6. Conrad #2
“You came,” I said, and immediately felt like an idiot. Of course she came. She worked here.
“Yes, I’m here,” she said.
A loud crack of thunder reverberated through the house, and upstairs, Billie shrieked.
Winnie stepped inside smoothly, closing the umbrella with practiced efficiency. Her eyes narrowed. “You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I did look terrible, but that was what three vomiting children and no sleep did to a person. I also smelled gross.
Winnie handed me a thermos before removing her gloves.
“What’s this?”
“Tea.”
I unscrewed the lid. Peppermint and ginger steam drifted upward, the scent soothing me.
“You’re an angel sent here to save me from the madness,” I muttered.
“What’s going on? How are the children?” she asked.
“Alive. All three of them have a stomach bug. The situation remains tenuous.”
“Mm.”
Another crash of thunder rattled the windows.
“The storm is hungry!” Billie yelled.
Without missing a beat, Winnie called, “Then we shall not let it into the pantry.”
A brief silence, then Billie’s voice drifted down the stairs. “Smart.”
I stared at Winnie. She looked entirely unbothered. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Speak fluent Billie.”
“She’s quite articulate once you accept that every sentence sounds like a prophecy.”
That startled a laugh out of me before I could stop it.
Winnie glanced toward the stairs. “Why don’t you take a shower?”
“I can’t just leave you with?—”
“Yes, you can.”
“I should at least?—”
“Conrad.”
I stopped. Her tone wasn’t harsh. It was caring.
“You’ve been awake all night and dealing with bodily fluids,” she said. “Go shower. Put on real clothes. I’ll prevent the children from licking electrical outlets in your absence.”
“I don’t think they’d?—”
“We both know Billie absolutely would do that if her curiosity led her there.”
Unfortunately, that was true. Exhaling slowly, I nodded. “Okay. Five minutes.”
“Fifteen,” Winnie corrected. “You look one strong gust of wind away from collapse.”
My bedroom had somehow become even more chaotic while I was downstairs.
Billie had acquired crackers from God knows where, and was lying on top of CJ, who had cocooned himself entirely beneath blankets except for his hair.
Bianca sat upright, reading the medication pamphlet from the children’s fever reducer.
“Daddy,” Bianca said, “did you know nausea is technically considered a protective biological response?”
“I do now.”
Winnie entered behind me, carrying a tray loaded with water glasses, fresh washcloths, and toast.
The children visibly relaxed as soon as they saw her.
Billie reached both arms toward her. “Winnie, my stomach is trying to kill me.”
“That does sound unpleasant.”
“I may never recover,” Billie whimpered dramatically.
“We shall persevere.”
CJ peeked out from under the covers. “Is that toast?”
“It is.”
“Winnie, I love you.”
“Wow, CJ.” Winnie pressed the back of her hand to his cheek and smoothed his hair. “That’s a bold declaration for seven in the morning.”
I reluctantly left them to go clean myself up. I trusted Winnie in ways that probably weren’t entirely rational, but it still felt wrong to hand off my sick kids to someone else.
The shower helped slightly. I was still exhausted and feeling a bit light-headed from the lack of sleep.
By the time I’d dressed and called my boss to confirm that he’d received my middle-of-the-night text, the house smelled faintly of cinnamon and broth.
I moved downstairs, expecting disaster, but all was calm.
Winnie stirred something on the stove, and my children were all sitting at the island.
Bianca, wrapped up like a burrito in a blanket, watched her every move.
Billie lay sideways on two chairs, mumbling about how her organs had betrayed her.
A pale CJ had recovered enough to moan about the disgusting flavors of electrolytes.
Winnie glanced over her shoulder when I entered. “You should eat.”
“I’m not especially hungry.”
“It wasn’t a suggestion,” she said, putting a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of me. She followed that up with a mug of herbal tea.
“You cooked all this while I was showering?”
“And changed the sheets on your bed. I move quickly.”
Nobody had thrown up in nearly thirty-seven minutes, which felt like a solid win. I scooped some eggs into my mouth, and the minute it hit my tongue, something twisted low in my stomach.
Huh. Weird.
I swallowed carefully.
The nausea slammed into me, sudden and violent.
Oh no.
Winnie glanced at me. “You’re pale.”
“I’m fi?—”
Nope. Absolutely not fine. My stomach lurched, and I grabbed the counter to keep the dizziness at bay.
Winnie was at my side in an instant. “Conrad?”
I looked at her helplessly. “Oh no.”
I bolted for the sink.
“Dad’s dying,” my children said in unison.
Being sick as a parent was fundamentally different from being sick as a normal person. Normal people got soup, sympathy, and plenty of restorative sleep. Parents got tiny audience members who still required attention and care.
By noon, all four of us had relocated into my bedroom because Winnie had decided centralized suffering was more efficient.
The storm outside kept worsening as the day dragged on. Rain hammered endlessly against the windows while thunder rolled in long, violent waves. The lights flickered twice around lunchtime, which prompted Billie to whisper, “The house is considering death.”
“Nobody’s dying,” Bianca muttered from beneath three blankets.
“That’s exactly what haunted houses want you to think.”
CJ groaned weakly from the foot of the bed. “Please stop giving the weather motives.”
I lay flat on my back, trying to determine whether my skeleton had always hurt this much or if it was actively dissolving.
The stomach bug hit me harder than the kids.
Probably because children were fueled by some kind of unholy survival mechanism and processed illness with alarming speed while adults simply became invalids.
Every time I opened my eyes, Winnie was doing something different. Refilling water glasses. Adjusting blankets. Checking temperatures. Making tea. Carrying soup upstairs. Carrying uneaten soup downstairs. Calmly intercepting Billie before she wandered off to “die in the hallway.”
The woman handled disaster with utter competence, and she never once looked overwhelmed. At one point, I woke from a fever nap to shadow puppets dancing across the bedroom wall.
I blinked slowly.
There was a rabbit, then a bird, and something that looked suspiciously like a dragon.
Billie squealed, and I had no idea where she got the energy to do that. “Do a goose.”
Smiling, Winnie adjusted her fingers, and a goose appeared on the wall.
“That goose understands labor rights,” CJ croaked.
“Obviously,” Winnie said. “There will be no need for a labor strike today. This goose understands and treats his employees with respect.”
That had all three children giggling.
Bianca looked up from the book of historical plagues Winnie had brought her. “Historically, geese have shown authoritarian tendencies.”
Interesting sentence from a nine-year-old.
Winnie made the goose peck aggressively at the dragon.
Billie laughed so hard, but it quickly turned into a groan as she clutched her stomach. “Ow. Happiness is painful.”
“That’s why we pace ourselves,” Winnie informed her.
I saw it all through a fever haze, strangely disconnected from reality. In my defense, I was deathly ill and surrounded by sick children, all while a beautiful woman dressed entirely in black performed shadow theater against the wall of my bedroom.
I should’ve been wondering how my life had become so absurd.
Instead, I found myself thinking that if I had to be sick, I couldn’t imagine anyone I’d rather have taking care of us.
I smiled sheepishly at her. Try as I might, I couldn’t stop smiling.
It was all so ridiculous, and somehow it all felt bizarrely normal.
Winnie disappeared downstairs periodically and always returned carrying something new. At one point, she handed me a steaming mug that smelled earthy and slightly bitter.
“What’s this?”
“Willow bark tea.”
I stared suspiciously into it. “That sounds medieval.”
“It’s excellent for fever.”
I snarled at the smell, not sure how my stomach would respond. “Did medieval people tell you that personally?”
“Books,” she said smoothly. “I have read hundreds of books and love to learn about alternative healing methods.”
“Mm.”