Chapter 6: The Hand

Paavo was already on his feet.

"Go," he said. "I'll pay. I'll hum."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was a good dinner until it got interesting."

I drove Tuomas's truck, because he was bleeding on the seat and arguing about it.

He told me nothing on the way.

At my mother's house I pulled in quietly, and every window was dark.

I had broken the first rule myself, and I knew it.

I took him into the kitchen and turned on the light over the stove.

"Sit."

He sat at the table with his hand flat on the oilcloth.

I peeled off the dish towel.

The cut ran across the heel of his palm, two inches long and clean, and deep enough to be useful.

"What did you do?"

"I took the key off her ring," he said. "She had her hand on it."

"She did this to you?"

"The ring did. She wouldn't let go. I kept pulling." He looked at the cut with mild interest. "She's stronger than she looks."

I got my bag from the hall closet.

Six years of habit had taught me to keep a laceration kit wherever I slept.

I washed my hands at the sink and took the chair across from him.

"This is going to sting," I said.

"It already does."

"Look at the window, not at me," I said.

He looked at me instead.

I numbed the edges and felt his whole hand go still under mine.

I had not touched him since a courthouse hallway.

His palm was warm and rough with a scar at the base of the thumb I did not remember.

I put in the first stitch.

"You've got good hands," he said, to the ceiling.

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