The back door clicks shut, and Heath strolls in from the laundry room.
He looks at Lavender, then at me, and then the man’s in motion, making a beeline to Ginny.
“Don’t slip!” I shriek.
Lavender bursts into tears.
I’m coated in milk and need to take a goddamn fucking shower again.
But Ginny?—
Ginny’s doing a slow breath with her eyes closed.
And Heath?—
Heath’s dropped his coffee and is straight-faced and professional and, if I can read people’s emotions at all, ready to strangle me.
“The egg carton rotted on the bottom,” I whisper while he kneels next to Ginny, right in the eggy, milky mess all over the beautiful black-and-white mosaic floor.
“What happened?” he asks her.
Mabel runs into the kitchen in black silky pajamas. I shriek at her to slow down too, and she does, going slower to reach Lavender and pick her up in a hug.
“Just slipped,” Ginny says. “Caught myself. Startled. I’m okay.”
“Where aren’t you okay?” he asks her.
She winces as she reaches for her foot. “Cricket, it’s not your fault.”
“I break everything,” I whisper.
“The eggs fell all over everywhere,” Lavender sobs.
“Maybe they were bad dragon eggs and this is a good thing,” Ginny says.
Heath looks at her, then at me, andoh fuck.
His eye looks awful.
Half swollen shut.
Because of me.
I punched him.
Ginny’s moving her foot like she hurt something in it when she fell.
I ruined a rug while trying to save ashes.
The kitchen in the mother-in-law house exploded as soon as I got here.
And now I’m breaking eggs and people too.
I’m the problem.
I amalwaysthe problem.
If you’d just be more like your sisters, Cricket, you wouldn’t be such a disaster.
