Chapter 14
Fever
Hildy
I’m next to Lucy with the lamp turned low, the room dim enough for her to sleep but light enough so I can watch her.
Her breathing is no longer uneven, which was terrifying, but I held it together, because Lenzin was ready to crack, and someone had to.
I keep my hand resting lightly on her back so I can feel the rise and fall without waking her.
She’s warm. Not dangerously so. But warm enough that my mind won’t shut up.
I pull my phone from my pocket and angle it away from the bed.
Me:
Hey. Quick question, and I promise I’m not panicking (I am). Lucy has a low-grade fever. We were at the pediatrician’s today. Would you take her to the ER or wait?
The typing bubble appears almost immediately.
Claudia:
Deep breath. How high is “low-grade”?
Me:
99.9. She’s tired, a little glassy, but responsive. Ate lunch and then snacks at Pembrooke’s. No vomiting.
There’s a pause. I can picture Claudia exactly, probably leaning against a counter, phone balanced in one hand, already switching into triage mode.
Claudia:
Unlikely she picked something up at the doctor’s office that fast. Did she get any shots today?
I close my eyes briefly.
Me:
No. But she has several she needs.
Claudia:
Okay. Future you needs to know that they love to say immunizations don’t cause fevers, but they absolutely can in some people.
Bodies aren’t machines. But for now, if her fever creeps higher, alternate Tylenol (ever 4 hours) and ibuprofen (every 8 hours).
Fluids. Rest. Call me if you need me, I’m available.
And if you get to 104, I’ll meet you at the hospital.
My shoulders loosen just a fraction as she sends the hospitals ranked closest, then the best. I copy it into my notes.
Another message comes in.
Claudia:
And if calling her pediatrician makes you feel better, do it. That’s what they’re there for.
Me:
Thank you. I owe you my sanity.
Claudia:
You don’t. You’re doing fine.
Me:
I would also love a recommendation for a therapist for her to see and evaluate whether she should be seeing one regularly. She called me “mommy” tonight, and it’s possible the fever was talking, but I want to know whether I should correct it.
Claudia:
Don’t correct her. To her mom is a role not a title, you’re filling that in a way she’s never known but very likely has dreamt of. If this wasn’t going to be a permanent situation, I would advise a gentle correction, but in this case, I wouldn’t. How did it feel?
Me:
Amazing
Claudia:
I can not wait until Savannah says mommy for the first time.
Me:
Again, thank you.
Claudia:
Okay, last thing, fevers typically run a few days; three is Savannah’s norm. That third is usually the worst day. Breathe, Mom. You’re doing well. Message if you need anything at all.
Me:
Thank you, Claudia. Truly.
I set the phone down and let myself sit with that for a moment. Fine. Functional. Not unraveling. All things I can work with.
From down the hall, voices drift in from the living room.
Hank’s voice, unmistakable even when he’s trying to be quieter than usual. Breanna’s laugh, low and easy. Another woman’s voice layered in, smoother, more precise, a gorgeous accent and looks to match. Lucy said it right, she looks like a queen.
Anneliese.
I hadn’t planned on listening. It just… happens.
“…you cannot tell this story without admitting you almost cried,” Hank says.
“I do not cry,” Lenzin replies flatly.
“Oh, he’s cried,” Anneliese confirms, amused. “At seven, at twelve, at nineteen. Very inconvenient for him, of course. Feelings are pesky things.”
There’s a pause, then Lenzin’s dry, resigned sigh. “You are all traitors.”
I bite back a smile despite myself.
Anneliese continues, clearly enjoying the attention. “We’ve known each other since we were five. You don’t get to curate your image after that.”
“Five?” Breanna asks.
“Boarding school,” Anneliese says. “Family estates neighboring each other. It was inevitable.”
“Like… this whole situation?” Hank asks, tone deliberately innocent.
There’s a shift in the room. Not silence, but a tightening. I hold my breath without meaning to.
“Our parents,” Anneliese says lightly, “have always assumed we’ll be married by thirty.”
Hank chokes. “I told you Bernie, betrothed.”
“There’s no way that’s still a thing,” Bernie, or Breanna, gasps.
I listen for Lenzin to mock this… this, ridiculousness, but he doesn’t, and even though I wouldn’t be affected either way, the child growing inside of me, confirmed by emailed results, and an appointment booked on Friday, it clearly feels some kind of way, and it’s making me do so as well.
“It’s practical,” Anneliese continues. “Our views align. We don’t believe in romantic love. We don’t want children.”
My stomach drops.
“And our families’ wealth,” she adds, “should be doing something. Not sitting in accounts collecting dust. We want it invested, mobilized, be purposeful, help people who want change.”
Breanna hums. “That tracks.”
“It’s a partnership,” Anneliese finishes. “Why complicate it?”
Hank whistles low. “Damn. That’s… European.”
Lenzin finally speaks. “It is not a conspiracy.”
“It absolutely is,” Hank says. “Just one with an accent to make it sound like anyone who doubts it is stupid.”
I kind of love Hank’s simple logic.
I shift slightly on the bed, careful not to wake Lucy, my mind racing ahead of the conversation, or rather, the impact of it
Children. They don’t want children. He doesn’t want children.
I glance down at Lucy, her small hand curled near her face, her other arm tucked carefully against her body. How could you not?
Breanna says something about Europe, about being gone for the past two weeks and heading back in the spring. The casualness of it, the ease with which money and distance slide into conversation, is unmistakable.
Old money. Comfortable money. The kind that doesn’t need to announce itself.
Eventually, voices rise again, chairs scraping softly. Hank and Breanna say their goodbyes and promise to check in tomorrow. The front door opens, and it closes.
The house settles, and I sit back with my laptop on my lap to pretend I’m not eavesdropping when he walks in. I’m sure he will.
There’s a beat. Then Anneliese laughs. She’s still here.
“Well,” she says, “tell me. Does all of that still hold true, or has the little crotch goblin in the other room changed you?”
I stiffen. Crotch goblin? Who says that… okay, me, once but never again.
Lenzin exhales slowly. “You are impossible.”
“And yet,” she replies, “you still haven’t told me anything. Which is new. That’s not us, Lenz, talk to me…”
There’s a longer pause this time.
“We are… hosting,” he says carefully.
I snort silently.
“They’re people,” Anneliese says. “Not a stray cat.”
“I am aware.”
“The kid, I can see she’s shifted something in you, and if I stay any longer, I fear, I too,” she pauses. “No, no, I do not.” He chuckles. “But there’s something about the other redhead, the one with the great tits and hips for a tiny little thing.”
“She is… competent,” he says slowly, “even overextended. Intelligent. And kind, very kind.”
“Ah,” Anneliese murmurs. “Dangerous adjectives.”
I hear the faint clink of glass, like someone setting something down.
“She is not temporary,” Anneliese continues. “You don’t rearrange your routines for temporary.”
Another pause.
“We met,” he says.
My heart lurches and my brain stutters. Is he really going to tell her about… that?
“Met?” Anneliese repeats.
“A few months ago. At a talk.”
Yes, yes, he is.
“When Matthias was presenting,” Anneliese says slowly.
“Yes.”
Her laugh is sharp this time. “Of course you did.” Silence for more than feels comfortable, and then she continues. “So, you met the woman, slept with her, and then she arrived with a child?”
I’m not sure how to prepare for this, like at all.
“It is not like that.”
“It is exactly like that,” she counters.
Silence stretches.
“I did not plan this,” Lenzin says finally.
“I know,” Anneliese replies, softer now. “You never plan the things that you’ve purposely avoided all your life.”
“Remind me to circle back to that, after this.” He sighs.
“What’s this?”
“You know that gift I have?”
That gift I have?
“Personally, no, but I have heard tales,” she laughs.
“Anneliese, I need you serious for just a moment.”
She’s quiet and then says, “You’re kidding me, right?
You think this woman is pregnant, and you’re still contemplating throwing the plans we’ve made away on a woman who brings a battered child to your home, and is carrying another man’s baby?
Lenzin, we had actual classes about this at boarding school. She’s a gold—”
“I love you in the most platonic way a man could love a woman, but do not speak like that about her when you don’t know her.”
“She works in a bookstore and takes in foster children.”
“She works in a bookstore. TAs at the college where she is a year and a half away from defending. That sweet little girl is highly intelligent, a thinker, Anna. The same woman who nearly killed Lucy was the woman, Hildy, who survived until she made a plan and found her way out; she’s as brilliant as she is beautiful.
” A pause. “Take away the education. Say she was at the lecture because she simply loved books, and fostered children because she loves them, and worked at the bookstore because again, she loves to read. I’d still be drawn to her.
” Another pause. “Something changed in me that night. This isn’t me aspiring to be a painter, not a phase. ”
Damn him.
“Well, I can’t argue that, but she has a child growing in.” She gasps. “You think it’s yours.”
He doesn’t say anything.
She does. “A professional hockey player with assets that rival those of a small nation and you—”
“She didn’t know I played hockey. She asked me if I had protection,” he chuckles, and I want to kick him in the balls. “And when she met me in that circle, she didn’t recognize me. Had she seen me in another circumstance—"