Break by Hannah Moskowitz

new broken hand. Metacarpal fracture. + 1 broken hand = 19.
    Pretty damn lucky, hmm?
    Naomi refuses money from my dad and gives me a wink on the way out. She squeezes Jesse’s shoulder too, and I hope she washed her hands first.
    Now Dad and I are silent in the kitchen.
    “He’s asleep,” Mom says, walking in from the living room.
    Dad hands me a bag of ice. “Good.” He was only at the hospital for an hour or so, so he still has the sports-jacket-and-tie aura of real life. Mom and I, on the other hand, both look around the kitchen like we haven’t seen it in years.
    She slumps down at the table.
    “We’ve got to do something,” Dad says. He places his hand on the back of my neck. “He cannot keep having these attacks.”
    Mom’s sweaty hair clings to her hands. “He’s been better lately.”
    “Better is not nine trips to the hospital a year, Cara.”
    “Eleven,” I mumble.
    Mom hardens her eyes at Dad. “We shouldn’t discuss this in front of Jonah. Can we think about what the Reverend said?”
    I shrug.
    Dad says, “Look, he’s always better when we’re both home. Maybe I should drop some hours. See if I can spend more time with him.”
    Mom scratches like Jesse. “You make it sound psychological.”
    “I don’t. But the better he’s watched—”
    “I watch him just fine,” Mom says.
    I say, “I do too.”
    Dad raises his hands. “The fact of the matter is I had a sister like Jesse. I know what it takes to raise this type of kid.”
    Dad’s sister died when she was eighteen. Bee sting.
    “He’s not a type,” I say.
    Dad ignores me. “Look.” He turns back to Mom. “There are schools for kids like him. Even peanut-free would be a relief.”
    I say, “No one eats peanuts around him at school. They’re not idiots.”
    Mom sighs. “Jesse wants to be with Jonah.”
    “If Jonah could take care of him—”
    “Paul!”
    I whisper, “It’s okay.”
    We’re quiet for a damn long time.
    It’s sort of against the rules to imply that I don’t watch Jesse well enough.
    Though everyone knows it anyway.
    “All right,” I say, when I get my voice back. “This is not a tragedy. Jesse doesn’t need to change his life. We just need to keep the house cleaner. Just because—”
    “Just because you’re breaking bones every two minutes, Jonah?” Dad throws his hands in the air. “Yeah, I’ll admit that’s weighing on my mind.”
    Will’s screaming shoots from his room to the kitchen. I picture him lying in his crib, his little hands in fists.
    I tell Dad, “Stop. That has nothing to do with Jesse.” I should just leave. But this would get a thousand times uglier if it were just between the two of them.
    Dad says, “It all comes down to a lack of supervision. Broken bones, allergy attacks—”
    “You’re really going to blame me for this?” Mom slams her palms on the table. “What, so I’m beating up Jonah in between poisoning Jesse, that’s it? I guess I’m making Will cry, too!”
    I say, “Mom.”
    Dad says, “Damn it, Cara!”
    Jesse appears from the living room, rubbing the red around his eyes. “What’s going on in here?”
    We all shut up.
    He pads in, his socks making scuffle noises against the ground, pulls me up, and takes me out of the kitchen with him.
    “What is it?” I say.
    “Shh.”
    “You’re supposed to be asleep.”
    He brings me to Will’s room and says, “Something’s wrong with him. Pick him up.”
    Will gasps in air and keeps screaming.
    “It might just be colic,” I say.
    Jess wearily pushes me toward the crib. “Jonah, pick him up.”
    He stands by while I hold our brother and bounce him on my shoulder. Jesse recoils his hands into his sleeves, afraid to touch.

fourteen
    I SNAP MY HELMET UNDER MY CHIN, FLINCHING, like always, at the thought of the skin catching in the buckle. “Camera ready?”
    Naomi says, “Just so you know, we don’t have to do this.” She twirls the wire cutters in her left hand. They glint in the