“What can they do to an old woman?” Shushing her, he took the medicine basket from the shelf and knelt at her feet beside the divan. Anh brought him a tin basin of water, Hoang towels. He told the children to go outside and mind the soup pot. He began cleaning and dressing Coi’s wounds. It was the first time he had seen cuts on her thickly calloused soles. She tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t have it. “Auntie, you’re not an old woman. You have half my strength but twice my stamina and the heart of ten men.”
