Chapter 7 - Fever in the Blizzard
"Toby!" Lauren screamed, lunging forward blindly into the shadows.
My reflexes took over before my conscious mind could process the panic. I dropped to my knees, whipping out my smartphone, snapping the flashlight on. The beam of white light cut through the gloom, illuminating the foot of the stairs.
Toby was curled on the hardwood floor, clutching his right wrist against his chest, his face pale and contorted in agony.
"My arm!" he sobbed, gasping for breath. "Mom, it hurts! It hurts real bad!"
Lauren threw herself down beside him, her hands trembling as she gently touched his shoulder. "Shh, baby, Mommy’s here. Let me see. Let me look."
I knelt on the other side, holding the phone steady. When the light illuminated the boy’s wrist, a cold dread seized my chest. The joint was already swelling rapidly, an unnatural, slight deformity visible near the lower forearm. A greenstick fracture, or a severe sprain from bracing his fall against the banister.
Toby looked at me through a deluge of tears, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. "M-Mr. Keaton... make it stop hurting. Please."
Hearing him beg me for help broke something fundamental inside my soul. In that instant, I was no longer a stranger. I wasn't an intruder or a high-powered executive. I was a father looking at his wounded child.
"I’ve got you, buddy," I said, my voice dropping into a low, steady cadence I didn't know I possessed. I slipped off my thick cashmere scarf. "You're going to be okay. You are tough as nails, Toby. Just look at me. Look right into my eyes."
Toby locked his slate-blue eyes onto mine, his chest heaving with ragged sobs.
"Lauren," I said, keeping my tone razor-sharp and calm. "Go to the kitchen. Find two wooden spatulas or flat rulers, and grab some athletic tape or clean dish towels. We need to immobilize the bone before swelling locks the joint."
"Right," Lauren breathed, catching my steady energy. She didn't question me; the mutual trust forged during the early years of our marriage resurfaced under crisis. She scrambled into the dark kitchen, guided by the glow of the wood stove.
I stayed beside Toby, gently wrapping the soft wool of my scarf around his wrist to support it without applying pressure.
"You know," I said softly, brushing a stray lock of hair from his sweat-slicked forehead, "when I was seven years old, I climbed an old oak tree behind my house and fell out of the lowest branch. I broke my left wrist."
Toby snuffled, wiping his nose with his uninjured hand. "Did you cry?"
"I bawled like a baby for two hours," I admitted with a conspiratorial wink. "My mom yelled at me, but my dad gave me strawberry ice cream and told me that bones grow back twice as strong where they break. That means your arm is going to be like titanium."
A tiny, wet hiccup of a laugh escaped Toby’s lips. "Like Iron Man?"
"Exactly like Iron Man."
Lauren returned in less than thirty seconds, carrying two flat wooden paint stirrers and a roll of white medical tape.
Together, working in unspoken harmony in the beam of my flashlight, we carefully splinted the small arm. Toby whimpered as I secured the tape, but he kept his gaze anchored to my face, gripping my knee with his good hand with an astonishing amount of strength.
When the splint was secure, Lauren wrapped him in a thick wool quilt and pulled him into her lap on the sofa in front of the wood stove.
"We need to get him to the urgent care clinic in town," Lauren said, her voice shaking as she felt Toby’s forehead. Her eyes widened with fresh terror. "Liam... he’s burning up."
I reached forward, resting the back of my hand against his cheek.
It was scalding hot.
The shock of the fall, combined with an underlying fever that had clearly been brewing all evening behind his bright cheeks, was spiking his temperature dangerously high.
"The travel ban," I muttered, glancing toward the window where the blizzard was battering the glass with monstrous fury. "The roads are impassable. Calvin said the county pulled the plows."
"We can't wait until morning!" Lauren whispered desperately, rocking the boy as his eyelids fluttered, exhaustion and pain dragging him under. "If his fever spikes past a hundred and four, he could have a seizure! He had a febrile seizure when he was three, Liam! We need a doctor!"
I stood up, my jaw locking into place. The hesitation and sorrow that had paralyzed me all evening vanished, replaced by an iron resolve.
"Get his heavy snowsuit," I said, heading for the mudroom. "Wrap him tight."
"What are you doing?" Lauren asked, panic lacing her voice. "Your rental sedan won't make it twenty feet out of the drive!"
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"I'm not taking the rental," I said, grabbing my heavy boots. "Calvin’s house is half a mile down the ridge. He has a four-wheel-drive truck with a heavy plow blade. I’m walking through the storm to get him."
***
