Her head became a little fuzzy as she watched the bone shift and the skin pull together, appearing as though it was chasing the tube being pulled out. She really wished she hadn’t looked over. She’d never been good with this kind of thing. When she had to dissect a frog in biology class in the ninth grade she passed out with the…the um…….um…..first cut, she remembered dazedly as black spots competed with the pitch black night.
“Izzy?” Joshua said, his words echoing hollowly in her head as she swayed. “Shit. Dad?” he said, shifting his eyes from her back to that hole that was getting smaller and smaller right before her eyes.
“I’m on it,” Ephraim said as her body began leaning towards the cold ground. She needed to lie down, just for a few minutes, she thought closing her eyes and giving Chris’ hand a small squeeze. He was going to be fine, she thought when she felt him give her hand a weak squeeze in return.
********
“Dad, can you check the baby for me?” he asked as he kept himself busy, hoping his father hadn’t noticed his hands shaking.
He’d been doing shit like this since he was a seventeen year old kid and not once had he’d ever been this scared out of his f**king mind. Then again this was the first time he’d been responsible for saving someone in his family.
When he realized how f**ked up Chris’ situation was he was momentarily stunned and all he could think about was that tragic night all those years ago, sitting on his father’s lap as he watched the helicopter medic race to save Chris’ life. For about a minute he’d felt like a helpless kid once again until his father’s fear practically knocked him on his ass. Then he got his ass in gear and did what he had to do in order to save his brother, but he’d know thirty seconds into working on Chris that there would be no saving him without a miracle. His lung was punctured in multiple places and the damn tissue was torn to shreds.
If it hadn’t been for his unborn niece, Chris would be circling the drain at this moment and he wouldn’t have a clue on how to deal with that. He loved his brother, always had, probably from the first moment Chris came into his life.
He still remembered the first time he met Chris. It was the day before Thanksgiving and his biological mother had promised to take him to the grocery store to pick up all the last minute items his grandmother needed to make Thanksgiving dinner for everyone, including eleven boarders. At first his grandmother had refused to hand over the money and trust Candy, and for good reason, but when it became obvious that she had no other choice she gave in and asked him to go with Candy to make sure that she stuck to the list.
Candy hadn’t wanted him to tag along anymore than he wanted to go with her. He’d hated her, always had.
She’d always been a cruel, selfish person and he hated the way she’d treated his sisters, but he loved his grandmother and she needed his help so he reluctantly went.
His grandmother naively gave his mother an additional thirty dollars to take him out for dinner. She was always doing things like that, trying to make up for his mother’s lack of caring and bullshit and trying to make them think that their mother cared when they all knew that she couldn’t have given a flying f**k if they lived or died.
So when she pocketed the thirty bucks and dropped him off at the grocery store and told him that he had a half hour to move his ass and get everything his grandmother needed or he’d have to walk home he hadn’t been all that surprised. Of course she announced this in front of a group of young thugs in their late teens/early twenties.
The moment his mother rounded the corner the three guys came over and started hassling him for his money.
He tried to run, but he didn’t get far. When one of the thugs shoved him into the alleyway and pushed him to the ground he tried to kick and scream, but they wouldn’t back off. When they grabbed his money and walked away he’d been afraid of what Candy would do to him. Not that he thought she’d be pissed because he wouldn’t be able to buy the groceries that Grandma needed, but because she knew Grandma would blame her and she’d take out on him.
That’s when Chris came into his life, saving his ass for the first time. When he confronted the much older men they tried to shove him aside the same way they’d done to him, except Chris hadn’t been a little kid or afraid of anyone. He beat the shit out of all three of them, receiving a couple of good blows in the process, but he hadn’t seemed to care.
While the last one was scurrying away Chris was handing the money over to him and taking his hand and leading him out of the alleyway. It embarrassed him to have to explain that his mother had dropped him off so that she could go hit the bar, but Chris simply shrugged it off as he took the list from him and spent the next forty minutes helping him find everything in the overcrowded store.
When they were done he wasn’t too surprised to discover that Candy hadn’t waited around for him. It was snowing, the sidewalks were covered in rough ice and he dreaded trying to walk the two miles home while trying to figure out how to carry four bags of groceries.
He would have called his sister and grandmother, but he knew they were busy cooking and cleaning and Ephraim had been called out of town so he knew he didn’t have a choice.
He didn’t get far before Chris had him by the arm and was dragging him towards the bar. At first he was afraid that Chris was going to confront Candy and get him into trouble for bothering her, but instead Chris brought him over to the cabs that hung out in front of the bar. When the man tried to tell Chris that he was off duty, Chris told him that it was too f**king bad because he was taking Joshua home.
It shocked him when the man actually backed down from a kid, but then again Chris had been large even then. He placed the bags in the trunk and helped buckle Joshua in. When he tried to tell Chris that he didn’t have any money, Chris waved off his concern and dug into his own pockets and pulled out every cent that he had and gave it to the man.
Chris had even gone with him to make sure the driver didn’t pull any crap and brought him straight home.
When they got to the house, Chris grabbed the bags and walked him to the door. As soon as the last bag was on the porch Chris butted fists with Josh and left, walking away without another word.
His brother was always doing stuff like that, putting everyone in the family before himself. Hell, he couldn’t even remember the last time his brother did something for himself or anything that he enjoyed. He was always living for the job or them.