Chapter 20: Not a Burden

The boy tried to walk past my father.

"Excuse me, sir."

"Wait," my father said.

The boy stopped. He kept his shoulder turned.

"What happened to your hand?"

"Nothing."

"Show me."

"It's fine, sir."

"You are holding it against your ribs."

The boy looked at the broom, and then toward the folding table where my mother sat with her pen.

His eyes were red at the rims.

"Please don't tell Ms. Marden," he said. "Please. I need this job."

"Why would I tell her?"

"Because the foreman said so before he left."

The boy swallowed.

"He said the new owners would cut everybody with a cast. He said if you showed it, you were out."

"That was a lie."

"He said it was policy."

"It was my policy," my father said.

The boy stared at him.

My father leaned the broom against the rail.

He lowered himself onto the pallet where I had sat three weeks ago.

I stood beside him, and I could not move.

"Sit," my father said.

The boy sat, very stiffly, at the far end.

"How long?"

"Four days."

"Does it work?"

"It hurts when I make a fist."

"Is anyone at home depending on you?"

The boy took a long time to answer.

"My mom," he said. "She's got a heart thing. The pills are a lot. If I miss a week, she skips a dose."

Nobody spoke.

I felt my own mouth shaping a sentence I could not say.

My father's hands were folded between his knees.

They were shaking.

"Give it to me," he said.

The boy pulled his hand slowly out of the sleeve.

The wrist was swollen to twice its size. The skin was purple and yellow and shining.

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