Chapter 14: Burned Hand

At two that night the bottle warmer in 214 shorted out, and Charlie started to scream.

I carried him down to the service corridor in my socks, because the night clerk had once told me the kitchen stayed lit.

It did.

The big steel room was empty, and there was a pot of water on the back burner.

I held Charlie on my hip and tipped the pot over the bottle with one hand.

The water slopped across my knuckles.

I hissed and dropped the pot, and it rang on the tile.

"Don't move," Nate said from the doorway.

I hadn't heard him come in.

He took Charlie out of my arms with one hand, set him in a high chair, and put the other around my wrist.

Then he steered me to the prep sink and ran the cold tap over my hand.

"Keep it there."

"It's fine."

"It's red to the wrist. Keep it there."

Charlie was screaming at the ceiling, so Nate got the bottle from the counter, tested it on his own forearm, and put it in the baby's mouth.

The kitchen went quiet except for the water.

He came back and held my wrist under the stream again, his thumb on the inside of it.

I looked at his thumb.

It was not quite steady.

It's the cold water, I thought. He's been standing in a hall.

"You were on the desk at two in the morning," I said.

"I'm on the desk most nights."

"You have a bed."

"I have an apartment I don't like very much."

He didn't let go of my wrist.

The water ran, and my hand began to sting less and feel more.

"How did the mediation go?" he asked.