20. Blue Collar Angel #2
I hugged Clarissa and thanked her, told her she could go, and she practically sprinted out the door, which I understood. I’d always liked her, but today she truly earned her teacher-aide-of-the-year stripes.
And then it was just us.
Mav’s bravado lasted exactly as long as the popsicle. When Holly came back with a blue tray full of bandaging supplies, he shrank against me. The minute the needle appeared, all bets were off.
Holly handled the next few minutes like a seasoned hostage negotiator.
She crouched down to Maverick’s eye level, explained in measured, glittery detail how stitches were “magical threads” that made skin “grow together even faster than Wolverine,” and promised him the world’s largest sticker for his bravery.
Maverick wasn’t buying it, but he was listening, which was more than I could say for myself as the adrenaline wore off and a new, more insidious panic set in.
I sat beside my son, trying to maintain the outward appearance of a calm, capable parent.
In reality, my entire body was vibrating with residual terror.
I’d heard all the statistics, read all the blogs about how boys his age averaged two ER visits a year and most childhood concussions were minor.
But statistics were useless when it was your baby, your actual heart, with blood running down his tiny face and a blank uncertainty in his eyes.
Holly left us for a few minutes, promising the doctor would be in soon. Maverick took the opportunity to glance at me, searching for cues: was it okay to be afraid? Was this a big deal? Should he try to be brave, or was it time to panic?
I tried to smile, but the muscles in my face refused to cooperate. So I did what any parent in this century does, I reached for my purse and dug out my iPad.
“Do you want to watch YouTube or play games?” I asked, offering him the digital distraction. My hands were shaking so badly that I almost dropped the thing. Thankfully, I didn’t think Mav noticed.
While he got absorbed in the world of pixelated horses on his farming game, I tried to run through the logistics in my head.
Could I take a sick day tomorrow?
Would Selma be upset? Surely not.
How much would the ER copay be this time, and did I remember to update my insurance when we moved like I was supposed to?
What if they released him and he had a brain bleed that didn’t show up right away, and he started having convulsions or worse in the middle of the night?
I tried to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth to calm myself down, but it wasn’t working. I could feel the panic attack building beneath my diaphragm, a low rolling thunder that would break any second.
I wanted to cry, to scream, to run into the hallway and demand that someone, anyone, tell me what to do. But I stayed put, because that’s what being a mom was, swallowing panic and pretending to be the adult.
Just as I felt myself tearing up, the door to the room opened and Dean Lockhart appeared like a blue collar angel.
Instead of his typical work attire of a white button down shirt and black slacks, he wore jeans, a white t-shirt, work boots and a ballcap, and a single line of worry etched between his eyes.
He looked sexy and like he’d been carved from the same wood as the hospital furniture—sturdy, practical, impossible to move.
For a moment, I just stared at him, unable to process how he was here, or why.
I hadn’t texted him since I arrived, hadn’t even updated him like I’d promised to. But somehow, he was here anyway.
Dean inclined his head in my direction, then surveyed Maverick like he was doing a visual diagnosis. His gaze was clinical, like he was scanning for injuries before he said, “Hey, little man.”
Mav’s head snapped up, eyes wide, and his arms outstretched. “Dean!”
Dean walked over and hugged Mav, and the sight caused me to have a physical reaction. My body responded before my brain did, every muscle in my neck and back unclenched, my lungs stopped fluttering, and for the first time since I’d gotten the call, I remembered how to breathe.
His eyes met mine as Mav released him from the bear hug. “You holding up?” he asked softly, and the concern in his voice—the kind that wasn’t performative but actual bone-deep worry—made my eyes sting.
“I’m…” I started, then had to stop and collect myself. “I’m okay. He’s okay. They said, uh, stitches and observation.”
Dean nodded, and without hesitation, took the seat next to me.
We were close enough that I could smell the faint scent of woodsmoke and some kind of industrial hand soap.
It was the most comforting thing I’d ever inhaled.
For the next several minutes, the three of us sat in suspended animation, waiting for the doctor while Mav continued to build his farm and show Dean every time he fed or attained a new animal.
I watched as Dean let Maverick explain, in minute detail, how each characters worked and which animals got along, and never once did he look bored or check his phone.
When Holly poked her head in and announced that doctor from plastics would be in soon, I caught the look on Dean’s face.
It wasn’t fear. It was the same look I saw him give when an animal was hurt on the ranch, the steeling of himself to be the anchor, the one who would absorb the blow so the animal—or child, in this case—didn’t have to.
Mav’s eyes filled with tears, and I was about to say something when Dean beat me to it. “Hey, you know, I’ve had stitches a bunch of times.”
Mav’s eyes widened. “You did?”
He nodded. “Not just me either. Damon and Dylan have had at least a hundred between them. Us Lockhart boys are pretty good at getting banged up. My mom, Miss Selma, she used to spend so much time here they said they would give her her own room and parking space.”
Mav smiled at this. “They did?”
“Yep. Wanna see my scars?”
Mav nodded.
Dean rolled up his sleeve and showed him a pale line on his forearm. “That’s from barbed wire. Four stitches.” He pointed to the side of his eyebrow, where there was a faint, silvery mark. “This one? Eight stitches. Got it when I was about your age.”
Maverick touched his own brow, then Dean’s, as if comparing. “Did it hurt?”
Dean shrugged, and his mouth twitched up in the tiniest smile. “A little. But only for a minute. After that, it was just itchy.” He leaned in closer. “You know what my mom told me? The tougher you are, the faster it heals.”
Maverick absorbed this, considering it with the intense seriousness only small children can muster. “I’m tough,” he declared.
“Yes, you are,” Dean agreed.
I watched as Dean’s approval lit up Mav’s face, and something inside me went liquid.
There was no world in which I’d ever be able to explain how much this meant to me, or how grateful I was that he showed up, or how afraid I’d been that I would have to do this alone.
The doctors and nurses filed in, a small army of calm efficiency.
They explained every step to Maverick, but he still wanted to sit on my lap as they cleaned the wound and numbed the skin.
When the needle appeared, he almost turned around and hugged my neck, but midway he stopped and looked at Dean, who gave him a nod.
“You got this,” Dean assured him. “Squeeze my hand if it hurts.”
Maverick reached for Dean’s hand, and for the next five minutes, every time the suture needle bit into his skin, Mav clamped down with all the power his four-year-old body had.
To Dean’s credit, he didn’t flinch. Not even when Maverick’s little fingers left half-moon indentations in his skin, or the tips of his Dean’s fingers went totally white from the circulation being cut off.
Dean just kept talking, telling stories about falling off hay bales and wrestling with his brothers, and Mav listened, wide-eyed, even as tears slid down his cheeks.
When the last stitch was in, and the nurse applied a cartoon bandage and handed over a sticker, Maverick moved over to Dean’s lap and slumped against him, totally spent. Dean didn’t seem to mind. He just held Maverick up, gentle but solid as a fence post.
Holly came back in, checked Mav’s vitals, and told us he would need to stay a bit longer for observation.
She looked at Dean, then at me, and the understanding in her gaze made me wonder how many times she’d seen a trio like ours—messy, pieced together, but anchored by something that wasn’t quite blood and wasn’t quite friendship, but something durable and true.
Once Maverick succumbed to exhaustion and drooped bonelessly against Dean’s chest—his hand still anchored in Dean’s massive paw, his lashes spiky with moisture—I realized that Dean wasn’t going to move unless a nurse physically separated them.
He simply sat there, all stoic gravity and silent focus, as if the hard plastic hospital chair had always been his natural habitat.
Maverick’s cheek was pressed to Dean’s collarbone, a thin line of drool dampening his t-shirt. Dean didn’t so much as flinch. I wasn’t even sure if he was breathing.
I sat beside them and tried to put words to the tight ache radiating in my chest. If I’d had even a fraction less pride, I would have reached over and clung to Dean myself, just to feel what it was like to lean on someone whose arms could absorb the weight.
Instead, I whispered, as tears of gratitude filled my eyes, “You came.”
Dean blinked. The words seemed to catch him off guard, as if the idea he might not have shown up had never even occurred to him.
“You called,” he answered, low and matter-of-fact, like that explained the laws of physics.
To Dean, that was explanation enough.
To me, it was everything.