“Sure.” As his wife disappeared from the dining room, Steve began clearing the table. At least, he decided, it was a beginning.
As she passed the door to the little room that had been Julie’s, Sally steeled herself against the urge to open it, to look inside, knowing that the wish was futile, that it would not all turn out to have been a nightmare, that Julie would not be miraculously returned to her crib, breathing softly and steadily, gurgling in her sleep. She forced herself to walk steadfastly onward until she came to Jason’s room. The door was slightly ajar.
There was no sound from within, and for a moment Sally felt an unreasonable sense of panic. Again she steeled herself, and she pushed the door open.
Jason was sitting at his little worktable, his chemistry set spread out in front of him, his face a study in concentration as he carefully poured a liquid from a plastic bottle into a test tube.
“Hi!” Sally said. “May I come in?”
Startled, Jason jerked his head upward, and the plastic bottle slipped from his hand. He grabbed at it, catching it just before the contents spilled into his lap. Some of the liquid splashed onto his hand, and he screamed in sudden pain.
Sally’s eyes widened in fear as she watched her son rise up from his chair and stare at his hand. Already, it was beginning to turn an angry red. Then Sally came to her senses and rushed forward to pick the terrified boy up and carry him to the bathroom.
“What was it?” she asked as she turned the water on full force and held Jason’s hand under the faucet.
“Acid,” Jason stammered. “Muriatic acid. I was di—”
“Never mind what you were doing with it,” Sally told him. “Let’s get it off.”
Through the rushing water she could see the blistering skin on Jason’s hand. On his fingers the acid had already burned into the flesh.
“I’ve told you never to play with anything dangerous,” she said. “Where’d you get muriatic acid?”
“At the pool store,” Jason said placidly. The cool water had flushed the pain out of his hand, and he stared at it now with more curiosity than fear. “I was diluting it down. Why’d you have to come in like that?”
“I came in to see what you were doing, and it’s a good thing I did.” Sally shut off the water and examined the hand. Now, without the water running over the burn, it didn’t look so bad. There were blisters, but apparently the skin wasn’t broken after all. Still, burns were easily infected. “Come on, let’s take this hand down to your father.”
Steve, though, was on his way up the stairs. “What’s going on? Did one of you scream?”
“It’s your son,” Sally said, falling back into that odd form of defense whereby the misbehaving child is ascribed solely to the other parent. “He was playing with acid, and it spilled on his hand.”
“It was Mom’s fault,” Jason chimed in. “If she hadn’t startled me …”
“Never mind that,” Sally cut him off. “Steve, take a look at it. I flushed it with cold water, but it’s blistered horribly. At first I thought it had gone right through his skin. Maybe we should take him to the hospital—”
But Steve was already examining the injured hand.
There were no blisters.
All he could see was a slight redness to Jason’s skin, and even that seemed to be clearing up as he watched. The redness, he decided, was nothing more than a reaction to the cold water. He grinned at Jason encouragingly. “Does it hurt?”
Jason shook his head.
“Not at all?”
Again, Jason shook his head. “It stung a little, but as soon as Mom ran the water on it, it stopped.”
Steve shifted his attention to Sally, who was staring at her son’s hand. “You really want to take him to the hospital for this? Sally, there’s nothing wrong with his hand.”
But it was blistered, Sally thought I know it was. Just two minutes ago it had looked horrible.
Or had it? Had she overreacted to the whole thing? Had her eyes and her emotions played tricks on her?
She felt Steve’s eyes on her, and when she faced him she could read his thoughts as clearly as if he was speaking to her.
Are you crazy? he seemed to be asking. Is that what’s happened? Have you gone crazy?
As she turned away and went up to her bedroom Sally realized that even if Steve had asked the question out