She made it all the way to the grass, though.
“Um,” she says, and suddenly she won’t meet my eyes. “Yeah. I fell.”
“I took her to the sliding rocks,” Charlie says.
She’s leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, and she looks me dead in the eye as she says it, her face tense, drawn, her curls half-wet and half-ragged. Suddenly, I realize she’s also got a hospital gown on, the gap turned to the front.
“I thought I said she couldn’t go,” I say, and I sound shockingly reasonable, even to myself.
Charlie swallows, takes a deep breath, puts both hands on her head like she’s trying to tame her hair.
“You did,” she says. “And I took her anyway. I’m sorry.”
Rusty’s just watching me, her eyes red-rimmed, her face splotchy, her hair sproinging everywhere. For just a second, I wonder if anyone’s ever thought that Charlie was her real mom.
I just nod. I shove my hand through my hair again, crack my knuckles, try to bite back the sudden fury riding through me, borne of panic and then relief.
“Sweetheart, can you talk to your uncle Seth for a little while?” I ask, reaching out and stroking Rusty’s hair. “I need to talk to Charlie for a minute.”
“It was my idea,” Rusty says urgently.
“I know, honey,” I say, leaning forward, kissing her hair.
“We’ll be right back,” Charlie says, and when she stands, she also drops a kiss on Rusty’s head, like it’s normal, natural, like she’s done it a thousand times.
I walk out of Rusty’s room, past a nursing station, down a hallway. I’m pretty sure that Charlie’s behind me but I don’t even turn and check. I don’t know where I’m going, I just know I don’t want to be around other people right now.
Finally, I turn a corner and there’s an alcove, windows, a couple of chairs, and no one else, and I stop.
“I’m sorry,” Charlie says before I can even turn around.
She’s about to cry, her jaw clenched, her eyes bright with tears.
“I didn’t think she’d get hurt,” Charlie says. “I went to the rocks all the time as a kid and nothing ever happened, and I know you said she couldn’t—”
“What the fuck?” I interrupt.
She goes quiet.
“Seriously. What the fuck were you thinking?” I ask, taking a step closer to her. I’m on the edge right now and I want to shout at her, yell, scream.
She closes her eyes, shakes her head.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers again.
“You didn’t give it half a second of thought, did you?” I ask, my voice still low, dangerous. “You didn’t for one fucking second stop and think, maybe there’s a reason Daniel doesn’t want Rusty doing this yet?”
“I thought you were overreacting,” she says, jaw clenching again.
“I didn’t want her going because when he was her age, Caleb got his arm stuck on the way down and broke it,” I say. “I was ten and I still remember the way he screamed, Charlie.”
“I never broke my arm,” she points out. “You never broke your arm. Hundreds of people have gone to the sliding rocks and haven’t broken—”
“I still said she couldn’t go,” I say.
“You won’t let her climb trees,” Charlie says. “Last year, when I took her to fair, you didn’t want her going on the carousel—”
“Do you know how fucking dangerous those things are?”
“It’s a carousel, Daniel! It goes half a mile her hour, and if it breaks loose or something you just get off it,” she says. “You can’t wrap her in cotton. She’s gonna go out into the world, and she’s gonna get hurt sometimes, and you can’t always be there to protect her.”
“Not now,” I say. “She’s seven, Charlie. Seven. She’s only just figured out that the tooth fairy isn’t real and you’re handing her knives and letting her jump off of rocks—"
“She loved it,” Charlie says, her arms crossed over her chest, like she’s protecting herself. I see a flash of something bright beneath the hospital gown she’s wearing and realize she’s still got her swimsuit on, a bikini top over shorts.
“I don’t care,” I tell her.
“She also loved the Scrambler, last year, at the fair,” she says. “And the Ferris Wheel. And that ride where you get in the car and it goes around in a circle really fast, whatever the fuck it’s called.”
I take a deep breath, trying to corral my frustration, my anger. I put a fist on my forehead, turn, walk a few steps away, turn back. I don’t know how to make her agree with me, how to make her understand that she can’t just do whatever the fuck she wants, when she wants to do it.
“I have to tell Crystal,” I say, simply.
The look on Charlie’s face tells me she hadn’t considered that, either.
“I have to tell her mom, and this is sure as shit going to come up in court on Tuesday,” I go on, and as I say it the enormity of the thing hits me. “I’m going to be the dad that got his kid’s arm broken because I let her do something dangerous. I’m already the dad who got her hand sliced open, and you can be sure as shit that both those things are going to be cited as reasons that she should be heading to Colorado next month.”