Handle With Care Read online

  'Willow,' I said. 'What are you doing?'

  You blinked up at me. 'Surgery.'

  I watched you for a few stitches, to make sure you didn't poke yourself with the needle, and then shrugged. Far be it from me to stand in the way of science.

  In the kitchen, Amelia was sprawled across the table with markers, glue, and a piece of poster board. 'You want to tell me why Willow's out there with a paring knife?' I said.

  'Because she asked for one.'

  'If she asked for a chain saw, would you have gotten it out of the garage?'

  'Well, that would kind of be overkill for cutting up a banana, don't you think?' Looking down at her project, Amelia sighed. 'This totally sucks. I have to make a board game about the digestive system, and everyone's going to make fun of me because we all know where the digestive system ends.'

  'Funny you should use that word,' I said.

  'G-R-O-double-S, Dad.'

  I started pulling pots and pans out from beneath the counter and set out a frying pan. 'What do you say to pancakes for dinner?' Not that they had a choice; it was the only thing I knew how to cook, except for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

  'Mom made pancakes for breakfast,' Amelia complained.

  'Did you know that dissolvable stitches are made out of animal guts?' you called out.

  'No, and now I kind of wish I didn't . . .'

  Amelia rubbed a glue stick over her poster board. 'Is Mom better yet?'

  'No, baby.'

  'But she promised me she'd help draw the esophagus.'

  'I can help,' I said.

  'You can't draw, Dad. When we play Pictionary you always make a house, even when that has nothing to do with the answer.'

  'Well, how hard can an esophagus be? It's a tube, right?' I rummaged for a box of Bisquick.

  There was a thump; the knife had rolled under the couch. You were twisting uncomfortably. 'Hang on, Wills, I can get that for you,' I called.

  'I don't need it anymore,' you said, but you hadn't stopped squirming.

  Amelia sighed. 'Willow, stop being such a baby before you pee in your pants.'

  I looked from your sister to you. 'Do you have to go to the bathroom?'

  'She's making that face she makes when she's trying to hold it in--'

  'Amelia, enough.' I walked into the living room and crouched down beside you. 'Honey, you don't have to be embarrassed.'

  You flattened your lips together. 'I want Mom to take me.'

  'Mom's not here,' Amelia snapped.

  I hoisted you off the couch to carry you into the downstairs bathroom. I'd just wrangled your awkwardly cast legs into the doorframe when you said, 'You forgot the garbage bags.'

  Charlotte had told me how she'd line them inside your cast before you went to the bathroom. In all the time you'd been in your spica, I hadn't been pressed into duty for this - you were wildly self-conscious about having me pull down your pants. I reached around the doorframe to the dryer, where Charlotte had stashed a box of kitchen trash bags. 'Okay,' I said. 'I'm a novice, so you have to tell me what to do.'

  'You have to swear you won't peek,' you said.

  'Cross my heart.'

  You untied the knot that was holding up the gigantic boxer shorts we'd pulled over your spica, and I lifted you up so that they would pool at your hips. As I pulled them off, you squealed. 'Look up here!'

  'Right.' I resolutely fixed my eyes on yours, trying to maneuver the shorts off you without seeing what I was doing. Then I held up the garbage bag, which would have to be tucked in along the crotch line. 'You want to do this part?' I asked, blushing.

  I held you under the armpits while you struggled to line the cast with the plastic. 'Ready,' you said, and I positioned you over the toilet.

  'No, back more,' you said, and I adjusted you and waited.

  And waited.

  'Willow,' I said, 'go ahead and pee.'

  'I can't. You're listening.'

  'I'm not listening--'

  'Yes you are.'

  'Your mother listens . . .'

  'That's different,' you said, and you burst into tears.

  Once the floodgates opened, they opened universally. I glanced down at the bowl of the toilet, only to hear you cry louder. 'You said you wouldn't peek!'

  I snapped my eyes north, juggled you into my left arm, and reached for the toilet paper with the right.

  'Dad!' Amelia yelled. 'I think something's burning . . .'

  'Oh shit,' I muttered, giving only a passing thought to the swear jar. I stuffed a wad of paper into your hand. 'Hurry up, Willow,' I said, and then I flushed the toilet.

  'I h-have to w-wash my hands,' you hiccuped.

  'Later,' I bit out, and I carried you back to the couch, tossing your shorts into your lap before racing to the kitchen.

  Amelia stood in front of the stove, where the pancakes were charring. 'I turned off the burner,' she said, coughing through the smoke.

  'Thanks.' She nodded and reached around me onto the counter for . . . Were those what I thought they were? Sure enough, Amelia sat down and picked up the hot glue gun. She'd affixed about thirty of my good clay poker chips around the edge of her poster board.

  'Amelia!' I yelled. 'Those are my poker chips!'

  'You have a whole bunch. I just needed a few . . .'

  'Did I tell you you could use them?'

  'You didn't tell me I couldn't,' Amelia said.

  'Daddy,' you called out from the living room, 'my hands!'

  'Okay,' I said under my breath. 'Okay.' I counted to ten, and then carried the pan to the trash to scrape out its contents. The metal lip grazed my wrist and I dropped the pan. 'Sonofabitch,' I cried, and I switched on the cold-water faucet, thrusting my arm beneath it.

  'I want to wash my hands,' you wailed.

  Amelia folded her arms. 'You owe Willow a quarter,' she said.

  By nine o'clock, you girls were asleep and the pots had been washed and the dishwasher was humming in the kitchen. I went around the house, turning out the lights, then crept into the dark bedroom. Charlotte was lying down with one arm thrown over her head. 'You don't have to tiptoe,' she said. 'I'm awake.'

  I sank down beside her. 'You feeling any better?'

  'I'm down a dress size. How are the girls?'

  'Fine. Although I'm sorry to say Willow's patient didn't survive.'

  'Huh?'

  'Nothing.' I rolled onto my back. 'We had peanut butter and jelly for dinner.'

  She patted my arm absently. 'You know what I love about you?'

  'Hmm?'

  'You make me look so good by comparison . . .'

  I propped my arms behind my head and stared up at the ceiling. 'You don't bake anymore.'

  'Yeah, but I don't burn the pancakes,' Charlotte said, smiling a little. 'Amelia ratted you out when she came in to say good night.'

  'I'm serious. Remember how you used to make creme brulee and petit fours and chocolate eclairs?'

  'I guess other things became more important,' Charlotte answered.

  'You used to say you'd have your own bakery one day. You wanted to call it Syllable--'

  'Syllabub,' she corrected.

  I may not have remembered the name right, but I knew what it meant, because I'd asked you: syllabub was the oldest English dessert, made when dairymaids would shoot warm milk straight from the cow into a pail that held cider or sherry. It was like eggnog, you told me, and you promised me you'd make me some to try, and the night you did you dipped a finger in the sweet cream and traced a trail down my chest that you kissed clean.

  'That's what happens to dreams,' Charlotte said. 'Life gets in the way.'

  I sat up, picking at a stitch on the quilt. 'I wanted a house, a backyard, a bunch of kids. A vacation every now and then. A good job. I wanted to coach softball and take my girls skiing and not know every fucking doctor in the Portsmouth Regional Hospital emergency room by name.' I turned to her. 'I may not be with her all the time, but when she breaks, Charlotte, I feel it. I swe