Chapter 7: The Dish Towel

The bruise came up purple by the time they reached the forty-second floor.

Alexander lived at the top of Lenhart Tower, in a plain apartment with a good kitchen and no pictures on the walls.

He sat Cora on a stool at the counter and went to the freezer without asking.

"It's fine," she said.

"It's a hand-shaped mark on your wrist," Alexander said.

He wrapped ice in a clean dish towel and came back.

Then he stopped.

"May I?" he said, and nodded at her arm.

She held it out.

He cradled her hand in his left palm and laid the towel across the bruise with his right.

Nobody had touched her gently in five years.

His thumb rested on the inside of her forearm, below the cuff of her dress, where the skin was thinnest.

She felt every point where his fingers met her.

The kitchen was very quiet.

"Does it hurt?" he said.

"A little."

"Good. It means the nerve's all right."

His voice was level.

His hand was not.

A fine tremor ran through his fingers, and she felt it against her pulse.

She looked up.

His jaw was set, and a muscle jumped in his cheek.

He kept his eyes on the bruise, and his jaw worked.

"You're shaking," Cora said.

"I'm angry."

"On my behalf."

"Yes."

She noticed that he had not let go, and that she had not pulled away.

She noticed that his thumb moved once, very slowly, along the inside of her arm.

It was nothing, she told herself.

He had spent five years being careful with her, and tonight he had watched a man hurt her.

Of course his hands were unsteady.

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