Page 42 of The Care of Broken Things
He needn’t have worried. Before Eli was even in the room, there was a wild shriek of “DADDY!” and a tiny torpedo came shooting into the man’s arms. All Eli’s nervousness vanished the moment he locked eyes on his daughter. He tossed her up into the air, already laughing, and when he caught her again, he hugged her so tight she seemed to disappear into his body.
No one told him to put her down.
“You don’t look as bad as I thought you would,” Hailey said, patting his cheek. “Did you make your toothbrush into a shiv yet?”
Eli laughed, and Samuel could do nothing, marveling at what was clearly a little girl clone of Eli. Her smile. Her eyes. Her nose. Even her ears were little Eli ears.
“So this is what you’d look like with hair,” he blurted—like a MORON.
It made both of them turn to him, and that meant an assault of two near identical and highly lethal smiles. “Don’t worry,” Hailey said. “I’m shaving next week.”
There was a laugh and then Nathaniel came up to Eli andkissed his daughter’s head. “No shaving. Darren will cry.”
“No, I won’t.”
He turned his head and blinked. There, setting a food tray on one of the tables, was another clone, though of Nathaniel this time, only slightly smaller and with shorter hair. The boy settled himself at the table and ripped open a sandwich.
“Darren,” he said. It couldn’t be anyone else.
Nathaniel’s brother looked up. His lips were pressed into a line. “Samuel.” His voice was even, but chock-full of contempt.
He heard a familiar click-click, but instead of coming straight to him, Jenny wrenched back Darren’s chair to look into his face. The boy was startled out of his anger and could only look at her. Jenny seized the boy by the chin and leaned in close. “You don’t want to provoke me, sweetheart. I’m not in the best of moods these days.” With that declaration, she released the chair. It fell back onto all four legs with a bang. Then she seemed to forget about it altogether. She came to Samuel and took hold of his face with both hands.
“You’re not sleeping enough, and your face looks thinner. Did that monster touch you again?”
“No, it’s—I’m fine.”
“He isn’t fine,” Eli said. He’d put Hailey down, but he still had a hold of her hand. “But I’ll spit blood before anyone tries again.”
Samuel twisted his face out from his sister’s hands and gaped at Eli, who sounded almost feral.
“No blood,” Nathaniel said, and pecked his husband on the mouth.
Hailey used the break in her father’s focus to escape and zoomed right to Samuel to seize his hand. “Samuel!Tell Jenny to sleep over by us tonight.”
He knew the two had already met several times. Jenny stopped at the house to deliver groceries and make sure Nathaniel was eating. She and Hailey had also gone out together for some school shopping, and he couldn’t wait to hear all about it. How strange and wonderful it was to see those two parts of his life intersecting. He watched his sister take the hand Hailey held out to her, and said, “I’m not sure I have to.”
Hailey laughed. It made a sound that reminded him of wind chimes, but when she tried to sit at the table, Eli pulled back the seat, sat down, and pulled her into his lap.
“They’re not going to let you do that,” Nathaniel said.
Eli pushed aside his daughter’s braids to press a kiss to her cheek. “Yes, they will.”
Samuel looked up and saw Alvaro and Carnivore. Not the worst combination, but he had to agree with Nathaniel. The warning would come any second. Except it didn’t. He saw Alvaro’s eyes run over them, but the guard didn’t bark the usual, “No touching!”
Nathaniel saw it too. “How did you manage that?”
“Can’t tell you. HIPAA.”
“What?”
Samuel didn’t have to hear the rest. “He’s been helping out some of the inmates. They come to him with medical questions.” He’d thought it was something that happened only occasionally, but either that was changing, or his now constant contact with Eli was revealing how wrong he’d been before. The man couldn’t go anywhere without someone stopping to ask his opinion on some disgusting bodily fuck-up. “I guess he’s moved on to COs now. I hope you charged him triple.”
“That’s not funny. I don’t know what to do with all that stuff.”
“What stuff?” Nathaniel demandedinstantly on guard.
“Just stuff from the commissary,” Samuel assured him. “No one likes being in debt.”
