American Boy. Larry Watson

      Just as Dr. Dunbar reached for the door, it opened from the inside, and I inhaled sharply when I saw who was standing there. “I was watching,” said Louisa Lindahl. “I saw what happened.” She held out a rag she’d brought for my wound.

      Not long after the doctor stitched her up that fateful Thanksgiving Day, Louisa Lindahl was back on her feet, though they didn’t take her far. Once it became apparent that the young woman had no resources and no place to go, the Dunbars told her she could move in with them. She could work in the clinic, handling some of the clerical work, thereby freeing Betty Schaeffer to concentrate on nursing. Louisa accepted the offer, and she had been helping Mrs. Dunbar with household chores as well as working in the clinic. She was staying in the back bedroom upstairs, the same one Dr. Dunbar had carried her to after treating her for the bullet wound.

      But I knew all this already, and so I was not surprised to see her. No, my sharp intake of breath was caused by something else.

      Since that day when I’d stood over her in the clinic, I’d been completely taken with Louisa Lindahl. It was too soon to call it love and too simple to call it lust, but I felt something powerful, and whatever it was would have had me following her from room to wainscoted room in the Dunbar house if I could have done so without attracting the wrong kind of attention. She, on the other hand, had given no sign of noticing me. Except once.

      A week earlier Louisa was alone in the kitchen, putting away dishes, when I came in looking for glue for a science project Johnny and I were working on upstairs. I generally had no trouble making conversation with girls who interested me, but I lost all courage in Louisa Lindahl’s presence. Her haughty beauty was as intimidating as it was alluring, and she was in her twenties. And then there was the fact that I’d seen her unconscious and unclothed, a delicious secret knowledge that nonetheless put an even tighter clamp on my mouth. Finally, there was that matter of the gunshot wound. I had no idea how that factored into the whole equation, but it could hardly be ignored.

      I said hello that night, but received no greeting in return, which was exactly what usually happened when our paths crossed in the presence of others in the Dunbar home. Then, as I was on my way out of the room with the bottle of Elmer’s, Louisa Lindahl said, “Nice of the Dunbars to take in strays and give them the run of the place, eh?”

      I’m not sure what kept me from arguing with her, in spite of the fact that that was my first impulse. Was it the fear that this was an argument I would lose? Or could it possibly be the notion that I might benefit in the future from her belief that she and I had something in common? Whatever the reason, I stammered, “I guess,” and hurried from the room.

      Now, when Dr. Dunbar took the cloth that Louisa offered, a look passed between them. Even if my vision had not been restricted, I still wouldn’t have been able to interpret it. Then the doctor smiled his best Rex Dunbar smile and said, “Anticipating my every need. Thank you, Louisa.”

      She returned his smile.

      Dr. Dunbar folded the cloth into a rectangle the size of a paperback. “Press this over your eye, Matt.” Behind me I heard a puck hit the pipe.

      With his hand on my elbow, the doctor steered me inside. Mrs. Dunbar was in the kitchen, taking a tray of sugar cookies out of the oven. When she saw me and the bloody cloth, she exclaimed, “Oh my God, Matty!” Her expression of concern was that of a mother’s.

      “Take it easy, Alice. It looks worse than it is. A few stitches and Gordie Howe here will be right back out on the ice.”

      The doctor continued to guide me through the house as if blood had blinded me in both eyes, and I could hear Louisa’s footsteps as she followed close behind. She’d been watching the game ... she’d seen what happened ... but did she know why?

      At the door to the clinic, Louisa asked, “Should I come in with you? Do you need any help?”

      “No need,” replied the doctor, much to my disappointment. “Matthew could probably sew himself up.”

      We went into the same examination room where Dr. Dunbar had treated Louisa Lindahl. “Lie down on the table, Matthew.”

      I did as I was told. I wasn’t about to ask for it, but I wished I had the blanket he’d used to cover Louisa. My feet were freezing after standing out on the porch in my socks.

      “Now, ordinarily I’d put a drape over the patient’s face, leaving only the laceration exposed. Hell, you might like to watch. I have a hand mirror here in the drawer.

      “All right.”

      Once I had the mirror in hand, I slowly took the compress away. Blood was leaking more than flowing from the cut, and that soon stopped when Dr. Dunbar numbed the area with lidocaine and epinephrine. “This is what a cut man uses to stop a boxer’s bleeding.” Dr. Dunbar was close enough that I could smell his sweat and his aftershave.

      He continued to talk his way through the procedure, exactly as he would have done if I were watching him work on someone else. He cleaned the wound with 300 cc of saline solution and then prepared to sew. He explained the type of thread (6-0 nylon) and sutures (simple interrupted) he’d be using. “And notice that I’m not shaving your eyebrow, Matthew. Some doctors might do that, but it’s not necessary. And I’d probably mar your good looks. Takes a hell of a long time for eyebrows to grow back. Different kind of hair.”