Anna studies the menu. She’s inclined to get one of the shrimp dishes. It seems ridiculous to come to a shrimp house to order ribs or steak. Then her phone pings. Her heart leaps in a dangerously far-too-interested way. It’s probably not him. Still, she extracts her phone from her pocket. It’s the man himself. Unlocking her phone, she opens the message.
Sorry I keep going silent on you. It’s manic here. But I have a question to ask you.
She types:Understandable. Shoot. Unless it’s medical, in which case I charge 250/hour. She contemplates adding a smiley face to emphasise she’s joking but credits him with enough sense to get her humour. As she presses send, a scream and a clatter brings her head straight up. Anna knows the sound of serious pain. She drops her phone on the table and stands to see better. A child is on the ground, sobbing. Beside him is a girl dressed in cut-off jeans and a camisole. She is groaning. The child’s mother is nowhere.
Anna is moving in an instant. She sees James climb onto his seat to vault the wooden barrier to the alley. He takes the girl; Anna squats beside the child.
“Hello, sweetie,” she says. She keeps her voice low and calm. “I’m a doctor. Do you know what that is?”
The child, sex indeterminate with a head of golden curls, gives a distinct nod without pausing their wailing. Beside her, she hears James giving his credentials to the woman and asking for consent.
A crowd is gathering. One or two with their phones out. She ignores them for the time being.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” she asks.
“Caden.” Sniff.
“Caden? That’s a great name. Caden, are you here with someone?” she asks.
Sniff. “Mom.” Sniff.
She looks up at the crowd. “Can someone find his mom, please?” No one moves. She turns her attention back to the little boy. “Caden, can you tell me where it hurts?”
“All over!” A little sob.
“Is there anywhere that hurts more than everywhere?” He nods and proffers up his hands. The skin has been scraped off both. The rough surface of the paving has also scratched his forearms and his knees. Before Anna gets any further, a womanpushes through the crowd. Her resemblance to the little boy is clear, her head crowned in golden curls too. “Caden!” she exclaims in a shout, half reprimand, half dismay.
Anna looks at her as the woman drops to the ground beside her boy. Three or four shopping bags billow around her. “Is this your mom?” she asks the little lad.
He nods.
“Caden’s mom,” Anna calls, to get her attention. “I’m a doctor. Do you mind if I just check over your son?”
Anna is pretty certain by now the boy is fine, apart from a few scrapes and bruises. She thinks the initial scream came from the young woman James is tending, but it’s always worth checking. Children often respond very differently to the way adults expect.
The mother nods her emphatic consent. A helpful bystander calls out, “The kid walked in front of the skateboarder. She swerved and came off. I think he tripped over his own feet in shock.”
That reinforces Anna’s observations. She gently checks him for breaks, but there is no sign of wincing or avoidance of her touch. There are no unexplained swellings or deformities. When she helps the child sit and then stand, he seems happy to put his weight on each limb. She rocks back on her heels. “He seems okay, apart from some scrapes and bruises,” she tells his mother. “But keep an eye on him. If anything starts to swell or he starts to favour an arm or a leg, take him to your doctor.”
The mother nods. “I only took my eye off him for a few seconds – to pay at the till,” she protests, as if Anna is in any way judging her.
Anna gives her a lopsided smile in return. She cannot give this young mother absolution, but she avoids adding to her guilt. “That’s kids for you,” she says. “If they can find trouble, they will.”
Anna has no children of her own, nor does she yet have nieces and nephews, but she has done enough stints in the Emergency Department to know children are uncommonly keen to get into trouble when adults are distracted. Inserting various items into cavities – the nose seems a favourite – or swallowing random things, falling off stuff or walking into stationary objects. She finds it amazing that people choose to be parents.
The mother thanks her, then gathers her errant offspring and Anna turns her attention to James.
“I think you’ve probably fractured your elbow,” James concludes. “You’re going to need to go to the hospital. Do you want me to call an ambulance?”
“Fuck, no!” the skateboarder cries. “I can’t afford that. I’ll get a rideshare.”
James’s brow furrows. “Are you sure? The paramedics will have pain relief. If you ride in the back of a car, every bend it swings around will be agony.”
“I’ll risk it,” she declares.
James looks at Anna, but she shrugs. This is not something they ever have to consider in London. Ambulances are free. If you’re hurt, you call. Anna reckons the skateboarder must know her own limitations but to have to bear pain because you cannot afford the solution must be hard. She and James help the skateboarder stand, with James taking the injured side. They go in steps, so she doesn’t pass out. James pulls out his phone to order a ride. “Do you have a hospital you want to go to?”
The girl shrugs, then winces with the pain. James looks vaguely at Anna. He has no idea of the US healthcare system but neither does she. But Anna has an idea; she knows someone who does. “Back in a moment,” she tells James.
