Francesca Leader
I hear her say she didn’t mean to cut so deep. That her father left his razor out (though I begged him to be careful), so she took it, just in case. She tells me the blade’s sharpness surprised her. That she got scared when she saw fat, but it’s fine now.
***
I make her unwrap the wound in front of me, tape pulling severed flesh farther apart. I see blood bubble across the bared pulp of an orange without the peel.
***
I tell her it’s time to go. I hug her, and she lets me. Because we both know it’s not fine. That it’s been bad, and it’s getting worse. I remember her dozing on my chest as a newborn. How she mewled at the briefest separation.
***
I misspell my daughter’s name five times on the self check-in kiosk.
***
I sit in the waiting room while nurses do tests and ask my daughter questions. I see two neighbors recognize each other. We’ve got to stop meeting like this, the older man jokes, forehead bandaged. I wonder what he’s like at home. If his spotless white sneakers—the kind of thing my husband would wear—indicate care or cruelty.
***
My daughter’s room has no cords or outlets, or anything else she might use to hurt herself. I know, from experience, that I can charge our phones in the hallway. That the nurse, when asked, will turn on the TV for us. Déjà vu, I say, and my daughter—briefly her old, sassy self—mirrors my smile and says, Let’s go. Law and Order fest.
***
I learn from the nurse that “lac” is short for “laceration” in ER-speak. I think, My daughter has a lac, adding a “k” in my mind. What does she lack? What can I give her when I lack so much myself? I know, before the nurse says it, that my daughter isn’t going home tonight. I wish I wasn’t, either.
***
I marvel as the nurse sews my daughter’s “lac” with a tiny, curved needle, puncturing just once for every three stitches of blue polymer thread. I ask when the stitches need to come out. The nurse says they’ll dissolve on their own. I wish I could fix my daughter’s invisible wounds like this—with tiny blue stitches that stay just long enough, and melt away.
***
If you wanted some mother-daughter time, you could’ve just asked, I say. My daughter and I both laugh, and we know there’s no truth in it. Because I’ve been hiding in the basement for months now; because my pleading and crying only inflame her father’s rage; because I don’t know what else to do. My daughter says she’s sorry. I say there’s nothing to be sorry for, as long as she’s still here.
***
I watch the EMTs strap my daughter to a stretcher. She tells me she loves me; I tell her I love her, too. I brush her dimpled hand in parting, hoping it never loses that babylike softness. I go to my car, follow the blood-eyed taillights of the ambulance out of the parking lot, down the dark road that leads to the psych ward. And I finally understand that not knowing what else to do is no excuse. That I have to do something—anything—other than what I’ve been doing. Because next time, my daughter will cut deeper. And it won’t matter whether or not she meant to.
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Francesca Leader is a Montana expat living in Virgina. She was named winner of the Southeast Review’s 2023 World’s Best Short-Short Story Contest, and runner-up in CutBank’s 2020 Big Sky, Small Prose Contest. She also has work in the forthcoming 2025 Best Small Fictions anthology. Learn more at inabucketthemoon.wordpress.com.