Because traffic blocked the closest access point, the fire department required seventeen minutes to reach the crash.
During all seventeen of those minutes, Hammer stayed inside Emma’s Subaru while Boone supported him from outside.
Emma’s pulse began weakening.
Her skin turned gray.
She repeatedly tried to pull her trapped leg free, making the bleeding worse. Hammer took off his leather vest, folded it beneath her knee, and used his belt to apply pressure above the wound.
His fractured wrist continued swelling until his fingers could no longer close.
So he used his forearm.
At some point, Emma’s yellow scarf became caught between his palm and a section of torn metal.
That was why the scarf had been lying across his lap in the photograph.
“Why didn’t we know any of this?” I asked.
Boone leaned against the workbench.
“Hammer checked himself out before your family got there.”
“With a broken wrist?”
“Doctors set it. Wanted him overnight. He hates hospitals.”
Across the garage, Hammer was sanding a steel tube. Small orange sparks jumped from the machine.
He wore safety glasses and pretended not to listen.
Mother stared at him.
“You saved her.”
Hammer turned off the grinder.
“Paramedics saved her.”
“You redirected the van.”
“Bike did.”
“You climbed inside her car.”
“Door was open.”
“It was a window,” Emma corrected.
Hammer studied the metal tube in his hands.
“Big window.”
Emma turned toward the rear of the garage.
A thick tarp covered what remained of a stripped motorcycle frame.
“Is that the Road King?”
Nobody answered.
Using the mismatched hospital crutches, Emma started toward it.
The blue crutch squeaked.
The gray one struck the concrete a fraction of a second later.
Hammer stepped directly into her path.
“Leave it covered.”
“Why?”
“Nothing useful under there.”
“You used metal from it for the new pair.”
Hammer’s expression remained unchanged.
Boone’s did not.
Emma noticed.
“So that’s true.”
Hammer placed the steel tube onto the workbench.
“Some of it.”
“How long have you been making them?”
“While.”
“How long?”
He removed his safety glasses.
“Eleven months.”
The garage became silent except for rain striking the corrugated roof.
Emma stared at the wooden case on a nearby shelf.
“You spent eleven months making crutches for a woman you’d never even spoken to?”
“Built four pairs.”
“What happened to the others?”
“Failed.”
“Why didn’t you just buy me some?”
“Because bought ones failed too.”
Emma looked down at the mismatched hospital crutches beneath her arms.
Hammer’s eyes moved to the blue loaner.
“That one’s an inch short.”
“I know.”
“Grip’s at the wrong angle.”
“I know.”
“Cuff’s rubbing your forearm.”
“I know.”
His voice softened almost imperceptibly.
“Then let me finish.”
Mother crossed her arms.
“Why should any of us trust something you built?”
Hammer continued looking at Emma.
“You shouldn’t.”