a long way from the days when he thought about drinking most of the time. Now, the hunger came infrequently.

  And when it did, he recognized the sudden, sharp longing for what it was: a yen to escape something scary or difficult, a need to get away from a moment too painful to face.

  He admitted, “Okay, Glory, yeah. I was thinking about leaving. About how maybe I shouldn’t have come.”

  Her mouth pinched up. She glare
d at that duffel bag. “That bag tells me you were more than just thinking about it.”

  “Glory, come on…”

  She whirled on him, brandy-brown eyes flashing, cheeks hot with color. “Don’t you ‘come on’ me, Bowie Bravo. What was your plan, then? To just take off, with no goodbyes and no explanations? Just disappear in the middle of the night?”

  “No, that was not my plan.” The words came out low and rough. Raw. “I…didn’t have a plan, okay? I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do. I only knew that Johnny wouldn’t have nine stitches in his hand if it wasn’t for me.”

  “How long were you planning to be gone this time, huh? Ten years? Twenty?”

  “Stop it.”

  She came at him, fast, right arm raised. He was certain she was going to slap his face and he braced himself for the blow—but when she reached him, she only let out a low, furious growl through clenched teeth. “I would like to slap you silly about now.”

  “Got that. And go ahead. Be my guest.”

  She let her arm drop to her side. “And give you an excuse to make me the bad guy? No, thanks.” She turned away, went to the rocking chair and plunked down into it. “Listen,” she said, rocking furiously.

  Like he had a choice. “What?”

  She stopped in mid-rock. “You told me you were here to try and get to know Johnny, to be part of his life.”

  “That’s right, but—”

  She cut him off. “There are no buts when it comes to being a dad. No buts. You don’t get to just take off because you feel bad, Bowie. Things go wrong and you know it’s your fault, so what? You fix it the best you can and you work hard not to make the same mistake twice. And you keep on. Got it? You stick around, no matter what.”

  “Glory, I—”

  She rolled right over him again. “Refresh my memory for me, will you?”

  “It’s just that—”

  “I seem to recall that when I said you could stay here, you promised you wouldn’t go running off, no matter how tough things got. I seem to recall your swearing to me that you wouldn’t desert Johnny again, no matter what.”