Page 149 of Sins of Innocence

The graze runs along the outer edge of his upper arm. Raw and ugly, it's still bleeding sluggishly.

Joy comes back into the living room. "Gran will bring the tea after it steeps," she announces as she settles onto the arm of the couch.

Sadie and Neeve hover to Kieran's left, all of the girls watching me intently, the worry palpable.

"Neeve, I need a clean hand towel. Will you get me one, please?" I ask my middle daughter then smile at Sadie. "We're going to need a trash can for the used cotton balls."

I don't need to ask my oldest. She scurries across the room and grabs the small, decorative trash can mom keeps beside her recliner for snipped yarn ends. Neeve's back in seconds with the hand towel.

"Here you hold it under his arm, like this." I demonstrate for Neeve to hold the towel with both hands pressed against Kieran's arm a few inches below his wound.

He goes still, a strange expression on his ruggedly handsome face.

This is what I used to do when the girls were small and got hurt. If I wasn't careful, all three would end up wailing, two of them in sympathy, while I tried to patch up one of them. Giving them jobs to do and keeping them close kept them focused on helping, not sliding into sympathy hysterics.

It works just like it did when they were younger. The tension in room settles by degrees every time I give them another job to do.

Seeing my hands beside Neeve's on the towel, I grimace in consternation. "I have to wash my hands. Girls, you keep Kieran right where he is." I wag my finger at him. "Do not get up."

By the time I get back from washing my hands and then liberally dosing them with sanitizer for good measure, mom's in her easy chair and there are two mugs of tea on the end table closest to Kieran.

Joy is sitting beside him, her little hand anchored in his, taking the job of keeping him seated very seriously.

Neeve is still holding the hand towel against his injured arm, stopping the blood from spreading further. "Good job," I tell her.

I return to my seat on the coffee table, my knees bumping Kieran's. When I try to shift so our knees aren't touching, he moves his leg and keeps us connected.

Giving him a quizzical look, I pick up the bottle of peroxide and pour some directly onto his arm.

He blinks back at me as if to say, "What?"

The peroxide runs down his arms, making rivulets in the blood and bubbles on his wound, doing what it's supposed to. Grabbing one of the cotton balls, I start wiping away the blood from his skin, but not his wound. For that, I ask Sadie to open a package of gauze. I use the sterile gauze and more peroxide to gently clean the wound itself.

It takes six cotton balls and two large gauze pads to clean the blood away so I can check the wound. My fingers settle on either side of it, pressing gently, causing more blood to well but also giving me a clear visual of the grazed flesh. Nothing embedded.

"Is he going to be okay, mommy?" Joy asks.

She hasn't called me mommy since she started preschool. Except when she's really tired. Or really scared of something.

My youngest abhors spiders.

And I know exactly what a screamed, "Mommy!" in the middle of the night means.

It's not a nightmare, but a spider in the bathroom when she got up to pee.

"He's going to be fine," I promise, believing it fully for myself for the first time.

Kieran got shot.

Protecting me.

I have way too many feelings about that, some of them way too deep for how long we've known each other. Even if we are married.

Neeve chews on her bottom lip. "Does it hurt?"

"No," Kieran says.

My daughter's face screws into a frown. "I don't believe you."