“Right now, supper,” she said. “You can take her a plate and then eat your own. And then you can do whatever it is you plan to do.”

“I’m not hungry,” I said, though I was. “And I need to tend to her leg now. I’ll feed her, and myself, after I get that sorted out.”

My mother turned to Samuel. “Go fetch Esther,” she said and then, when he had gone, turned to me with a hard look on her face. “Ellie, I can’t make up my mind about all this. Mrs. Cleary seems to think it’s all right that she’s come here to . . . get better, I suppose, and help your father, though I don’t see how when she’s the one who needs a doctor. She needs a doctor, Ellie! Not some barbaric kind of glue . . . and vinegar . . . and Heaven knows what else you’ve got in mind.” She sighed. “Yes, I’ll admit it, you’ve done some . . . interesting things for your father, and he’s no worse for them, maybe even better. But you’re not a doctor, Ellie. You’re twelve! You’re just a girl, whatever else you might be. Whatever else Mrs. Cleary thinks you are.”

More elses.

I waited.

This was my mother, sorting herself out.

Which was her job more than mine.

“I must be mad as a hatter to stand here baking a terrible little pie while Mrs. Cleary rots away in that bed alongside your bee-stung father.” She wiped her hands on her apron and heaved another sigh. “But in the morning we will all come to our senses and send Mr. Peterson to fetch the doctor.” At the look on my face she held up a hand. “And that is that.”

She handed me the vinegar.

I poured some into a pot, careful to hold back the cloudy “mother” that we’d need to start the next batch, and put the pot on the back of the stove where the heat from the oven would warm it.

“Yuck,” Samuel said, coming back into the kitchen, Esther with him. “Another bad smell.”

“Just vinegar,” I said.

“For what?”

“For you,” I said. “You’re too sweet. You need a little tart.”

Samuel took a step back. “What does she mean, Mother?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Now wash up and sit down and eat.”

Instead, he sidled up next to me.

“But what’s the vinegar for?” he asked again.

“For Cate.”

“Glue and vinegar?”

“Glue and vinegar.”

“Samuel,” my mother said. “Get washed up. I won’t tell you again.”

But when I went out to the yard to fetch the glue, he followed me, as a puppy would, and I realized that when Mr. Anderson took Quiet I would need Samuel more than ever.

The thought brought me to a stop.

Samuel looked up at me as I stood there with dusk coming on.

“What’s wrong, Ellie?”