“I just stitched up a boy who fell out of bed and bumped his head — for real! How’s supper coming along?”

As told to Shoshana Gross

S

titching a wound is almost like doing needlepoint. My needle is grasped by a hemostat, a scissorlike tool with no blades. I carefully put in the last suture while the four-year-old boy, numbed with lidocaine, busily sucks a lollipop.

“We’re done,” I tell the anxious mother. “He only needed three sutures on his forehead. Just keep them clean and dry for twenty-four hours. And Mark...” I bend down, looking into two mischievous brown eyes. “Beds are for sleeping, not for jumping.”

Mark grins stickily, mouth ringed with purple, and the two of them head for the exit. It’s been a long day already, and I’m hurrying to the desk in the center of the ER when my phone rings. It’s Yaakov.

“Hi, Yaakov? Is everything all right?”

“Baruch Hashem, how are things in the ER?”

“The usual excitement. I just stitched up a boy who fell out of bed and bumped his head — for real! How’s supper coming along?”

There’s a pause. “I’m not sure if the rice is done. How do I know?”

I wince. Running out the door that afternoon, I’d left a pan of rice and some chicken defrosting on the counter — with a detailed list of instructions for Yaakov when he came home from kollel. Obviously, I hadn’t been detailed enough.