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"You can help later, maybe." He shoved down on the crowbar. The old wood split and pieces flew. Chip jumped back, but not before a chunk nearly hit him.
Gabe threw down the crowbar. "I told you not to get so close!"
The boy made that futile reaching gesture for his rabbit. "You're scaring Tweety Bird."
It wasn't Tweety Bird who was scared, and both of them knew it. Gabe felt sick. He forced himself to speak calmly. "There's a couple of pieces of wood over there. Why don't you see if you can build something with them?"
"I don't got a hammer."
"Pretend."
"You got a real hammer. You don't pretend."
"That's because… Look in my toolbox. There's another hammer in there." He returned to work.
"I don't got any nails."
Gabe gave a vicious shove to the crowbar. The wood screamed as he pried up another floorboard. "You're not ready to use nails yet. Just pretend."
"You don't pretend."
Gabe fought to hold onto his temper. "I'm a grownup."
"You don't pretend you like me." The boy banged the hammer against a short length of two-by-four Gabe had used earlier as a lever. "Mommy says we still got to go to Flor'da."
"I can't do anything about that," Gabe snapped, ignoring the child's first comment.
Chip began banging the wood with the hammer, hitting it again and again, not to accomplish anything, merely to make noise. "You can too do something. You're a grownup."
"Yeah, well, just because I'm a grown-up doesn't mean I get to have things the way I want." The banging was getting on his nerves. "Take that wood over by the garden."
"I want to stay here."
"You're too close. It's dangerous."
"No, it's not."
"You heard me." Anger built inside him. Anger over everything he couldn't control. The death of his family. Rachel's desertion. The drive-in he hated. And this boy. This gentle little boy who stood like a roadblock in the path of the only peace Gabe had been able to find since he'd lost his wife and child. "Stop that damned pounding!"
"You said damn!" The boy slammed down the hammer. It caught the edge of the two-by-four. The board flew.
Gabe saw it coming, but he couldn't 'move quickly enough, and it hit him in the knee. "God damn it!" He lunged forward, grabbed Chip by the arm, and pulled him to his feet. "I told you to stop that!"
Instead of cowering, the boy defied him. "You want us to go to Flor'da! You didn't pretend! You said you would, but you didn't! You're a big damn butthead!"
Gabe drew back his arm and slapped the fiat of his hand against the boy's rump.
For a few seconds neither of them moved.
Gradually, Gabe grew aware of the sting in his palm. He looked down at his hand as if it no longer belonged to him. "Jesus…" He dropped the boy's arm. His ches
t knotted.
You're so gentle, Gabe. The gentlest man I know.
Chip's face crumpled. His small chest shook, and he pulled back as if he were folding into himself.
Gabe fell down on one knee. "Oh, God… Chip… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
