For Lisey Debusher, twenty-two, weary of her family and equally tired of being on her own, it is enough. Finally enough. He has hollered her home, and in the dark she gives in to the Scott of him. From then until the end she will never look back. 18
When they're in the kitchen again, she unwinds her blouse and sees the damage. Looking at it, she feels another wave of faintness first lift her up toward the bright overhead light and then drop her toward darkness; she has to struggle to stay conscious, and manages to do it by telling herself He needs me. He needs me to drive him to the ER
at Derry Home.
He has somehow missed slicing into the veins which lie so close under the wrist - a blue-eyed miracle - but the palm is cut in at least four different places, some of the skin is hanging like wallpaper, and three of what her Dad called "the fat fingers" are also cut. The pièce de resistance is a horrible gash on his forearm with a triangle of thick green glass sticking up from it like a sharkfin. She hears herself make a helpless ouck! sound as he pulls it out - almost casually - and tosses it into the trash. He holds her blood-soaked blouse under his hand and arm as he does this, considerately trying to keep blood off her kitchen floor. He does get a few drops on the lino, but there's surprisingly little to clean up later. There's a high counter-stool that she sometimes sits on when she's peeling veggies, or even when she's washing dishes (when you're on your feet eight hours a day, you take your sitdowns where you can get em), and Scott hooks it over with one foot so he can sit with his hand dripping into the sink. He says he's going to tell her what to do.
"You have to go to the ER," she tells him. "Scott, be sensible! Hands are full of tendons and things! Do you want to lose the use of it? Because you could! You really could! If you're worried about what they'll say, you can cook up some story, cooking up stories is what you do, and I'll back y - "
"If you still want me to go tomorrow, we'll go," he tells her. Now he's entirely his normal self, rational and charming and almost hypnotically persuasive. "I'm not going to die of this tonight, the bleeding's almost stopped already, and besides - do you know what ERs are like on Friday night? Drunks On Parade! First thing Saturday morning would be lots better." He's grinning at her now, that delighted honey, I'm hip grin that almost demands you grin back, and she tries not to, but this is a battle she's losing.
"Besides, all the Landons are fast healers. We had to be. I'm going to show you just what to do."
"You act like you've put your hand through a dozen greenhouse windows."
"No," he says, the grin faltering a little. "Never poked a greenhouse until tonight. But I learned some stuff about being hurt. Paul and I both did."
"He was your brother?"
"Yeah. He's dead. Draw a basin of warm water, Lisey, okay? Warm but not quite hot."
She wants to ask him all kinds of questions about this brother
( Daddy tole Paul n me over n over)
she never knew he had, but this isn't the time. Nor will she hector him anymore about going to the Emergency Room, not just now. For one thing if he agreed to go she'd just have to drive him there, and she isn't sure she could do it, she's come over all shaky inside. And he's right about the bleeding, it's slowed way down. Thank God for small favors.
Lisey gets her white plastic basin (Mammoth Mart, seventy-nine cents) from under the sink and fills it with warm water. He plops his lacerated hand into it. At first she's okay
- the tendrils of blood lazing their way to the surface don't bother her too much - but when he reaches in and begins to gently rub, the water goes pink and Lisey turns away, asking him why in God's name he's making the cuts bleed all over again like that.
"I want to make sure they're clean," he says. "They should be clean when I go - " He pauses, then finishes: " - to bed. I can stay here, can't I? Please?"
"Yes," she says, "of course you can." And thinks: That isn't what you were going to say.
When he's finished soaking his hand, he pours out the bloody water himself so she won't have to do it, then shows her his hand. Wet and gleaming, the cuts look less dangerous and yet somehow more awful, like crisscrossing fishgills, with pink deepening to red inside them.
"Can I use your box of tea, Lisey? I'll buy you another one, I promise. I've got a royalty check coming. Over five grand. My agent promises on his mother's honor. I told him it was news to me he had one. That's a joke, by the way."
"I know it's a joke, I'm not that dumb - "
"You're not dumb at all."
"Scott, why do you want a whole box of teabags?"
"Get it and find out."