“I've got it,” Daniel said, tossing down paper towels to absorb the spill. “You've got to slow down. You're bleeding.” Laura glanced down at the gash on the pad of her thumb as if it belonged to someone else. Daniel reached for her and wrapped her hand in a clean dish towel. They knelt inches apart on the tile floor, watching her blood soak through the checkered fabric. Daniel couldn't remember the last time he and Laura had been this close to each other. He couldn't remember a lot of things, like the sound of his wife's breathing when she gave herself over to sleep, or the half smile that slipped out like a secret when something took her by surprise. He had tried to tell himself that Laura was busy, the way she always got at the beginning of a trimester. He did not ask if it could be anything more than that, because he did not want to hear the answer.
“We need to take care of that,” Daniel said. The bones of her wrist were light and fine in his hand, delicate as china. Laura tugged herself free. “I'm fine,” she insisted, and she stood up. “It's a scratch.” For a moment she stared at him, as if she knew, too, that there was another entire conversation going on here, one they had chosen not to have.
“Laura.” Daniel got to his feet, but she turned away.
“I really have to go change,” she said.
Daniel watched her leave, heard her footsteps on the stairs overhead. You already have, he thought.
* * *
“You didn't,” Zephyr said.
Trixie pushed her sleeves up and stared down at the cuts on her arms, a red web of regret. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she said. 'I started walking, and I wound up at the rink
... I figured it was a sign. If we could just talk . . .'
“Trixie, right now Jason doesn't want to talk. He wants to take out a restraining order.” Zephyr sighed. “You are so Fatal Attraction.”
“Fatal what?”
“It's an old movie. Don't you ever watch anything that doesn't have Paul Walker in it?”
Trixie tucked the phone between her shoulder and her ear and carefully unwound the screw neck of the X-Acto knife that she'd taken from her father's office. The blade came out, a tiny silver trapezoid. “I'd do anything to get him back.” Closing her eyes, Trixie scored the blade over her left arm. She sucked in her breath and
imagined she was opening up a vent, allowing some of the enormous
pressure to ease.
“Are you going to complain about this until we graduate?” Zephyr asked. “Because if that's the case, then I'm taking matters into my own hands.”
What if her father knocked on the door right now? What if anyone, even Zephyr, found out that she was doing stuff like this?
Maybe it wasn't relief she was feeling, but shame. Both made you burn from the inside out.
“So, do you want my help?” Zephyr asked.
Trixie clapped her hand over the cut, stanching the flow.
“Hello?” Zephyr said. “Are you still there?” Trixie lifted her hand. The blood was rich and bright against her palm. “Yeah,” she sighed. “I guess I am.”
* * *
“Good timing,” Daniel said, as he heard Trixie's footsteps pounding down the stairs. He set two plates on the kitchen table and turned around to find her waiting in her coat, carrying a backpack. Her cascade of hair spilled out from beneath a striped stocking cap.
“Oh,” she said, blinking at the food. “Zephyr invited me for a sleepover.”
“You can go after you eat.”
Trixie bit her lower lip. “Her mom thinks I'm coming for dinner.”
Daniel had known Zephyr since she was seven. He used to sit in the living room while she and Trixie performed the cheerleading moves they'd made up during an afternoon of play, or lip-synched to the radio, or presented tumbling routines. He could practically still hear them doing a hand-clapping game: The spades go eeny-meeny pop zoombini. . .
Last week, Daniel had walked in with a bag of groceries to find someone unfamiliar in the kitchen, bent over a catalog. Nice ass, he thought, until she straightened and turned out to be Zephyr.
“Hey, Mr. Stone,” she'd said. “Trixie's in the bathroom.” She hadn't noticed that he went red in the face, or that he left the kitchen before his own daughter returned. He sat on the couch with the grocery bag in his hands, the ice cream inside softening against his chest, as he speculated whether there were other fathers out there making the same mistake when they happened upon Trixie.
“Well,” he said now, “I'll just save the leftovers.” He stood up, fishing for his car keys.
“Oh, that's okay. I can walk.”
“It's dark out,” Daniel said.
Trixie met his gaze, challenging. “I think I can manage to get to a house three blocks away. I'm not a baby, Dad.” Daniel didn't know what to say. She was a baby, to him. “Then maybe before you go to Zephyrs you could go vote, join the army, and rent us a car... oh, hang on, that's right. You can't.” Trixie rolled her eyes, took off her hat and gloves, and sat down.
“I thought you were eating at Zephyrs.”
“I will,” she said. “But I don't want you to have to eat all by yourself.”
