“Get Zoe!” she shouted at him, and turned to the child again, afraid to move him for fear his neck or his back might be broken. She was sure he stopped breathing then, but before she could determine it, Zoe was on her knees beside her.
“It's okay, Mary Stuart… I've got him.” There was very little she could do, and like her friend, she was careful not to move him. She tapped him gently on the chest and he began breathing again, and then she lifted his eyelids. He saw nothing, and there was a large wet spot on the front of his jeans, which meant he was deep in unconsciousness and had lost control of his bodily functions. “Do you have 911 here?” Zoe said loudly to the wrangler, and he nodded. “Call them. Tell them we have an unconscious child, head injury and possible fractures. He's still breathing, but his heartbeat is irregular. He's in shock. Get them here as fast as you can.” She looked at him to be sure he understood how pressing it was, and the other two doctors hurried over, having just left their horses. Zoe was still touching him and watching him closely, and Mary Stuart knelt next to the child, holding his hand in her own, although she knew it meant nothing. But she didn't want to let go of him, in case somehow he could feel it. Zoe was continuing to examine him and she looked worried. She was sure his neck wasn't broken, nor his spine, and she was feeling his limbs, when his eyes fluttered open and he started crying.
“Oww!!!” He started to scream, “I want my mommy…” He was sobbing and taking in big gulps of air, and Zoe looked happier as she watched him.
“I like that,” she said, still checking him all over, and the other two physicians nodded, and as she touched his left arm, he let out a scream. It was broken. But there could have been worse things. And then as he cried, he looked up and saw Mary Stuart, she was still holding his little hand in her own and crying softly.
“Why you cryin’?” he asked, hiccuping on his tears. “Did you fall off the horse too?”
“No, you silly goof,” she said, coming closer to him, “you did. How do you feel now?” She was trying to distract him from what Zoe was doing, who was trying to splint the arm with some sticks she asked Gordon to hand her. Hartley was hovering near too, and Tanya was watching, looking shaken. They all were.
“My arm hurts,” Benjamin wailed, and Mary Stuart moved a little closer to him, trying not to disturb Zoe. She smoothed down his hair, and if she closed her eyes, it could have been Todd on the ground beside her, she wished it were, it would have been so wonderful to only have to deal with broken limbs or even a head injury. He was alive, he was covered with dust, he was crying… but Todd was gone now.
“You're okay, sweetheart,” Mary Stuart said softly, as she would have to her own son. “They're going to fix you all up, and I'll bet you get a cast and everyone will sign it and put funny pictures on it.”
“Will you?” He clung to Mary Stuart and ignored the others. No one knew why, but maybe it didn't matter. Maybe he had been sent to touch her, to remind her of what Todd had once been, or that there were other children like him. But what good did it do her… she had lost her baby… and yet somehow, this child had touched her. It was like a visit from her son, or at least his spirit. “Will you go to the hospital with me?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said quietly, “but let's see if we can find your mommy. I'll bet she'd like to go with you.”
“All she cares about is the baby,” he said, in tears again, and now he was pouting as she held his hand and he lay there on the dusty road waiting for the paramedics to come. But now she understood it better. She looked like his mother, so he was drawn to her, and he was angry at his own mother about the baby. Mary Stuart couldn't help wondering if their paths had crossed so she could help him, or perhaps he had come to her to help her. There was obviously a reason for their meeting.
“Benjamin,” Mary Stuart said, as she lay on the ground next to him so she could talk to him better, and by then she was as filthy as he was. “I'll bet your mommy loves you better than anyone… babies aren't really that exciting. Sure, she'll be happy to have the baby, and so will you. But you're special. You're the first one. I had a little boy just like you, and he was my special, special one… always. Because I loved him first. Your mommy is never going to love anyone better than she loves you. I promise.”
“Where did your little boy go?” He was intrigued by what she was saying, and he had heard her words very clearly.
She hesitated for only a moment. “He went to Heaven… and I miss him a lot… he was very special, just like you are.”
“Did he die?” She hated to say it to him, but she nodded. “Our dog died,” he said, sharing important information with her, and looking deep into her eyes, and then suddenly without warning he threw up all over her. Zoe wasn't surprised, and told Mary Stuart in an undervoice that he had a concussion.
“You're okay, Benjamin. You're okay, sweetheart,” Mary Stuart wiped his face with a towel someone handed her, and she stayed with him, as they all did, until the ambulance arrived with the paramedics. He was actually livelier by then, and Zoe was a little less worried about him. He looked a mess, and so did Mary Stuart, but Zoe was almost sure that he had escaped with a concussion and a broken arm, and a few bumps and bruises. He had actually been very lucky. And just as the ambulance arrived, his mother came lumbering down from the cabins as fast as she could. Gordon had sent someone to get her. And she burst into tears the moment she saw him, but Tanya and Hartley and the two doctors were quick to reassure her, and Zoe told her that she thought the damage was fairly minimal considering how fast the horse had been going, and how hard he had fallen, and he hadn't been wearing a helmet.
“Oh, Benjie,” she sat down on the ground next to him, and burst into tears as she held him. “I love you so much.” She was completely undone as she looked at all of them and thanked them, and Mary Stuart looked down at him, smiling as she cried, wanting to remind him of what she had told him, that his mom would never love anyone better. She had never loved anyone more than she loved Todd. She loved her daughter passionately, and had from the moment she was born, but she had never loved her more or less than her first baby.
She touched his hand as they put him in the ambulance, and then bent down and kissed his cheek, and it tore at her heart again as she remembered the sweet smell of childhood. Even with the vomit and the dirt and the horses, he smelled like a little boy to her, it was just a step beyond the smell of a baby. “I love you, little guy,” she whispered to him. It was just like saying it to Todd again and it almost killed her, except that it felt good too. It was as though this child had come to her to open the floodgates of her feelings. “I'll see you soon,” she said, and his mother cried and thanked her again, and then they were gone, and Mary Stuart stood there crying and she didn't know what happened but she suddenly felt a powerful pair of arms around her. She knew who it was, and she turned to him and he pulled her close to him and she couldn't stop crying as he held her.
“I'm so sorry… I'm so sorry…” She didn't even know him, and she was covered with dirt and the little child's vomit, but he didn't care, he just wanted to be there.
“Oh, poor baby… I'm so sorry… I wish I had been there for you.” She looked up at him then and smiled through her tears, wondering how she had suddenly been so lucky. Maybe God thought she had paid enough for once, or maybe it was just blind luck, or maybe she was dreaming.
“He looks so much like my son,” she tried to explain it to him, but she didn't have to. The woman with the enormous belly looked so much like Mary Stuart, she could have been her younger sister, it was easy to see the resemblance.