7. Winnie #3
He had shifted forward in the chair, blanket around his shoulders, watching the children with an expression I could not quite bear. Gratitude, yes. Exhaustion. Something else too. Something fragile that saw this moment and knew how easily it could vanish.
I knew that feeling all too well.
A while later, when Billie had fallen asleep, murmuring about ghost frogs, and Bianca ate more soup, CJ came downstairs with pad tucked under his arm. He said nothing about it, which told me he had written more.
Conrad noticed too. His gaze met mine across the room, and there was that quiet communication parents and caretakers developed during a crisis: Careful. Do not startle it.
I settled CJ on the couch, then got him a bowl of soup and some tea. He accepted it with a grateful smile, and none of his usual theatrics.
Later, I helped usher the children upstairs one by one.
Billie, still fast asleep, required carrying, and she woke up as I tucked her into bed. She grabbed my wrist before I could step away. “Are you sleeping here again?”
“For a little while.”
“Good.”
I brushed a curl from her face and gently kissed her forehead.
Bianca was easier to get upstairs. She walked under her own power but leaned a bit against the wall when she thought no one noticed. She got into bed and tucked the plague book next to her pillow, though I had forbidden reading anything involving mortality until morning.
“I’m not scared,” she said, which meant she absolutely was.
“Of course not.”
“I just like knowing what things are.”
“I know.”
She looked at me, and it was easy to forget how small she was, how young, when she was so intelligent. “Is it okay that I even like knowing about the bad things?”
“Of course,” I said. “But only when knowing helps you live better. Not when knowing becomes another way to hurt yourself.”
Her eyes dropped to the blanket. I left before she had to answer.
CJ tried to pretend he was perfectly well until he reached the landing, so I offered him my arm, which he took without comment.
He slid the pad and pencil under his pillow.
“Remember,” I said while pulling the blanket up, “small sips if you wake thirsty.”
“I know.”
“And ring the bell if you need anything.”
“I know.”
“And if the story becomes difficult, leave it alone until morning.”
His gaze flicked toward mine. “How did you know?”
“I went to school and did my homework.”
He smiled sleepily.
“Rest.”
I’d placed each bell within reach of the beds, made sure there was water on their nightstands, a bucket on the floor just in case. I’d also put one honey candy, should they wake up feeling queasy but not enough to vomit.
As I stepped into the hall, Conrad made his rounds to say goodnight to his children.
He moved from room to room with aching tenderness.
A kiss on Billie’s curls. A hand on Bianca’s forehead.
A murmured exchange with CJ that I didn’t listen to because it wasn’t mine to hear.
It was all strangely intimate; I had no right to witness it, yet I couldn’t bring myself to leave.
It was painfully easy, standing there in the dim hallway, to pretend I was ordinary.
That these were my children. That the man moving quietly between bedrooms was someone whose tired smiles belonged to me.
That I might go downstairs after this and wash cups in the dim kitchen light, then sit beside him while rainwater slid down the windows and everyone slept.
It was easy because once, very long ago, I had wanted a life exactly like this. Nothing grand—just a home with children safely in their beds and someone beside me who knew which floorboard creaked.
Conrad emerged from CJ’s room and closed the door softly. His gaze found mine, and for a moment, neither of us spoke. His hair was still mussed from illness, his face pale, his eyes tired. He looked entirely human. Entirely breakable.
“You should sleep,” I said finally.
“So should you.”
“I’ll stay awake a bit longer.”
“Of course you will.”
There was no accusation in it. Only concern.
That was worse.
“As I said before, I keep unusual hours,” I said.
He nodded. “Thank you. For all of this.”
“You’ve thanked me already.”
“I’ll probably keep doing it.”
I smiled before I could stop myself. A sudden, soft light entered his eyes in response, and the guilt I had seen before flickered just beneath it. Not enough to extinguish the moment. Enough to remind both of us that someone else still lived in the walls of this house. Someone beloved.
“Goodnight, Winnie,” he said.
“Goodnight, Conrad.”
He moved slowly into his room, bracing his hand briefly against the doorframe before he disappeared inside.
I stayed in the hallway until the house settled.
Then I walked downstairs and checked the locks, the kettle, the stove—every small domestic detail. The television still flashed in the family room, muted now. A replay of weather footage showed dark water rushing through stone streets somewhere across the ocean.
I turned it off.
The windows beyond the family room reflected only black.
Pitch-black.
Just the kind of night I belonged to.
And in that reflection, behind me, the house looked warm. Lived in. Temporary in the way human things were temporary. The kind of fragile life I’d been forced to leave before I’d ever truly had it.
This life belonged to Jade Lawrence.
The office left untouched upstairs belonged to her. The children’s first stories belonged to her. Conrad’s grief, his guilt, his tenderness, all curved around the space she had left behind.
I had no right to want any piece of it.
Still, when Billie’s bell rang, my body moved toward the sound before thought could interfere. I went to her because she had called. And because, God help me, I was already attached.