WAKE (Wattpad edition)

5. Good mom.

She followed him back into the house. Cary was at the front door, on one knee lacing up his steel-toe boots.

"Where are you going?" Pete's question was sharp.

Cary hunched his shoulders. "Work," he said.

"I want you home for the day." Pete said. "I texted your site manager already. Let Mel take care of your hand. Eat something."

Cary locked eyes with him, his nostrils whitening.

"I'll see you at supper." Pete said shortly.

Cary ducked his head, his ears bright pink in his dark hair. The door thumped closed, and he tore the laces out of the holes in his boots and chucked them in the bottom of the closet. Mel retreated to the kitchen, keeping an ear to the hallway. She heard a door shut and then the squeak and rush of the shower starting. She let out her breath.

She rifled through the cupboards for something Cary and her children would like to eat for lunch. Pete had filled the cupboards with ramen noodles and pancake mix. She started the water to make noodle soup.

She heard the shower stop and doors opening and closing in the hallway, but Cary didn't appear.

She went to his room and rapped on his door. It was partly opened, like he usually left it, and when he didn't answer, she pushed it wider. Cary was lying on his back on his bed, his arms crossed over his body, staring at the ceiling.

"Lunch is ready," she said.

He didn't even blink.

She held up the Ziploc bag of first aid supplies. "And I need to take a look at your hand."

He sat up with a creak of the mattress and put his bare feet on the floor beside his bed. His knees came up around his bowed shoulders, and she wished they had a bigger bed to give him. She came in and sat cautiously next to him. "Which hand is it?"

He put a hand on his knee, and she saw he had dabbed his swollen knuckles with ointment already. When he turned it over, she bit her lip. There was a cut on his wrist too deep to simply treat with ointment. It was still bleeding, a thin trickle curving around his arm.

She took his hand in her own two. "So you're a lefty?" She asked lightly.

He flinched and turned his face away from her.

"Am I hurting you?"

"No." His voice was as soft and dry as the grass in her yard.

She put her tongue in her teeth and set the butterfly bandage over the cut to hold it closed, then wrapped that snugly in gauze. "There. I'm getting better at that. Do you want me to do the knuckles too?"

He took his hand back, holding it in his lap. "They'll heal better open."

She looked consideringly at him, at the hair curling over his ears and falling over his face. "I'd like to trim your hair if you're home today," she said. "You need a haircut before school."

He stayed still a moment, and she wondered if she had missed something. "Don't like my head being touched," he mumbled.

"I'll be careful," she said. "You can't exactly go the rest of your life without a haircut."

He didn't move a muscle in response, and she patted his knee lightly. "Come for lunch first. Something in your stomach will make you feel stronger."

The girls came in from outside and filled the meal with conversation so Cary didn't have to speak at all. For once, Mel felt like their little voices were giving her some life of her own, instead of sapping her energy. When Cary got up to do the dishes, fumbling with one hand, she got up to wash so he could dry.