“Queen of the Lawrence estate,” CJ replied.
“Queen of Throw-Up Castle.” Billie, who’d spent the morning tucked against Conrad’s side with one foot inexplicably bare again, blinked her blue eyes at me.
Conrad gave a weary shake of his head. “Please don’t name the house that.”
“It’s earned the title,” CJ murmured.
I poured some herbal tea into a cup and handed it to Conrad before he could mount a defense. “Small sips. If you drink it quickly again, you will regret it, and then I’ll have to pretend not to be disappointed in you.”
His mouth twitched against the rim of the cup. “That would be devastating.”
“It’s meant to be.” I brushed a strand of hair from his forehead and checked for a fever. I’d become accustomed to these small, casual touches. They were comforting—probably more for me than for Conrad. I knew I could only get away with them for so long, but he had yet to protest.
The storm had finally moved on sometime before dawn, leaving the world outside soaked and sullen beneath a bruised gray sky. After two days of thunder, the house seemed almost peaceful, though the family had not quite followed. They still moved cautiously, as though they no longer trusted their stomachs.
By late morning, however, the children had collectively decided they were well enough to leave the bedroom. This decision was made with no medical consultation whatsoever.
“I want downstairs,” Billie said.
Bianca lowered her book. “That sentence is grammatically incorrect.”
“Winnie understands it.”
CJ rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “I too yearn for the lower realm.”
Conrad sent me a look full of apology and despair. “They’re still weak.”
“They can be weak in the family room,” I said. “A change of scenery may improve morale.”
Billie raised her hand, before letting it flop down onto her stomach. “My morale is in danger.”
So, downstairs we went.
It took thirteen minutes to get them all down there, with Conrad overestimating his stamina, and Billie being adamant that she needed a stretcher because she wouldn’t possibly survive the trip. By the time we reached the family room, my patients looked worse for wear.
I arranged them with blankets, bowls, water, and strict instructions to rest.
The television played a nature documentary featuring frogs with alarming coloring and intense mating habits. The girls were both fascinated, though Bianca pretended not to be and was arguing with the narrator under her breath.
CJ lay across one end of the couch, occasionally whispering, “The frogs understand me. They, too, live an unappreciated life of adaptation and failure.”
I didn’t ask for an explanation; I’d grown accustomed to CJ’s dramatic commentary.
Conrad huffed lightly where he sat in the armchair closest to the couch, one elbow braced on the armrest, face still pale and lightly sheened with sweat. Some people wore illness petulantly, but Conrad seemed embarrassed by it, as though his body’s temporary surrender was a failure of manhood.
I returned to the kitchen to start another pot of broth and gave myself a firm mental correction while mincing ginger. My mind wandered to a fact I’d tried to ignore for days. I was falling for this family. Hard. They were the last thing I thought about when I drifted off to sleep, and the first thing I thought of when I awoke.
I quickly scolded myself. This family was vulnerable, and I should know better than to emotionally attach myself to them.
My hand stilled.
There it was. The thought that I somehow belonged in this family. I had been avoiding it since the first morning, when CJ hugged me and looked startled by his own heart. Since Bianca sat a fraction closer when I explained old remedies. Since Billie had wrapped both arms around my waist and informed me that leaving a mug behind meant somewhere was home.
I’d always wanted to be a mother, but that opportunity had been stolen from me when I was turned. There had been other families, other children, but my heart hadn’t taken to any of them the way it had to the Lawrence kids. They were the closest I’d come, other than my own siblings, to having children of my own.
And Conrad. Conrad, who looked at his children with guilt and devotion mingled so tightly that one could not be separated from the other. Conrad, who laughed as though surprised his body remembered how. Conrad, who had nearly flinched when I touched his forehead because he wasn’t used to tenderness anymore.
I had lived too long to mistake attachment for kindness.
