Page 231 of Broken Daddy

“I guess the handle got hot and I touched it,” she said.

“Baby, you should have told me that immediately.” Picking her up, he carried her to the kitchen and sat her on the counter. Then he placed her hand under running cold water.

“I’m going to find the First-Aid kit. Keep that hand under the water.”

“It’s only a little bit red,” she complained.

“Keep it there.” He walked off, returning with the First-Aid kit. Setting it down, he pulled out some burn cream and a bandage.

“You’re not going to bandage my whole hand, are you? I’m already down one hand.”

“Let’s see how it looks after you’ve taken it out of the water. If it’s blistering, you’re going to see Doc.”

Jeez. It wasn’t going to blister!

He drew her hand out and inspected it. The palm was barely red. “It’s not too bad.”

“Told you.”

“Do not think this means you’re not in trouble.” He put some cream and a small Band-Aid on it. “Because putting that wood on was breaking a rule.”

Huh? What was he talking about?

“How was it breaking a rule?” she asked as he lifted her up off the counter and carried her to the sofa.

Then he crouched in front of her and cupped her chin, giving her a fierce look. “Because you could have hurt yourself. It’s a safety matter. You’re not allowed near fire.”

“But that’s crazy!” she cried. “I understand not being allowed around fire when I’m in Little headspace. But . . . but I didn’t think that was a real rule! I have to be able to put wood on the fire.”

“No. You could hurt yourself.”

“And what am I going to do when you’re not here? When you have to go back to work? Am I supposed to just freeze?”

He glared at her, his jaw working. “You’ll come with me.”

“Hayes, I can’t come with you.”

“Sure you can. Or I’ll only do local jobs.”

“Even if you only do local jobs you still can’t come home and stoke up the fire for me.”

Three days had passed since her talk with Kent and Zeke and she’d been doing a lot of thinking about what they’d said.

She loved how he took care of her and she understood all of the rules that he gave her were his way of keeping her safe. But there were some things that just weren’t practical.

“It’s not practical.”

“I have to keep you safe.”

“I know you do. But you can’t keep me safe from everything. And surely you can see that putting baby locks on the cupboards and over the power sockets is maybe just a bit too far?”

He ground his teeth together and a muscle started to tic by his eye. “I have to keep you safe. Nothing can happen to you.”

Her heart was breaking for him. “When Mom got sick, I thought that there must be some way I could make her better. If I fed her lots of good food or if I was very good and quiet so I didn’t stress her out. But nothing I did saved her. Sometimes, no matter what you do, bad things happen.”

For a moment she thought she got through to him. But he shook his head, his face growing stern.

“No. What you need are more rules. Then you won’t get sick or hurt yourself. You broke one of them.” He sat next to her, glancing around almost frantically. “Too many hazards. Too many things that could harm you.”