She holds my eye and sets her hands in her lap. I glance down to where she’s fidgeting with her nails and see that her ankle is wrapped, but she’s done it wrong.
“Can I fix that for you?” I ask. “I should probably teach you how to do it, come to think of it.” I swallow. “In case we don’t see each other for a couple of days.”
“A couple of days,” she echoes. I take her foot and undo the wrapping. The swelling is much better, but the bruising is still nasty. An entire day of staying off it seems to have helped.
“Is it feeling better?” I ask, letting my fingers soak up her skin as I hold her leg.
“A lot better,” she says. “It’ll be right as rain in a couple of days.”
I run my hand over the purple and black skin. “I’m going to wrap it, and then I’ll get ice. You need rest, ice, compression, elevation. RICE.”
She shifts on the couch, and her braids flip around her face, making her look even more vulnerable than her bruised foot.
“It’s really not a big deal.” Her voice is too tight.
“I shouldn’t have asked you if it was feeling better. I should have asked if it hurt at all. Are you hurt? At all?” I ask, and this time, the back of my nose stings.
I carefully hold her ankle with one hand while I move the bandage into place. From here, it should be a matter of simple muscle memory—I’ve wrapped my own ankle more times than I can count.
This is Poppy’s ankle, though. Poppy’s pain. Poppy’s tears that hurt worse than any injury.
I take it slow, gentle, starting at the top of her foot.
“You know you don’t have to walk around in pain all the time, right?” I tell her. The sound from her throat is raw, and I have to force myself not to look at her. “Pain is a sign to stop and take care of yourself. Or let someone else do it for you.”
“Like who?” she whispers. I slip the bandage under her arch, my knuckles grazing warm skin as I guide it through. She twitches, but she doesn’t giggle and I don’t stop.
“Like your parents when you were young? Your mom when your dad went away? Even my dad forced me to rehab when I was injured.”
“My mom didn’t know when I was injured. She had enough on her plate. I couldn’t add to it.”
If she was trying to wound me, she couldn’t do a better job. If anyone in this world deserved to be cared for, loved, nurtured growing up, it’s Poppy Grace. The idea that no one did?—
“That’s not right,” I say. “You’re her daughter. She should have cared.”
“She cared,” she says. “But so did I.”
“But it’s a parent’s job to take care of their kids,” I say, my chest swelling with hurt as old as I am.
“She did. She fed me, clothed me, gave me a place to live and stayed up late on weekends helping me with homework and school projects whenever she could. She taught me skills and laughed with me and loved me. I know she loved me with all the energy she had. Still does.”
I tut, tugging the wrap snug and winding another loop. Each pull drags her a little closer until her leg is pressed solid against mine.
She goes quiet, watching my hands. We’re closer than I even realized, because her braid brushes my shoulder as she leans in.
When I tie the bandage off, my fingers linger, smoothing over the wrap as though testing its tightness. In reality, I just don’t want to let go.
Her ankle is steady. Mine? Not so much.
I look at Poppy, cup her face in my hands, rub my thumbs over her delicate skin. “Poppy, I can’t stand the idea of you in pain.”
Her eyes well up like they did last night, but she doesn’t fight me.
“You are the kindest person I’ve ever known,” I say. “I have to believe this universe has some kind of karmic justice to it, or nothing makes sense. The idea of you suffering in silence with no one to kiss you better—” emotion lodges in my throat. “It’s every kind of wrong.”
“Billions of people are hurting every day. Whyshouldn’tI suffer?”
“Because you’re you.”
