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The moment Cutter sets foot into his home, Gloria comes flying into his arms, a whirlwind of tousled blonde curls and running mascara. She’s sobbing, burying her face into his shoulder and thanking the heavens he’s arrived. Taken aback, Cutter looks up to see Tiny and RJ hovering in the background — RJ’s hand squeezing his little brother’s forearm, Tiny humming anxiously as he covers and uncovers his ears. Cutter grits his teeth and curses under his breath. Plants his hands firmly onto his wife’s shoulders, pushing her back so he can stare urgently into her eyes.
“What in the name of Moe Howard’s goin’ on ’round here?” His gaze flits frantically around the room, blood turning to ice as he realizes just what’s amiss. “Where’s Vera?”
“Where d’ya think , jackass?!” Gloria hisses tearfully, shoving his chest. “We don’t know! RJ went to the schoolhouse to pick her up an hour ago and there was no Vera-Ellen there waitin’ for him! Not a single one of them useless teachers even saw her leave!” Her face crumples and Cutter feels as if the wind’s been knocked out of him. “What if somebody took her, John?”
“No,” he growls immediately, releasing her from his grasp. “Ain’t nobody touched our girl.”
“You don’t know that!”
Cutter’s heading right back out the door again. Shaking his head, jaw clenched tight and hands balled up into massive fists.
“I know more than you’d fuckin’ believe.”
He finds their six-year-old perched calmly on one of the stools at the local ice cream parlour, exactly where he’d thought she’d be. Vera-Ellen doesn’t look up as her father slumps beside her, far too busy focused on spooning vanilla ice cream and hot fudge into her mouth.
“Did’ja want some, Daddy?” she chirps brightly. “I saved the biggest banana just for you!”
“No, baby-girl. You ’n I need to have a little chit-chat.”
His tone is stern enough for Vera-Ellen to pause. She swivels towards him, folding her hands over her lap and bouncing a knee. “’Bout what?”
“Don’t you play dumb with me. You know goddamn well what.”
From the corner of his eye, Cutter can see that geeky little waiter giving him an uneasy look. One quick flash of his teeth and the scrawny teen goes right back to wiping down the counter. Good . He heaves a sigh, running his fingers through his thick, dark curls and shifting his attention back to Vera. “This runnin’ off bullshit stops now . Do you not realize how worried sick your mama’s been about’cha? She’s at home bawlin’ her eyes out right now ’cause she thinks someone went and snatched you away! And y’know what Vera? That very well could happen if you don’t knock this shit off!”
“It wouldn’t! Not t’me!” Vera-Ellen insists, defiantly puffing her chest out. “I’d scratch their eyes out before they could say Bob’s their uncle!”
(What a way she has with picking up his phrases. It might’ve made him smile if not for the circumstances.)
“You’re a little girl,” Cutter reminds her, taking her tiny hand in his much larger one. “You may be my little girl, but you’re still a little girl, and I need you to listen to Daddy when he tells ya somethin’s dangerous. Alright?”
Vera-Ellen pouts. Looks away.
“Alright?”
The exasperation in her sigh does little to ease his nerves. “Alright.”
“Good,” Cutter says, ruffling her hair. “Now finish up that ice cream of yours and think about how you’re gonna say you’re sorry to Mama.”
Vera-Ellen’s heartfelt apology not just to her mother, but her entire family could've put Shirley Temple to shame. By the end of it they’re all huggin’ and snottin’ all over each other like something straight out of one of them family sitcoms. A snapshot of the domestic bliss that Cutter had always secretly hoped for.
He gets a frantic call from Vera’s school the following day. He makes a mental note to keep his matchsticks locked in the toolbox going forward.
“Show me how that works, Daddy!”
Cutter peers over at her. Vera-Ellen is sitting on the counter-top, gazing at the pocket knife in his hand; he’d been using it to slice open one of Charlie’s envelopes from prison. He hums thoughtfully, setting it down and itching at his beard. She’s a teeny-tiny thing, but what she lacks in size she makes up for in wiles — figures out too much on her own too fast. If he didn’t teach how to do this, she’d surely figure it out on her own or rope someone else into doing it for her.
(She’s a charmer, this kid. Between Gloria and himself, she was bound to learn it from somewhere.)
And so he does show her. He shows her how to slice through ropes, how to peel fruit and whittle wood and pull out her own splinters. He picks up a plant from the store and shows her how to make drainage holes — one of the few lessons he’d retained from Charlie’s mother (God rot her soul). He sits with Vera on one knee and one of his medical books on the other, pointing at the open pages and explaining to her how an impromptu tracheotomy works and when it ought to be administered.
That last thing brings a spark of joy to her like no other, and Cutter’s excited assumption is that she’s taken the same interest in biology that he did when he was a boy.
Exactly one month later, Vera-Ellen Wilson stabs one of her classmates in the eye with a homemade knife.
When Cutter confronts her about this, shaking and whiter than his own greasepaint, she smiles and calls it emergency surgery.