Chapter 14: Burned Palm

By evening the palm had swelled so badly that I couldn't close my hand around a spoon.

I sat on the cottage step with a pan of cold water on my knees and my fingers in it.

Ansel's truck came down the Point road at six.

I watched it stop, and I watched him sit in the cab for a full minute before he got out.

He had a first aid kit under one arm and a paper bag in the other hand.

"Fern told me," he said.

"Fern talks too much."

"He said you've been using the left," Ansel said.

"I've been using the right."

"Gen."

"It's a blister," I said.

"Show me."

"No."

He crouched at the foot of the step, his forearms across his knees.

"I won't touch it," he said. "I'll look."

The light was going orange over the harbor, and the whole day sat between us, the pen and the post office and his hand on the page.

I took my hand out of the pan and held it up.

The skin across my palm was raw and weeping, a wide pink burn from the heel to the base of the fingers.

I had grabbed the pump hose where the coupling was hot.

I hadn't felt it at the time.

Ansel looked at it, and his jaw set.

"That's second degree," he said. "You need a doctor."

"I need a bandage."

"I'll drive you to urgent care," he said.

"I'm not going to urgent care. I'm going to bed."

"Then I'll dress it," he said. "Properly. If you let me."

I should have said no.

I looked at his hands, steady on his knees, and the scar on his forearm, and I said, "Fine."

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