While Mom spoke to the clinic, I wrapped a dry towel around my sister’s shoulders. She leaned into me hard enough that I realized how much effort she had been using just to stay upright.
The clinic wanted the dressing replaced and the wound checked because it had already been bleeding before it was soaked. Mom listened, asked two questions, then ended the call.
“We’re going in.”
My brother spread his hands. “Seriously?”
Mom stood.
“Yes.”
“I can change a bandage.”
“No.”
It was the quickest answer she had given him all afternoon.
He looked offended, which almost made me laugh because he had been the one holding the hose fifteen minutes earlier.
Mom helped my sister toward the house. I carried the towels and her phone. When we passed my brother, he reached toward the phone without thinking.
Mom moved between us.
“I already told you not to touch it.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were reaching for it.”
“I was going to give it back to her.”
My sister took it from my hand herself and tucked it against her chest.
“I have it.”
He looked at her, and for a second I saw the same expression he had worn when she contradicted him outside. Not guilt. Irritation.
That bothered me almost more than the shouting would have.
We left him at the house.
At the clinic, a nurse took one look at my sister’s wet clothes and asked whether a sprinkler had gone off accidentally.
My sister shook her head.
“My brother was holding the hose.”
The nurse paused.
Mom’s mouth tightened, but she let my sister answer the rest of the questions herself.
The dressing came off slowly. I stayed near my sister’s shoulder while the nurse cleaned the area and replaced it. The clinician who checked her said the wound had not opened, which was the first good thing any of us had heard since I walked through the backyard gate. But the dressing had needed to be changed, and we were told what to watch for over the next several hours.
My sister closed her eyes when she heard that everything still looked intact.
Mom did too.
For a few minutes, nobody talked about my brother.
That was the only quiet stretch of the entire day.
We sat in the waiting area while paperwork was finished. I fed money into a vending machine and bought crackers neither my sister nor I opened. Mom sat across from us with her purse on her knees and my sister’s phone beside it.
