It wasn’t possible to live without a heart that could beat, but I still managed to stay right where I was, upright, when she said that.

I’d never thought about being a doctor—that wasn’t the word that had ever come to mind—but doing the work to wake my father and mend Cate had made me feel so very good that I wanted to be more like that girl. The one who tried to make people well. The one Cate needed. To help her heal. To be the reason she got better. Or one of the reasons.

One would be enough.

“I’m going back up the mountain to take care of Miss Cate,” I said slowly.

I remembered the last words my mother had said on that subject: If I find out that you’ve been back up to see her . . . I don’t know what I’ll do.

This time, she spent a long moment looking at me before she said, “I just told you that your father would need a lot of help. And you haven’t had a lesson in days. You can’t go without lessons. And—”

“Miss Cate taught Larkin to read. And she’s already taught me how to heal a festering wound.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” my mother said. “If you had, I would have said that I’m surprised you would rather help a stranger than your own father, especially since you worked so hard to wake him up. And you want to leave? Now? When he’s only just come back?”

“But that’s why I have to go,” I said, learning the reason as I said it. “He’s on his way home to us, and she’s the one leaving. She’s the one who needs help the most.”

But my mother just shook her head. “You confuse me, Ellie. Every time I turn around, you’re wearing a different face. One minute you’re beating a path back and forth to your father’s door, and now you want to go help a stranger when she already has that boy to help her.”

“She’s not a stranger,” I said, which had been true from the moment I laid eyes on her. “And, even if she were, she’d be just as sick. And Larkin just as much one boy all alone with her.”

“Nonetheless. It’s not safe for you to go up there, Ellie.” She put a lid on the stew. “Not on your own.”

“Then come with me. Just to check on Miss Cate. Just to make sure she’s all right.”

She looked at me with wide eyes. “Do you honestly think I’m going to do that?”

“But she’s sick, Mother.”

Samuel said from the doorway, “One of the puppies peed on the apron.”

My mother gave me a last look, filled with disappointment.