“Then what?”
I hesitate. “Money,” I lie. “Married couples argue. And they get over it. You’ll see, one day.”
She ducks her head. “I doubt it.”
“In the near future there are going to be suitors lined up around the block for you,” I tell her. “I know these things because I’m your mother.”
Meret stifles a smile. “You may beslightlysubjective.”
“Then remind me to sayI told you so.”
We walk back home in silence. Our arms swing at our sides, back and forth. On one of those pumping motions, I brush Meret’s hand accidentally, but she catches my fingers.
She holds on tight.
—
WHEN WE GETback home, Meret goes upstairs to shower and get ready for camp.
I am at the counter, cutting strawberries, when Brian walks into the kitchen. “I’m sorry about last night,” he says. “I wasn’t with her.”
“I didn’t ask,” I reply.
He nods. “I know.”
There was a time when Brian and I had so much to say to each other—we would talk through dinner and over the television set at night and we’d lie in the dark with our legs tangled, recounting the bits of our day that the other had not been privileged to witness firsthand. I wonder if this new unsettling silence is a result of everything becoming a minefield, or if we have just, after all these years, run out of things to say.
The knife slips and I jump, startled, as a gash opens up on my thumb.
“Goddammit,” I say, tears springing to my eyes. I suck at the wound, then hold it at a distance, watching the welling blood.
“Shit!” Brian says, reaching for a dish towel and wrapping my hand in it. “Hold your hand over your head.”
I lift my hand obediently.
“Stay here,” he orders, and he runs upstairs. It is a deep cut; I can feel my heartbeat in my thumb. I peek under the dish towel but blood wells fresh. I press my other hand against it.
Brian clatters down the stairs holding a box of Band-Aids, gauze, Neosporin, bandage scissors, Bactine, Ace bandages—armfuls of equipment. “What, no tampons?” I ask.
“What?”
“Well, you brought down everythingelsewe have in the bathroom,” I say. “Brian, it’s just a cut.”
He reaches for the dish towel and unwraps it. We both watch the blood rise again. I press the cotton down harder, feeling a little queasy, and he covers my hand with his own to slow the bleeding. “Maybe I need stitches,” I suggest.
“It’s messy, but I don’t think so.” He smiles crookedly. “And I’m a doctor.”
“You have adoctorate,” I clarify, a grin pulling at my lips. “Not the same thing.”
“Dawn.” He meets my eyes. “Don’t you trust me?”
We’re not talking about a knife accident anymore.
With all the attention of a surgeon, he spreads Neosporin on my cut and then wraps it with gauze. This he covers with a length of self-adhesive tape. When he is finished, my thumb looks like a snowball is perched on its tip.
I do trust him, I realize. I trust him to take care of me. I always have.
He positions my elbow on the kitchen table, higher than my heart, and gently holds my wrist so that it stays in that position. Which is how Meret finds us.
