Chapter 2: What She Saw On My Hands
Vanessa moved before anyone else did.
She came up the hallway in those light heels, quiet on the runner, and stepped right between me and the laundry door like she could decide where the scene ended. Her cream dress shifted as she stopped. She didn't look at Richard first. She looked at my hands.
"Claire, what happened?" she said. "What did you get into in there?"
My hands were still held to my chest. The red had darkened since I'd opened the door. It covered my palms and the inside of my fingers, bright and wet-looking, and the skin underneath felt tight and hot. I was breathing through my mouth so I wouldn't make a sound. Sophie was still holding onto Richard's hand with one of hers, but she was turned toward me fully now.
Richard answered before I could.
"She's fine," he said. His voice was even, low. He didn't raise it. That was how he did it. "She's being sensitive. She didn't follow the instructions on the new concentrate."
I felt my jaw tighten. I tried to swallow.
"I did," I said. My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to. "The instructions were changed. The bottle says something different now."
Vanessa glanced over her shoulder at him, then back at me. Her eyebrows pulled together just a little.
"Changed how?" she asked.
Richard let out a breath through his nose. He tilted his head the way he did when he was about to explain me to someone else.
"Vanessa, it's a laundry detergent," he said. "It's not a chemical plant. She poured it without the gloves. I've told her a hundred times."
"I wasn't given gloves," I said. I looked directly at Vanessa because I couldn't look at him. "They weren't in the closet anymore. The box was empty. The new bottle said to mix one cap with hot water and I did. It started burning right away."
The hallway was too warm. The sconces on the wall threw the same yellow light they'd always thrown, and the light from the laundry room spilled across the runner and onto our feet. I could smell the sharp bite of it coming from the laundry itself, that bleach smell but stronger, wrong.
Sophie let go of Richard's hand.
She took two small steps toward me. Her white cardigan slipped a little off her shoulder. She reached up with both hands the way she always did when she wanted me to pick her up, her fingers open toward my red ones.
"Mommy, your hands," she whispered.
I started to lower mine to her, instinct, even though it hurt to move them.
Richard's hand came down on her shoulder, gentle but firm, and pulled her back half a step. He didn't yank. He just guided her.
"No, honey, don't touch," he said, still calm. "Mommy has chemicals on her hands. We don't want that on you."
Sophie looked up at him, confused, then back at me. Her lower lip started to tremble.
"But she's hurting," she said.
Vanessa watched that happen. I saw her mouth press together. She reached out like she was going to touch Sophie's hair and then stopped.
"Claire, go rinse them," Richard said to me. It wasn't a suggestion. "Right now. Use the sink in there. Cold water. You'll see, it will come right off once you wash it."
He said it like he was being helpful. Like he was solving it.
I didn't move right away because the pain was pulsing now, up into my wrists, and I was scared to put water on it. I was scared not to. Vanessa's eyes flicked down to my hands again and I saw her take in how I was holding them, how I wasn't opening my fingers all the way.
"Go on," she said softly, to me, not to him. "Rinse them and we'll figure it out."
Richard was still holding Sophie's hand. He nodded toward the laundry room behind me, the door still open, the concrete sink visible inside next to the stacked machines.
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"Go," he said.
I turned. The laundry light felt too bright after the hallway. I stepped back over the threshold onto the cold tile and could hear Richard saying something quiet to Vanessa behind me, and Sophie's small voice asking if I was okay. Vanessa didn't answer him right away. When I glanced back before I reached the sink, she was still standing in the hallway looking after me, her arms crossed over that cream dress, her face uneasy in a way she wasn't trying to hide anymore.
