Epilogue
Nick
Two weeks after Summerween, life in Denture had settled into something I genuinely had not expected.
Easy and comfortable.
Brandy and I had fallen into a rhythm that felt less like dating and more like something that had simply always been there, waiting for both of us to stop being idiots long enough to notice it.
She kept her house on Clover Street because right now her independence was important to her.
And what was important to her was important to me.
Cap had developed strong opinions about which bed he preferred depending on the night, and those opinions were not always in my favor.
It was a Tuesday afternoon when I overheard a call come across the radio.
Medical assist, community center gym, accident with possible serious injuries.
A fifty-seven-year-old female conscious and alert after a ladder fall.
Caller advised possible broken arm and leg.
I took off on a run, grabbing a trauma bag on my way.
Hank and I arrived at almost the same moment. He had a trauma bag as well.
From the hall, we saw George crouched next to Stephanie Kowalski, who was lying on her side on the floor of the storage loft access with a large orange ladder on its side inches from her and an artificial Christmas tree nearby.
“Don’t move. Please.” George was pleading with her. He looked up as soon as he saw us enter the gym. “Thank goodness, help’s here, Steph.”
“Steph,” I knelt down next to her leg, which was bent at an angle that legs are generally not supposed to bend at. “Are you having trouble breathing?”
“No, but I hurt all over. My leg and arm.”
"Why didn't you wait for me?" George said, his voice somewhere between worried and exasperated. "I told you I'd get the Christmas boxes down."
Stephanie said through gritted teeth. "I was helping."
"Steph," I said carefully. "I'm pretty sure your leg is broken. We’re going to stay right where you are until the ambulance gets here, okay?"
“Okay, it’s broken?” She looked down as best as she could, causing her to suck in a breath. "I don’t remember legs bending like that."
"Nope," Hank said, crouching on her other side.
"Huh." She laid her head back on the floor. "That explains the sound it made. Did you know middle-aged women don’t bounce when dropped from a height?"
"They generally don't," Hank said. “How high were you?”
George pointed to a closet about halfway up the wall.
Hank let out a whistle. “Well, that explains the tall ladder.”
“I was pulling out a Christmas tree, and I guess I got caught in the branches because next thing I knew I was off the ladder and zooming toward the floor.”
The ambulance arrived four minutes later. We got her lifted and loaded. Hank and I stood watching it pull away.
"What do you think?" Hank asked me.
I sighed. “Probably a compound fracture. If it is, she's going to be out for months. Maybe longer. I’d guess her arm’s broken too. And that’s provided she doesn’t have any internal injuries. That was quite a fall. She’s going to be sore for quite a while.”
Hank scuffed his foot. "I wonder what’s going to happen to Christmas in July? Maybe Brandy can help."
"She could do the event," I said. "But she can’t do her job and run the community center."
"True." Hank rubbed the back of his neck.
We stood there for a moment looking back into the building like it was going to volunteer an answer. Only it didn’t.