The Grace in the Fall

What's Wrong With Payton

I was in the kitchen helping my mom prepare dinner when the sink made an awful noise. It made me jump and in turn I ended up cutting my thumb instead of the tomato.

I took my hand and hid it behind my back. It was bleeding a lot but as soon as I cleaned it up it probably wouldn't be so bad. I grabbed a clean dish towel and pressed it to my sliced thumb. I walked over to my mom where she was standing at the sink.

"Are you okay mom?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I think our sink just broke itself though," She sighed as she examined the sink. I nodded.

"Hey mom, this place is getting unlivable by the second. I think it's time to find a new house." I rubbed her back.

My mom turned and faced me, she looked sad, but she nodded.

"Go clean yourself up. We can't have guests over while you look like this." My mom smiled and tried to put on a brave face.

Normally I would have complained but currently her dishcloth was getting soaked in blood and I had spent most of the day outside working in our front lawn. My mom had been working very hard these past few weeks and it got neglected. Since it was Saturday and I really didn't have much to do I invited everyone over to help fix my mom's lawn. Evie couldn't come because she had a piano recital, but everyone else came.

The only reason everyone went home was because no one felt like eating dinner while we were covered in dirt. While the rest of my friends went home to clean up, I decided to help my mom out with dinner.

I walked into my bathroom and pulled the cloth away from my hand and winced. The cut was pretty deep and my hand wouldn't stop bleeding. I gritted my teeth as I ran my hand under water.

I don't know how I'm going to hide this from my mom. The good thing was it didn't look half as bad as it did when it was covered in blood. My mom has the weirdest thing. She can deal with looking at everyone else's blood and gore, including her own, but not mine.

I remember when I was 4, I got my leg cut open when it got stuck in my dad's bike. It wasn't a terribly bad cut but when my mom saw it she passed out. Luckily my neighbor was out on her porch that day and saw the whole thing happen. She called 911 however it was more for my mom than for me.

We both ended up fine, and it was quite the story to tell my dad when he got home. I frowned. The last part of the story I didn't remember. I had to have my mom tell me the story later when I was 10. I didn't really remember much of it at all. All I remembered was that I had cut my leg open and that mom wasn't waking up.

When my mom retold this story when I was ten I felt really bad that I didn't remember my dad that I told her I remembered telling him that day. I can't tell you how big my mom's smile was. Oddly, it almost made me feel worse. She seemed so happy that I remembered something about my dad.

While I was trapped in my head I didn't see my mom open the door.

"Noah!" My mom exclaimed.

I looked over to the door and already my mom seemed light headed.

"Mom? Are you okay?"

"Why are you asking me that? Look at your hand."

"It's okay, It's only a cut."

"What happened?"

"When the sink broke my knife slipped. It's not a big deal." I tried to play it off as if it didn't hurt much at all.

"It looks like you might need stitches. Hold up hun." My mom ran away from the bathroom.

She was probably leaving to get her medical kit.