Chapter 15: Fingers

At six weeks, the healer pressed her palm to my stomach and told me I was mended.

"Everything's where it should be. Eat red meat. Sleep when he sleeps."

She looked at Bram, who was pretending to read a seed catalog by the stove.

"And you're free to do as you like," she said to me, dry as toast, "if anybody's asking."

Bram turned a page very slowly.

He wasn't reading a word.

That night the first frost came down on the valley, and my hand woke me.

It was the crooked one.

The cold got in at every knuckle and sat there.

I walked out to the kitchen with Rory in the crook of my good arm, because he had just finished waking up and meant to tell everyone.

Bram was already there.

He was at the table in his undershirt with a mug in front of him and the lamp turned low.

He looked at my face and then at my hand.

"Bad one?"

"It does this when it turns cold."

"Sit."

I sat.

He took Rory out of my arm.

The baby, who screamed at everyone, went quiet against that huge chest.

"Traitor," I said.

"He knows quality."

Bram set Rory in the basket by the stove, with one big hand on the blanket until the baby's eyes drifted shut.

Then he heated a cloth in the kettle and came back to me.

"Give me your hand."

"It's fine."

"It's not."

I gave it to him.

He wrapped the hot cloth around my fingers and held it there, and the knots in my knuckles began to let go.

I hadn't realized I was holding my breath.

"Does it still hurt where he broke them?" he asked.

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