Chapter 6: The Cut Hand

Jerome found a first-aid kit under the workbench and set it on the stool beside the stove.

"Palm up," he said.

"I can do it myself."

"You can do it with one hand, badly. Palm up."

I held it out.

The split along the heel of my hand had stopped bleeding in the truck and opened again when I took off my glove.

He cleaned it with saline and a square of gauze, and I watched his hands.

They were careful and unhurried, a boat builder's hands, with a white nick across one knuckle.

"You should use butterfly strips, not a pressure dressing," I said. "It's a laceration along a flexion crease."

"Then tell me where the strips are."

"Second pocket, left side."

He found them. He laid the first strip across the cut and pressed each end down with his thumb.

His thumb stayed.

"There's no audience," I said.

"Medical exception."

"You made that up. Rule one has no exceptions."

"I wrote the rule. I get to write the exceptions."

The stove ticked. Snow ticked against the dark window.

He laid the second strip and then the third, and did not let go of my wrist.

His thumb moved once across the inside of it, where my pulse was.

I looked at his mouth.

It was a plain mouth, a little hard at the corners, and it was very close.

"Your pulse is fast," he said quietly.

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