“I think I broke those eggs I brought you,” he said.
She realized, as he said it, that she had lost track of what had happened to those eggs when he ran into the house. Had he simply dropped them? And why hadn’t she noticed?
“That doesn’t matter now,” she said. “You’re burned, and we need to take care of that first. It’s more important.”
“I just want you to know I won’t make you buy the carton I dropped. I’ll go down to my wagon and get you a nice fresh carton. I have one left.”
She wanted to tell him she would buy both. He had dropped them to prevent her entire world from falling apart. He had already suffered burns for his heroism. She would not also force him to suffer financial losses. And she would tell him that. Later, when the world straightened out. When her voice worked again. When her brain worked again.
In that moment his concern for her four dollars, while he gingerly held ice in his small, burned hand, was almost more than she could bear.
They stood together in the small bathroom, feeling cramped. Or, at least, Marilyn was feeling cramped. That space was small enough without having to share it with another living human. But she wasn’t thinking about any of that directly.
She was slathering ointment, thickly, onto his burned hand.
She briefly looked over her shoulder at the open bathroom doorway. She didn’t know where the little girl was. She wasn’t sure if she was out of earshot—if her prying ears were safely far away. Seeing no one, she reached behind herself and swung the bathroom door closed.
Then she spoke to the boy in a low voice. Just above a whisper.
“You mustn’t repeat this to anyone.”
“Repeat what?” he asked, turning his big eyes up to hers.
“What I’m about to say.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. I’m very good at secrets. It’s a trust thing. When people trust me, I’d just about die before I let them down. You can tell me anything.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” He opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off. “I know what you think, but it wasn’t. And I’m about to tell you why not.” She reached into the medicine cabinet and brought down a paper-wrapped gauze pad and a roll of gauze bandage. The boy only stood like a statue, offering his hand in a state of utter surrender. Allowing her to do whatever she saw fit to treat it. “I had already forgotten I had something on the stove, before you knocked. So I don’t want you to blame yourself for this. But I also don’t want you to say anything in front of Izzy.”
“Who’s Izzy?”
“The little girl. Information is not safe with her. She has big ears and a big mouth, and she’ll blab to her mom in a heartbeat. And then I won’t be able to live here anymore.”
She gently pressed the pad of gauze onto his hand and began wrapping a bandage around it to hold it in place.
He was still looking up at her with those huge, piercing eyes. For a brief moment she got a flash of an image. That those eyes were a battering ram, attempting to roughly take down her front door and gain access to everything she wanted to keep hidden.
“But they can’t throw you out. You’re the grandmother. You’re family.”
Marilyn kept her eyes on her work while not answering him. She used two short strips of white medical adhesive tape to hold the bandage in place.
“Just don’t say anything,” she said when she was done. “Please.”
“Yes, ma’am. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Come on. I’ll walk you home.”
“That’s very nice of you to offer, ma’am, but you don’t have to—”
Before he could finish the sentence, she had swung the bathroom door open. On the other side of it stood Sylvia. She had one hand raised, poised to knock. Predictably, she did not look pleased.
“Well,” Sylvia said. “There’s a carton of broken eggs on the stoop, and the whole house smells like a fire sale. I figured there must be some kind of story behind that. Why don’t you go ahead and tell me that story?”
Marilyn opened her mouth to speak, but the boy beat her to it.
“It was my fault,” he said. “Both those things were my fault.”
“You started a fire in my house?”
“No, ma’am. But Marilyn had something on the stove, and I came to the door and talked her ear off.”
“It was still her job to remember,” Sylvia told the boy, her voice firm with anger.
“Yes,” Marilyn said. “You’re right. It was. I’m not putting it off on anybody else, but I’m only going to say it was an unusual situation, and one not likely to happen again.”
“You sure?” she asked, drilling her gaze right into Marilyn’s face, one eyebrow arched. “Because it seems to me a lot of these ‘unusual situations’ have been happening lately.”
“Not at all. I just let myself get a little distracted. I promise I’ll be more careful from now on. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to make sure the little egg boy gets home okay.”
She hurried past Sylvia, towing the boy by one narrow forearm. Hoping Sylvia would let the thing drop. Though letting things drop was hardly her strong suit.
Surprisingly, nothing more was said.
“It’s kind of a long walk,” Stewie said.
It pleased her that she remembered his name, finally. It was Stewie. That proved her memory certainly was not as bad a situation as people were making it out to be.
“I don’t mind.”
“It’s all the way around on the other side of the lake.”
She did not reply directly to that. Instead she said, “Thank you for saying what you said.”
“What did I say?”
“That the fire was your fault.”
“Oh. That. Well. I told you I’d keep your secret.”
“And I appreciate it.”
He was towing his empty wagon behind him with his left hand. It rattled and bumped over the broken pavement. She had bought the last carton from that wagon. She had paid him for both.
“It’s nice of you to walk me home . . . ,” he began.
He was trying to say something. She could tell. She already knew he was not the best at pushing out what he needed to say. Depending on what kind of thing it was.
He pushed harder, and it came out. “. . . I’m just not really sure why.”
“You burned your hand.”
“That doesn’t make it any harder to walk.”
“No, I suppose not. But I was worried about what your sister would think. You come to my house and come home hurt. I don’t want her to think I put you in harm’s way.”
“What would that mean,” he asked, turning his huge eyes up to hers, “to put somebody in harm’s way?”
“Well. Let’s say there had been a fire and I had told you to put it out. Because I didn’t want to take the risk myself. That would be putting you in harm’s way.”
“I don’t think she’d think that.”
“Well. Regardless. I’d like to talk to her myself. If you don’t mind.”
“Oh, I never mind if you want to come along, or visit. I like your company.”
That stopped the conversation in its tracks, because it was a candid admission of affection that she was in no way prepared to meet.
They walked in silence for a time. Half a mile, maybe. The flat water of the lake was still. The air was still. The sun was nearly down on the other side of the lake, yet it was still hot. Marilyn felt as though it had been hot as long as she could remember. That it always had been and always would be, even though she knew in her mind that such a thing was not objectively true, or even possible.
She had never gotten to eat that bacon sandwich, and her hunger was getting the best of her now. She felt it as painful pangs in her belly.
“If I’m being honest . . . ,” she said, surprising herself. She hadn’t really planned on saying it out loud. “. . . I also wanted to get out of the house for a while, to give Sylvia a chance to cool down.”
He looked up at her again with those eyes. Those gigantic, needy eyes. They were beginning to feel like a weapon. Something he could use against her. Something against which she could not properly defend herself.