Page 22 of You've Got Hate Mail
I lunge for the door.
Mabel does too, and we trip over each other, but I manage to get through it first and around the corner of the foyer into the sitting room.
There’s pandemonium inside. Set against the backdrop of the European-style décor and furniture in here, Elizabeth dashes for a prone figure half under the coffee table, and Pip leaps onto a chair, yelling, “Is it a spider?” while Lavender stares at me with wide, guilty eyes that always smack me square in the chest.
Hard as patience is sometimes, I don’t want her to feel guilty about doing normal kid stuff.
She feels guilty enough about things that aren’t her fault.
The one thing she remembers about my in-laws is that they once said that it was her fault Mommy got breast cancer, and it’s been a journey.
She hides her anxiety beneath her chaos, and her shame beneath bravado, and I don’t know how to fix either one.
“You okay?” I ask her as Ginny dashes in from the hallway with a towel and Elizabeth squats next to Cricket, who’s on herstomach on the floor, crawling under the coffee table, with—motherfucker, are you serious right now?
With blood all over her back.
I pick Lav up and shove her at Mabel, ignoring Pip, who’s now standing buck naked by the marble fireplace and asking me why I’m all wet.
“Move,” I order Elizabeth. “What cut her? Where’s the blood coming from?”
“I caught the urn,” Cricket says on a gasp.
“I didn’t mean to hit it with Rusty,” Lav says.
Rusty.
Pip’s taxidermy squirrel that Lav’s obsessed with.
“We know, honey,” Ginny murmurs.
“It’s not—” Elizabeth starts, but I’m already grabbing the ridiculously gaudy urn that holds Dean Makepeace’s ashes to set it aside and pushing Cricket’s shirt up to inspect her wound.
“It’s not blood.” Ginny smacks my hand, and I tumble back on my own ass as I realize the same thing she’s saying.
It’s not blood.
Fucking swollen eyeball.
Fucking day.
I know the difference between blood and—and whatever this is.
“It’s cherry pomegranate juice,” Elizabeth says. “Hi, by the way. You must be Heath. I’m Elizabeth.”
“It’s blood!” Lavender cries. “Cricket, a dragon speared you with its tail and now you’re bleeeeeeediiiiiiing! You’re dyyyyyyyyiiiiiiing! Help, help, where’s the good knight to save you?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, forgetting about my black eye again, which I instantly regretagain, while Ginny and Elizabeth help Cricket from under the table.
“What’s a flagron and why does it have a snail?” Pip asks.
Lav giggles. “Dragonandtail, Aunt Pip.”
“Oh. That makes more sense. Who’s hungry? I’m gonna go fry some chicken.”
“Put clothes on,” Mabel orders.
Pip snorts. “Maybe I want to burn the other nipple off. Ever think of that?”
