14
“What are you doing, Will?” Paddy’s words began to slur and
it wasn’t because of the whiskey.
ȊTaking care of you. 2nce I get the cloth around your fingers,
you have to put pressure on them to stop the bleeding. Can you
do that?”
He gave me a slow nod. Da and Nick’s mouths dropped into
wide 2s as I secured the cloth, made a tight knot, and then another,
securing the tourniTuet at the base of his fingers.
Da gulped and double blinked as I finished. ȊThat’s enough
now, Wilhelmina. You get back upstairs. Nick can take him over
to Doc Maloy. He’ll know what to do.”
“Fine,” Nick said. “Take him around front while I grab the car.”
Da’s chin dipped. I didn’t like the way his mouth trembled.
“The twins were begging to help out around here so I sent them
to pick up two more barrels of wheat ale. Heaven knows when
those two will return.”
A chill danced down my spine like the ripple of the bow across
the fiddle’s strings. Sean and Michael were as goofy as the Marx
Brothers and had about as much sense as our neighbor’s old
poodle. I could stand here and let them grumble all day but then
Paddy would bleed to death.
“We can’t wait for them.” I slid under Paddy’s shoulder, doing
my best to balance his swaying body.
Da and Nick thought of me as a silly young girl with barely
a sensible thought in her head. Every time they talked of politics
or local news at the table, they spoke over my contributions even
though I was the only one in our home who read the
San Francisco
Chronicle
from cover to cover every morning. In the past I’d kept
quiet, but I couldn’t allow them to ignore me this time. I had to
act before Paddy collapsed.
