Hound and Nell had three daughters, all named after virtues: Hope the oldest, Charity in the middle, and Patience the youngest. At home, when it was just them, Maggie rolled her eyes and told Ava those were the worst names she could think of for bikers’ children. And, true to their names, none of the girls wanted to claim relation to their aging outlaw father. Charity was going through a bitter divorce, though, and had no place else to stay.
“Oh, but he wasn’t too proud to take Hound’s money last year, was he?” Jackie asked. She snorted and tossed her bobbed red hair. “Bastard.”
“We have extra space,” Bonita said as she cranked up the heat on her Dutch oven full of bubbling vegetable oil on the stovetop. “That spare bedroom. Big closet, room for her kids. She can stay with us if she wants.”
Nell smiled the best she could given her haggard, deflated expression. “That’s sweet, hon, but you’re still Lean Dogs people. That’s the issue with The Bastard.”
Bonita said, “Ah.”
“Not to pry,” Maggie said, “but doesn’t Hope have a place for her?”
“Wellherbastard’s going through hisemotional crisis.” Nell threw up her hands. “These girls, I swear. None of them wanted to marry a man like their daddy, and look at the fucking pond scum they ended up with instead.”
Ava slid the knife through the head of romaine, cutting tiny crinkled ribbons of lettuce. Forward and back. Forward and back.
“I shoulda had boys,” Nell said. “Then I wouldn’t be having this problem. They could ride bikes with Aidan and not have their damn panties in a bunch about everything.”
Yes, Ava thought, it was easier for boys. Boys could join the club. Boys knew their place.
“Speaking of boys,” Mina spoke up shyly, and passed a hand over her belly. “I went to the doctor today–”
The rest of her sentence was cut off by a collective whoop from the other women.
And Ava jerked the knife too fast and sliced into her thumb.
The congratulations were shushed as she hissed in pain.
“Shit, baby.” Maggie spun to her and was around the island and at her side in a flash. “Lemme see.”
Ava pulled her fingers away and a bright slash of blood welled and overflowed. Her head gave a little spin.
“Ava,” Maggie crooned, her mother-voice on. “You’ve gotta be more careful. Here, come here. Put it under the water and see what we’re dealing with.”
She towed her over to the sink, a supportive arm around her shoulders, and Bonita pulled dishes out of the way so she could stick her hand under the tap.
The blood had traveled over across her knuckles, down into the creases of her palm. The wound was too new for there to be any pain: that sharp killing of sensation right after the knife slices through.
The water was warm, and it stung. Ava winced as the blood was washed away; it bubbled again and the process repeated, until the sink basin ran red.
“That’s deep,” Bonita said with a clucking sound. “You have to be more careful,bambina. You could have chopped your thumb off!”
“Well that’s a little dramatic,” Nell said.
Ava’s eyes began to lose focus as she stared at the blood and water swirling around the drain in the bottom of the porcelain farm sink. Without her permission, her mind detached, floating away from the moment, until the voices of the women around her were just dim murmurings of indistinct sound.
Just like that, as easy as breathing, pain had slid across her. One wrong pass of the knife, and there was blood all over. Tiny droplets on the tile at her feet. There had to be more of them on the curly green lettuce leaves. Injury was this thing that lay dormant, she reflected in this strange cartwheeling bubble of detachment, ready to shred you if you made one little slip. One miscalculation, and there was the blood.
She thought of the blood on her comforter, on her thighs.
Thought of Mercy’s hands on her.
For a moment, standing at the sink with her mother’s arm around her, she believed in premonitions, because she thought she was having one.
“Let’s see,” Jackie said, materializing at her elbow with a first aid kit.
Someone shut the water off and Maggie patted her hand dry with a paper towel, little bits of it getting stuck in the gaping slice in her thumb.
Pliant, doll-like, she watched Jackie dress the wound and pronounce it just fine.
