The minute the constable's jeep skidded to a stop in front of my dad's surgery, my door was jerked open. After I'd explained myself to the PC, I'd slept off and on during the rest of the ride, happy finally to be warm and on my way home.
"James, thank God you're safe." The sight of Mum's face and the sound of her voice suddenly made me feel guiltier than ever for what I'd done.
"Here we go." Dad pushed his way past her and scooped me into his arms like I was a feather. It hit me that he wasn't wearing a suit and the collar of his shirt was unbuttoned. Oh boy, he must really have been worried. As I was pulled from the car, I felt a burst of cold hit my skin and the sting of rain on my face. It didn't matter; I was okay now.
As I closed my eyes, I heard Mum talking to Penhale. "Joe, I don't know how to thank you. We were so worried—"
"It's all part of the job – investigating, following leads, tracking down suspects—"
Dad carried me through the waiting room and placed me onto his exam couch. Mum stood beside me, her hand holding mine tight. I felt Dad pick up my left arm, unwrap the PC's bandage, and run his fingers gently over my skin.
I opened my eyes and tried to speak, to tell everyone how sorry I was for . . . running away, for reminding them of what had happened when I was a baby, for making them worry . . . for everything. Instead, I found myself shivering even though the surgery was plenty warm.
Dad must have noticed because he frowned and suddenly produced a thermometer. "Under your tongue," he said, placing it in my mouth and then turning to Mum.
"Louisa, can you get him out of these wet clothes and under the blankets." I followed his gaze to a pile stacked on a chair across the room. "Just put on the pajama bottoms; I'll need access to his arm."
Mum's hand gave me a tight squeeze then slipped out of mine. A few seconds later, she started to pull off my shirt. I let her go until she started to take off my vest. Knowing what was to come . . . well, I was too old for my mum to undress me or see me without my clothes. Dad maybe – after all, he was a guy and a doctor to boot. Mum . . . no way.
"Mum! Stop!" I garbled around the thermometer.
"What?" she asked, pausing halfway through what she was doing.
Dad pulled the thermometer out of my mouth and read it. "That's alright," he mumbled.
I turned back to Mum. "I can do it," I said, sounding stronger than I felt.
"All right," she said. "I thought that you might need a wee bit of help—"
"I can do it," I said again. "Please, Mum. Let me do it, myself." My eyes begged her to understand that I didn't want her to see me like that.
She looked at Dad and then back at me. "All right, James. I'll be right outside if you need me."
It was easy enough to pull off my vest. When I got to my trousers, they were all wet and sticking to me and, with my hands still a bit cold, I couldn't manage to get them off.
"Penhale, can you give him a hand?" Dad asked, holding his stethoscope and pocket torch in his hands and obviously wanting to get on with his examination.
"Roger that, Doc." The PC helped me get out of my trousers and, before I had a chance to get too cold, he pulled on my jammies and wrapped me in warm blankets. It was hard to pay mind to all that because at the same time Dad had a tight hold of my head and was talking to me.
"Did you hit your head when you fell?"
"No, Dad."
He flicked his bright torch into my eyes. "No sign of concussion," he said, seeming to relax a little.
"Uh, Doc, do you need me for anything more? Crimes to solve, felons to arrest, you know how it is."
"No."
"You're right. No one really understands how difficult it is to be a policeman in this village—"
"I meant 'no,' I don't need you any more."
"Oh, right."
My eyes followed Penhale to the door. "Thanks for finding me," I managed to stammer.
The PC turned back. "It's my job. I'm glad you're safe and back at home." He shook his finger at me and gave me one of his stern policeman looks. "And don't ever do that again or I might have to arrest you next time."
"Yes, thank you," Dad said, sounding as if he really meant it. "It's . . . I . . . I mean, Louisa and I . . . we . . ."
Penhale nodded and seemed to smile. I could have sworn that he stood a bit taller. "Roger that, Doc."
Once the PC had gone, Dad ran his hands all over my body, pressing here and there. Even though I was a bit sore all over, nothing really hurt bad. He listened to my chest with his stethoscope then moved to the end of the couch and pulled the blankets off my bad ankle. "Tell me if anything I do hurts you at all." He pushed and twisted and bent my foot this way and that. Mostly it was okay but the few times it hurt, I told him so.
Dad hadn't yet said anything about my running off; I kind of wished he would and at the same time hoped he wouldn't, at least not yet. Not until I figured out what I'd say back to him.
Mum walked back into the room as Dad was finishing up with my leg.
"Is he alright?" she asked, looking between the two of us.
"No serious injuries. Looks to be some ligament damage to his right ankle. Nothing seems to be broken, but we'll get an x-ray tomorrow to be sure."
Mum smiled and brushed my wet hair back from my face. "Thank goodness. He might have—"
"He didn't," Dad finished for her. "He'll be fine. Louisa, can you get a bag of ice and a pillow; we'll elevate his ankle and ice it while I suture his arm."
Mum stopped halfway to the door. "Suture? Martin, is it that bad? Will he have a scar?"
"Not if I do it," Dad said and in that moment I was really glad to be his son.
A few minutes later, my foot was propped on a pillow, a bag of ice resting atop of it. The cold set me to shivering again and Mum tucked another blanket around my shoulders.
Dad brought over a small tray and set it on the table next to me. When he unwrapped it, all I could see were needles and other sharp metal objects. I swallowed hard. Dad had said he'd suture my arm. Suturing meant sewing and I'd seen Mum do a bit of mending. Dad was going to stick needles into my skin. The next thing I knew he'd snapped on a pair of gloves.
"Uh—" I tried to find the right words to let Dad know I was scared but wouldn't make me seem like a sissy. I didn't want him or anyone to stab me with those needles and found myself pulling away and shaking, even under all of the wool blankets. I knew Dad didn't much care for patients who didn't let him do his work so I waited for him to grab my arm in his strong hands and tell me to "shush."
Instead, he put one hand on my shoulder and I was surprised by how gentle it felt. "James, calm down."
That was pretty darn hard knowing what he was about to do to me.
"James, look at me."
I wanted to but I couldn't take my eyes off all those sharp things on his tray.
"James," he repeated, softer this time, and something in his voice made me turn back and look into his eyes. They seemed almost sad and I once again thought about the pain I seemed to have caused both of my parents.
"James, I won't do anything to hurt you. You have a deep cut on your arm and I need to put in a few stitches to close it. It won't take but a few minutes and I'll give you an anesthetic – something to take away the pain – so you won't feel a thing while I'm working."
I liked it when Dad talked to me like I was an adult. And Dad always told the truth, so if he said it wouldn't hurt, I knew I'd be okay. I nodded, my eyes still on the instruments on his tray.
"James." I turned at the sound of Mum's voice, on the other side of the bed. "Are you warm enough?"
"Yes, Mum."
"Why don't you close your eyes and rest while your father takes care of you." That actually sounded like a good idea.
The next thing I knew, I heard Dad's voice. "I'm going to give you the anesthetic now. It may burn for just a few seconds and then it won't hurt anymore."
As always, Dad was straight on. I felt the burn, just for a bit, then nothing. There was the warmth of my blankets, the soft clatter Dad's instruments, and the feel of Mum's hand squeezing mine. The weight of the day seemed to descend and lift at the same time and, hard as I tried, there wasn't much I could do to stop my eyelids from closing.
"Free puppies!" Martin could not believe the words that had just come out of Louisa's mouth. "All this—" Martin waved his arm about. "Is about a dog?"
Louisa sighed heavily at him. "It seems that's at least what started all this."
"Please explain to me what dogs have to do with James running off."
"Martin, why don't you sit down?"
He and Louisa were back in the sitting room of their cottage, with James tucked securely in his room. By the time Martin had finished tending to his son's medical needs, the boy had fallen asleep. Martin and Louisa had driven him the short distance home where Martin had carried him upstairs and put him into bed. Martin had checked on him a few minutes ago and found him still fast asleep. The combination of the late hour, the day's excitement, and the analgesic Martin had given him would easily keep James asleep well into the morning hours.
Now, even though it was well after midnight, Martin and Louisa themselves were too keyed up to sleep. Instead, Martin was trying to understand why James had run away – why his well-adjusted son had left home without telling anyone and ended up on the moor in the middle of the night. James clearly hadn't been up to any form of inquisition, so they had to rely on what Penhale had told Louisa about what he'd learned from their son.
"Martin, please sit down," Louisa repeated and, with a grunt, Martin dropped onto the sofa.
"Alright, I'm sitting. Now, will you please enlighten me as to what dogs have to do with what happened today?"
It was Louisa's turn to sigh. "According to Joe, James saw a sign for free puppies along the road when we were driving back from the football game. He was on the moor because he was trying to find it."
Martin was still trying to get his head around this. "Why was he trying to find the sign?"
"I suppose because he wanted . . . Martin, you know he's wanted a dog for a long time."
"Yes, we've discussed it many times." And the answer, Martin didn't need to add, had always been 'absolutely not.' Martin was not about to allow some snarling, dirty creature to live in his home.
He sat back against the cushions. As far as he was concerned, the issue of a dog was closed and had been closed for years. James knew that. So why had the boy suddenly become so enamored of seeing unknown free puppies that he would run away from home?
"You're the expert on children," he all but accused Louisa. "Explain this to me."
"I can't, Martin," Louisa said, her eyes starting to mist. "I don't know. I don't know why he ran off or why dogs were suddenly so important to him."
Louisa was obviously still stressed; he could hear it in her voice and see it in her body language. For a moment, he wondered if he should have given her a sedative as well. It had been a long day for both of them, made worse because they still didn't understand why James had taken off. And "free puppies" couldn't be the answer, no matter what that idiot – well, maybe not so much of an idiot, Martin corrected himself, given that the PC was the one who had found their son. No matter what Penhale had said, Martin finished his thought.
He forced himself not to be angry. James was home, safe in his bed, and relatively uninjured. It was as much as they could have hoped for. They'd been fortunate – more than fortunate – not only once, but now twice.
He motioned Louisa to sit next to him on the sofa. She hesitated for a second, then slipped beside him. Martin put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer.
"It's alright, Louisa. James is safe."
"But he might do it again. Martin, I can't take it; I can't bear to have him go missing again."
"I know," he soothed.
"We need to understand what happened, so it doesn't happen again."
"We'll just have to ask him when he's feeling stronger." Which, Martin well expected, would be later today when James awakened.
"Do you really think it's about a dog?" Louisa asked. "He wouldn't have run off just to get a dog . . . would he?"
"I'm sure . . . " At this point, Martin wasn't sure of anything. "Louisa, we're both tired. Let's go to bed and sort this in the morning."
"We can't go to sleep. What about James? What if he wakes up and needs us?"
Martin understood her worry. After the events of the day, there was a natural desire to keep James in their sight at all times. It was desirable, not possible. Difficult as it would be for both of him, and whether it was tonight or tomorrow or next week, they'd eventually have to let their son be on his own.
"He'll sleep through the night," he assured her.
