With Abbey
The nasty scar on your hand is from the time you accidentally pushed too
hard on the inside of a cheap wine glass while washing dishes: Leeeeeeeeeee! I cut myself Lee I cut myself I fucking cut myself! I came in yelling about how your hand was bleeding and not stopping, but you ignored me and wrapped a towel around your fist without even turning around to let me see the gash. Maybe you thought that if we didn’t see it then it wasn’t really there.
You looked down into the sink of broken glass, blood all over the counter,
and I didn’t even have to see the wound to get sick to my stomach. I held you, though, from the back, chin on your shoulder. I wanted to know that you were okay, but also hoped to god you wouldn’t move that towel away from your hand. The towel had been beige but was then turning red so I had to look away eventually.
I never saw the wound.
But you know I don’t do well in those kinds of situations. Emergency
ones, I mean, where someone has got to take control and make a phone call or pull a car up or come blasting down the hall with a first aid kit. But that day, I did want to take you to the Emergency Room, so I suppose I would not be too bad a father. Do you remember that I wanted to take you there and you refused to go? You said you had been there all day and would rather bleed to death than go back. I told you it wasn’t exactly a hospital you were in. You were very pale when you told me the two were pretty much the same. 38