Snap and Crack

A memory...

I hate broken bones. No, I loath broken bones. It could almost be said I have a phobia. Any television footage where there is a sportsman getting his leg broken, or ankle snapped brings on dry retching and a sick feeling in my stomach. I've seen friends break limbs on the sporting field and I've had to walk away and let everyone else assist, lest I faint in the face of the injury. My saving grace is that until recently the most extreme break I'd experienced was a hairline fracture in my right ring finger - then I decided to fracture an ankle while quad bike riding in the jungle in Thailand... *sigh* 

So now I've explained that, I'll tell you about my brother who I shall call GolfBoy (yes, he is obsessed with golf, obviously).

Not GolfBoy.
He was much cuter

GolfBoy is twelve years younger than me, and when I was nearly 15, he was in the far end of his "terrible twos." I loved him so much, he was like my little doll, and to this day my feelings for him are extremely maternal. He was beautiful, sorry, he still is, but back then he stopped old ladies in their step as mum passed with him in the street. We were so proud of our little GolfBoy. Beautiful blond ringlets, true ringlets, old hollywood style, I loved to brush them (and yes, put them in little piggy tails complete with bows much to my father's horror). He had big sky blue eyes with lashes girls dream of, peaches and cream complexion and a cherubic pink mouth, and mischievous - you had to watch him like a hawk lest he disappear or cause havoc. I begged mum to let me enter him into a baby show, and was vindicated when he won a truckload of prizes.

I never thought I'd encounter a situation where I could overcome my repulsion of broken bones. In fact at the time, I knew I couldn't.

One day I was in the kitchen making a sandwich, Dad was in his Study, talking on the phone in a haze of cigarette smoke, my sister, (who I shall call BomberGirl because she is obsessed with the Essendon Bombers) was watching TV, and GolfBoy was, I believed, playing on the lounge room floor. The front door was open to let the cool summer breeze in the warm house, and nobody had noticed the baby gate was open. In fact, nobody noticed that it was GolfBoy who had opened it and escaped outside to roam our 1 acre property unfettered by fussy carers.

I was slicing up my sandwich when I heard crying. Now GolfBoy had several different cries that mum, dad and I were all very familiar with. My sisters knew them too, but were not as attuned as we were. Some were not in use as much as they used to be due to his ability to communicate now he was getting older. There was the tired cry, the hungry cry, the generally grumpy cry, the "I want" cry, the "temper tantrum" (which we all dutifully ignored until he cried himself out), and then there was the "variations of pain" cry. The pain cry had several different octaves. There was the "that scared me more than it hurt me" cry, the "ooooh that hurt" cry, then there was the "oh my god that HURTS please help me" cry. We'd only heard that on a few occasions, usually involving fingers stuck where they shouldn't be.

This cry was the worst one.

I dropped my knife, turned and hurried down the hall past the study to the entryway, where GolfBoy was toddling through the front door, looking up at me, reaching out. His face, from the eyes down, was caked in bright red blood, pulsing horribly from a slash between his eyes. Through that slash I could see the bright white of exposed bone.

I turned, bile rising in my throat, and did the most horrible thing I'd ever done to my baby brother: I ran away. 

I got three steps when I realised what I was doing. He was there, reaching out for me, and I had walked away. Without pausing I overcame my phobia, ran back to him and scooped him into my arms. He hugged me, sobbing and getting blood all over my top and neck.

'Dad, I think we need to go to the hospital," I said. I hurried to the entrance of the study, turned GolfBoy so Dad could see the blood, and hurried onto the kitchen to get a damp tea towel to stem the flow and clean his face and eyes. By the time I'd done this Dad had ended his phone call, grabbed his car keys and was heading out to the car. BomberGirl, who'd only just keyed onto the fact something was wrong, followed us blithely.

These were the days before mobile phones, and mum was down at the shops, so we left BomberGirl behind to tell Mum where we were. Dad drove and I carried GolfBoy on my lap. By halfway to the hospital I had most of the blood cleaned up, and could see bruises blooming around his eyes. We passed Mum on the way, waived her down, and she came up to the car to see what was wrong. Nothing can get between a mother and an injured child. She snatched GolfBoy from my arms, ran to her car and took off, driving with him in her lap! I never said my mother was intelligent.

I won't bore you with the minute details of the next few hours, but it involved a lot of impatience and blame-storming from my mother as she tried to determine who should take personal responsibility for this tragedy. In the end it was just a very minor cut, with a few tiny butterfly-stitches that didn't even leave him with a scar.

When we finally got home, we set GolfBoy on his feet and asked how he got the injury. GolfBoy tottered forward, simulated a trip and while I'm sure he didn't mean to fall face first into the edge of the stone step, he did. Again. Breaking open the freshly stitched wound.

This time we mopped him up ourselves.

In the meantime, as soon as the saga was over my phobia returned. So it seems short bursts are all I can handle