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Tyler pressed a brief kiss to my forehead as he passed. “You’re the best. Thank you, Nora. I owe you, big time.”
Once they left, I stood in the doorway between the foyer and the kitchen, the sudden silence ringing in my ears.
“Holy crap,” I whispered as I gave my cheeks a brisk pat.
“Is my mom going to be okay?” a soft, sweet voice asked from behind me.
I turned around to find the goth girl, Madison, who looked the complete opposite of her sweet voice, watching me with worried, tear-filled eyes.
“Of course she is,” I quickly assured her, then slowly put my arm around her shoulders, not wanting to get into her space if she didn’t want me there. “But you don’t want to go in the kitchen right now. It’s kind of a mess.”
“Yeah…” Madison swallowed hard. “That’s a lot of blood.”
“It just looks like it,” I lied as my stomach churned.
Madison’s voice came out shaky as she said, “You sure my mom’s going to be okay? Her finger looked pretty messed up.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’ll be all right.” I leaned down a little bit and lifted my hair away from my forehead. “See this scar, right here? I got this when I was six and decided to summersault into the edge of my brick fireplace. In theory, I was going to bounce off with my feet. In reality, I smashed my face. My mom said there was a ton of blood, but I was fine after a few dozen stitches.”
Her gaze traced my forehead before meeting my eyes, some of the anxiety in hers gone. “I had stitches, too, on my knee from when I fell out of the tree in our backyard and landed on the edge of a shovel.”
“Wow,” I said as I heard James laughing from somewhere nearby. “Where’s the baby?”
“Oh, he’s in his playpen watching the Shambalas.”
I couldn’t help but give a little happy clap as I followed the sound of his giggling. “He likes the Shambalas?”
“He loooovvvess them,” Madison corrected me, giving me a weird look. “Why does that make you so happy?”
I found the adorable little boy standing on the edge of his playpen, chewing on the padded railing as he watched the animated toddlers show about a bunch of balloon-shaped animals bumble and roll their way through adventures like opening a juice box—not so easy when you don’t have hands.
I must have repeated the character’s words aloud with him on the screen because Madison gave me a look of teenage disdain. “You watch cartoons?”
“I make cartoons,” I corrected her. “And I watch them.”
Instantly, the expression of bored teenage ennui disappeared from her face and she smiled. “You make them? Like you draw them yourself?”
“Well, it’s a little more complicated than that, but basically. Right now I’m working on adult movies, but I used to do children’s cartoons.”
Her black eyebrows flew practically up to her forehead as she whisper-shrieked, “You work in porn?”
It took me a moment to get what she was saying, but when I did I burst out laughing, making James look away from the screen and smile at me in his cute, missing-more-than-a-few teeth smile.
“I’m back,” Viola came bursting into the room, her pink and purple tee shirt sticking to her sweaty back as she panted. “Dad’s on his way. Where is mom?”
“Uncle Tyler took her to the hospital for stitches,” Madison said with a sigh. “Again.”
“Has this happened before?” I asked while waving and smiling at James, letting him get to know me before I made my approach.
“Usually for burns,” Viola said as she collapsed onto the couch in a pile of long limbs. “My mom’s a welder, so she gets burned a lot.”
“She’s kind of clumsy,” Madison said in a defensive voice. “It’s not her fault. She was born that way.”
“You’re only saying that because you’re clumsy like she is,” Viola shot back. Having siblings myself, I could feel a fight brewing, so I stood up, drawing their attention to me.
Glancing at the time on the pretty antique clock hanging near the big TV, I asked, “Has anyone eaten yet?”
“No, Mom was making dinner when she…” Viola swallowed hard and grew pale beneath her healthy tan. “When she cut herself.”
Madison let out a shaky breath. “There was so much blood. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do.”
Giving her shoulder a brisk rub, I pushed her in the direction of the couch, “You had quite a fright. Why don’t you chill out on the couch for a little bit?” I glanced over at the baby who was happy doing his thing, watching us and the TV. “Keep an eye on your brother for me? I’ll order some pizza, then clean up the kitchen.”
“Better get the blood up before dad comes home,” Viola said while holding her stomach, still a little queasy looking. “He’s even worse with blood than me.”
