He was burning up with fever, she saw as she touched him, her heart contracting in fear. “What’s wrong, Cheeky?” she murmured, taking his hot little body in her arms. He flung his small arms around her neck, his little face with its still-big baby cheeks flushed a deep crimson. He pointed to his ears and tugged at them, weeping.

“Don’t worry. It’s just a virus. It’s going around,” the teacher comforted.

Leah nodded, concerned but not overly so. Children caught things. They got sick. It would not be the first time she’d nursed him through something. She picked him up, cradling him in her arms, clueless to the anguish that lay ahead.

By the time Yaakov came home, the toddler’s fever had risen from 101 to 103, and was still rising. While he had spent the first few hours crying in pain and tugging at his ears, he was now apathetic, almost drugged.

“What does the doctor say?” Yaakov asked anxiously, rocking him.

“He said it’s a virus, and I should give him baby aspirin. Which I did. He said if it gets worse, to call him.”

Together, they fed Chasya and put her to sleep in a roll-out cot in Shaindele’s room in the vain hope of trying to isolate her from catching it. She wasn’t happy about it.

“I want to be with Cheeky,” she wept.

“I know, sweetie, but he’s sick. He’ll be better soon, and then you’ll go back to your own bed.”

“I want to go now, please, Mommy, Tateh!”

Yaakov transferred the baby to Leah’s arms and picked her up. “What if I tell you a story before you go to sleep? Would you like that?”

“What kind of story?” she asked suspiciously.

Despite their worry, Leah and Yaakov exchanged a secret glance above her head, amused and proud. She was so smart!

“Well, what kind do you want, Icy?”

“With a princess, and a golden fish, and two angels,” she demanded, her eyes beginning to close as she rested her cheek on her father’s strong shoulder. Yaakov and Leah smiled at each other as he bore her away.

“What if it has three angels and a golden lion?” he whispered. She raised her head and smiled at him.

It was no more than an hour later when the baby’s condition suddenly changed.

“Yaakov!”

The child was jerking his arms and legs, and his eyes had rolled back into his head. At his mouth, a white foam was forming. He seemed to go limp and have difficulty breathing.

“Oh, HaShem Yishmor!” he whispered, horrified, as he lifted the child from the bed. “I’ll call the doctor!”

“No, we’ll take him to the emergency room!”

“If you come, who will watch Chasya?”