It wasn't because I was her Charlie, but in spite of it.
"Come in and wash it. I've got some bandage and iodine."
I followed her to the cracked sink with the corrugated drainboard
at which she had so often washed my face and hands after I came in from the back yard, or when I was ready to eat or go to sleep.
She watched me roll up my sleeves. "You shouldn't have broke the window.
The landlord's gonna be sore, and I don't have enough money to pay for it."
Then, as if impatient with the way I was doing it, she took the soap from me and washed my hand.
As she did it, she concentrated so hard that I kept silent, afraid of breaking the spell.
Occasionally she clucked her tongue, or sighed, "Charlie, Charlie, always getting yourself into a mess.
When are you going to learn to take care of yourself?"
She was back twenty-five years earlier when I was her little Charlie and she was willing to fight for my place in the world.
When the blood was washed off and she had dried my hands with paper toweling, she looked up into my face and her eyes went round with fright.
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