TURNS out there’s nothing to clean up, because Clara, Eli, Levi, and Caleb did it already: the floor is spotless, the desk is no longer blood-smeared, and Levi is holding a thumb-width stick with one end barely sharpened in one hand and my penknife in the other.
“This yours?” he asks, holding it out on his palm, blade closed.
It’s the one I let her borrow when she wanted to carve a wombat, when I gave her a hunk of soft pine and taught her to be very careful, cutting away from her fingers. The stick looks like it’s oak, much harder. No wonder it slipped and she cut herself.
I feel awful, like there’s a hand around my windpipe. Rusty’s in there, sobbing to Daniel, and it’s my fault. What the hell was I thinking, letting her use a knife and not watching where it went?
“Thanks,” I say, and put it into my pocket, where it weighs heavy as guilt.
“She okay?” Levi asks.
I swallow, my throat tight. I just want to find a corner where I can hide and cry away my guilt, but instead I’m faced with Daniel’s family after letting Rusty slice herself open.
“We should make sure we keep an eye on her hand, but she should be fine,” I say, not meeting anyone’s eye. “Keep it clean, see that it doesn’t get infected, but it should heal okay.”
“I think she might be more upset than really hurt,” Clara adds, sympathetically. “If she’s anything like her dad, she’s mad that she’s not invincible. Come on.”
She heads back downstairs. Caleb puts a hand on my shoulder and rubs it sympathetically, and I nod in thanks.
“I’ll be down in a sec,” I tell them. “I’m just gonna… you know.” Cry, probably.
They leave, footsteps fading down the stairs, the hubbub from the kitchen rising again as I turn toward Rusty’s room, put my face in my hands, and take a deep, deep breath.
Holy fuck, I feel awful. Rusty’s hurt and now Daniel’s pissed at me, all because I wasn’t paying attention, because I totally forgot that she had that knife and didn’t think to double-check—
The floor creaks behind me, and I whirl. Eli’s standing there, alone, arms folded over his chest.
“Is he being a dick about it?” he asks gently.
I bite my lips together and shake my head, afraid that if I try to say anything I’ll start crying.
“You sure?” he asks. “Daniel can be a real unforgiving, uptight asshole sometimes.”
“It’s fine,” I whisper.
Eli sighs, and then he’s in front of me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders, pulling me in for a brotherly hug.
“It’s not your fault,” he says. “Trust me, I know how he can be.”
“Thanks,” I mutter into his shirt. Eli pats my back a few times, then releases me, one hand on my shoulder. He’s only a year older than Daniel. The two of them have always been close, so by the transitive property, I know Eli pretty well, too.
“Besides, that kid’s in for way worse than a few cuts and bruises,” he says. “Daniel seems to have conveniently forgotten all the hell he used to raise. Were you around when he ran into a sharp tree branch and it almost went clean through his shoulder?”
“Oh, my God,” I mutter. “Yeah.”
“He never would tell us how that happened,” Eli says, casually.
It happened when we were eleven and had discovered that if you spray hairspray into an open flame, you can make a mini flamethrower. We were chasing each other around the woods, like idiots, and Daniel turned around to unleash a gout of flame in my direction.
When he turned back around, still running full speed, there was a pointy tree branch exactly at shoulder level.
“No?” I say, just as casually, and Eli laughs.
Even as I was practically dragging a bleeding Daniel back to his house, he made me swear not to tell anyone what we’d been doing, terrified of how angry his parents would be. I’ve kept the secret for eighteen years and I don’t plan on telling anyone now.
“Well, I tried,” he says, then reaches out and ruffles my hair like I’m his kid sister. “Sorry he’s a dick. See you in a few.”
With that, Eli leaves Rusty’s room, and I’m alone, the bathroom door across the hall still shut. Behind it I can hear Daniel and Rusty’s voices, one high and one low.
I give myself another thirty seconds, and then I follow his family downstairs.
“YOU GAVE HER A KNIFE?”
I take two seconds before I answer him, finish mincing the stalk of celery I’m working on.
“No, she took it,” I say, sweeping the small chunks to one side of the cutting board. “She asked if she could take it home, I said no, and apparently she just took it anyway.”
“She said you let her carve a wombat,” he says, standing in the middle of the kitchen, arms folded over his chest. I brush celery bits from the knife onto the cutting board, not looking at him.
“She was looking at the little wooden animals in my shop and wanted to make one,” I say.
“So you did give her a knife.”
“I didn’t give her a knife, I let her use one temporarily while being supervised,” I snap. “I was five feet away the whole time.”
“Charlie, she’s seven,” he says, pushing a hand through his hair, voice rising. “You can’t just hand a seven-year-old—”
“Jesus, Daniel, I didn’t just hand her a machete and tell her to bushwhack a path into town,” I say. “I showed her how to use a pen knife and then I let her carve something while I kept an eye on her from a couple feet away.”
“Apparently it wasn’t a very close eye if she managed to take it!” he says.
“She stole it!” I hiss, trying to keep my voice down, because I don’t want this argument getting more public than it already is.
“You left it where she could take it!” he says, hush-shouting. “First you gave a second grader a knife—”
“— I didn’t give her a knife, for fuck’s sake, I just told you—”
“And then you just let her take it because you probably forgot she even had it,” he says. “I guess I should be glad she didn’t burn it down. I don’t know why I ever let her go into your workshop, the last time I was there you had a hacksaw just sitting out on a chair—”
I put the kitchen knife down. It clatters on the cutting board.
“She didn’t slice herself open on my watch,” I point out, gripping the edge of the counter with both hands, glaring at the cabinets in front of my face, trying to maintain control and not lash out at Daniel. “Yes, sure, I handed her a knife and she sat quietly for an hour and made some progress on a pretty okay looking wombat, because contrary to what you apparently think, I’m perfectly capable of monitoring a situation.”
“Until she took it.”
Finally, I turn around and glare at him.
“Well, look at who her father is,” I say.
Daniel doesn’t say anything, but his jaw flexes, his short beard shifting, and even though I know the silence means he’s really pissed I keep going because goddammit, this is not my fault.
“She asked if she could have it, I said no, and then she took it anyway,” I say. “Remind you of anyone?”
“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” he asks, his voice dangerously quiet.
“It means how many times did you get dragged down to the Sherriff’s station for stealing lighters and malt liquor from the Gas ’N’ Go?” I hiss. “The only reason you don’t have a juvie record is that every deputy in the county knew who your daddy was—”
“The shit I did has nothing to do with this,” he finally says, stepping closer.
I fold my arms, glaring upward.
“Only that the apple apparently doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“How the fuck is this about me?” he shout-whispers. “You can’t keep track of the knife because I swear to God you’d lose your head if it wasn’t screwed on and somehow—”
The sliding glass door to the porch slides open, and Levi steps through, then stops. He nods once, a plate full of foil-wrapped potatoes in his hands, then proceeds across the kitchen to put it down on the counter in complete silence, Daniel and I still standing about two feet apart.
“Eli said to tell you five more minutes,” he says, not making eye contact, then heads back out.
“Thanks,” I say to his retreating form.
“She sliced herself open with it!” he says. “An inch lower and she’d have gotten herself across the wrist, for fuck’s sake, and it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d stolen it or not!”
The sliding glass door opens again, and now it’s Seth, who looks from Daniel to me and back again, one eyebrow raised.
“Sorry to interrupt, but can I steal you for a minute?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Daniel says, giving me a hard look. “It’s fine, we’re done here.”
He shoots me a look, then stomps off to join his brother.
I wait until his back is turned, then flip him off with both hands.
