We were at the supermarket. Elliot was in the shopping cart — he still fits!
As I was unloading the groceries to ring them up, my hand got between Elliot’s winter fox boots and the inside of the cart. He didn’t see my hand and crushed his boot against it.
I was in a lot of pain and bleeding. He saw the pain and the blood. Even someone who worked there saw me in pain and asked if I was OK.
Elliot wasn’t afraid of me like I was of my father when I hurt his hand in the garage door as a boy. When I ran two blocks away and hid in the bushes in fear…
Elliot was apologetic and very concerned. He wanted to know if I was angry. In between expressions of pain, I asked if he would put a Band-Aid on it when we got home.
We got home and there was more blood. Not too much, but more than before. He helped me clean it with alcohol (I showed him how), and we put a bandaid on it.
He asked me again if I was angry. I said no; I know it was an accident. I know you didn’t mean it — the same things I’d said in the supermarket.
But then he tried to express something new. He didn’t know the words. He asked if I felt angry in the place in my head where I think alone. The place where no one can hear me think..
It was so sweet and dear.
