Free Little Red Lies by Julie Johnston Page A

bandage is in place, I add, “At least it was clean last week. It may have been used once or twice since.”
    Granny just shakes her head when she catches sight of Jamie dripping blood through the handkerchief onto her freshly scrubbed kitchen floor. “Well, I never in all my born days,” she says.
    “At least we caught a fish,” I say, plunking the scaly thing down on the table.
    With enough pressure, she gets the bleeding to stop, cleans the cut, and bandages it properly.
    “It’s not that deep a slice,” she says. “I wouldn’t think it was worth that amount of blood. How do you feel?”
    “Fine.” Jamie doesn’t look fine.
    “Well, your face is as white as that fish’s belly. Maybe you should lie down.”
    Surprisingly, he does what he’s told and goes into the parlor to lie on the settee.
    Granny puts the fish on a cutting board and wipes blood off the table.
    “What do you think is wrong with him?” I whisper. “Do you think he got blood poisoning from my hankie?”
    Granny shakes her head, her lips tight with concern.
    Eventually Jamie gets up and dutifully drinks some sweet hot tea at the kitchen table. Bounder is inside now, in his usual spot under the table, hoping for crumbs to fall. Jamie looks a little better. He nibbles on a bite of thefish that Granny has just cooked and served, along with homemade bread slathered in butter.
    “I guess I’m more of a liability than a help around here,” he says.
    “You’ll be fine once you get your steam back,” Granny says. “If I were your mother, I’d have you at the doctor’s so fast, you wouldn’t know what hit you. Now, I’m telling you straight out, son. You’re old enough to look after yourself. You make an appointment with old Doctor Melvin, and he’ll prescribe a tonic for you, or pills, or
something
. It’s no good ignoring your health, lad. Look what happened to your grandfather. Caught cold, took pneumonia, and died. Just like that.”
    Hesitantly, Jamie says, “I think I’d just be wasting Doctor Melvin’s time.”
    “It’s not a waste of time to find out if there’s something wrong, lad.”
    “But maybe it’s only that I need to settle down and get married. I don’t need a doctor to tell me that.”
    “Oh, Lord!” Granny says, slapping her hand to her head. “And support a wife how?”
    Jamie flushes. He stands up, arms folded, glowering at the green fields he can see through the window and the sky with its darkening clouds.
    “Sit,” Granny orders him, and Bounder, his head in her lap, looks up to see if she means
him
.
    Jamie continues to stand. He leans against the kitchensink, looking like the god of war. He’s left a few bites on his plate, and I fork them down before Granny can bawl him out for not eating.
    “Does your hand still hurt?” she asks him.
    “No.”
    The way he’s cradling it, I know it does.
    After several moments of listening to the clock tick, Granny breaks the silence. “Much as I’d love to have you around on a permanent basis,” she says, “I really wonder if farmwork is right for you. I don’t know if you have the heart for it, love. I’m not talking about cutting yourself, now. I mean, generally. The land either captivates you or it doesn’t. And then it kills you, the way it did your grandfather.
    “He wouldn’t quit, even when Death was staring him in the face. It was as though he’d said, ‘I’m going, but not before I’m good and ready.’ He got the hay in, sold off most of the livestock, all the while hacking up his lungs. It was what he did that was important to him. His job was to provide food for others, and that’s what needed to be done before his illness got the better of him. When he finally did lie down, he kept looking at the bedside clock, waiting, it seemed, for the train to heaven and it was late. I could almost hear Death say, ‘
Ha!
Now you have to wait for me.’ ”
    Thunder rumbles in the distance. I hope it will rain, storm, keep us here for hours