The Check
Megan knelt in the wet grass in her good jeans and went over Grandma the way I have seen her go over kids on the playground at my school when she volunteers for field day, calm and quick and talking the whole time.
“Hazel, I’m going to touch your hip. Tell me if it’s sharp or just sore.” She pressed. She had Grandma wiggle her toes, bend her knee, turn her wrist, squeeze her fingers. She watched her eyes. She asked her what day it was.
“Friday,” Grandma said. “The day before my granddaughter’s wedding. And that young man has ruined a perfectly good shirt.”
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Ryan laughed, one short laugh, and so did I, and something in my chest let go a little.
Megan said the hip moved fine and Grandma could bear weight without pain, which mattered most. The wrist looked good.
She would have a bruise on her hip the size of a saucer by morning, and the hand needed care.
Ryan went to his truck and came back with the first-aid kit he keeps behind the seat for the farm calls.
He sells seed corn and soybeans to half the farmers in Ottawa County, and he says you learn to carry a kit after the first time you watch a grown man slice his palm on an auger guard.
Megan rinsed the skin tear with bottled water, laid the flap back where it belonged, closed it with thin strips of tape, and wrapped a small bandage over it.
Her hands never hurried. Grandma watched her the whole time like she was watching someone knit.
“You should go get an X-ray of that wrist tonight,” Megan said. “And if your hip hurts more in the night, you call me, not Allie. I’ll drive you myself.”
“I am not spending the night before this wedding in an emergency room,” Grandma said. “I raised a son and buried a husband. I know what broken feels like. This isn’t it.”
Megan looked at me. I looked at Grandma. Grandma looked at both of us the way she used to look at us when we were twelve and wanted to stay up late.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Allie. I am fine. Now somebody help me up off this ground before the bees find the punch.”