Given that the ambulance would be there soon, there was little in Lou’s emergency bag that would be of major help. But there was gauze and a great splint—thumb-sized, three-quarters of an inch wide, pliable aluminum, backed with foam rubber. And just as important, there was a pair of shears that could shape it. Years had passed since he had put the splints and shears into his kit. Who knew?

He irrigated the wound, carefully wrapped the laceration, measured off a piece of splint well more than twice the length of the thumb and twisted it into a U that held the fracture in an anatomically perfect position, with three inches of aluminum extending across the wrist and onto the hand, front and back. Then, again from the kit, he snapped open a chemical ice pack and set it on the bandage. By the time the cold was gone, Joey would be undergoing treatment. Lou finished the job with heavy cotton batting up to the tourniquet and two ACE bandages.

“You’re doing great, pal,” Lou said to him. “You’re one tough customer, I’ll tell you that. You are really something.…”

Lou checked the youth’s blood pressure. One hundred.

Reasonable.

He continued the stream of encouraging banter.

“You’re doing just great, Joey … just great.…”

“Out!… Out! Okay, back off, everyone. Please.” Millie Neuland came rushing through the crowd. If she had aged since any of the dozens of photographs of her were taken, Lou could see no evidence of it. Gray, tousled hair, round wire-rimmed glasses, bright blue eyes, rouged cheeks, finely painted eyebrows, and a nearly perfectly round face. Her gingham dress, frilly half apron, and single strand of pearls completed the picture.

The quintessential grandmother.

Lou had begun wiping off the boy’s pallid cheeks.

Millie knelt next to him, mindless of the blood. “The ambulance is on the way,” she said to no one but Lou, a genteel Southern lilt in her speech. “If you’re not a doctor, son, you dang well should be. I’m Millie Neuland.”

“I guessed. Lou Welcome. I’m an ER doc at Eisenhower.”

“Lucky us. Oh, Joey! Can you hear me, baby? You got a doctor right here with you.”

Joey’s eyes fluttered open. “Hi … Ma.”

“Your son?” Lou asked.

“Might as well be. His name’s Joey Alderson. Been here at the restaurant for years. Looks twelve, but he’s near twenty-five.”

“Ma, I really messed up this time,” Joey managed in a hoarse whisper.

“How bad?” Millie asked Lou. There was emotion in her voice, but her tone was that of a woman used to being in charge and dealing with crisis.

“He put his hand under a knife that was chopping carrots. My father, the guy over there in green, and I were sitting just a few feet away.”

“How bad?” the restaurateur asked again, encouraging no mincing of words.