It was mostly dark in the living room, a soft glow from the light left on above the oven, and when Nora first sat up, sweaty from her obviously broken fever, she thought at first—with no small sense of wholly unjustified disappointment—that he’d gone. But when she’d rubbed at her eyes and brought more of her senses back online, she’d heard the familiar sound of Jonah’s absurdly loud TV and noticed that the soft glow wasn’t only from the oven light; it was also coming through the narrow crack of Nora’s partially open front door. She’d hauled herself up from the couch, leaving behind the now too-warm blanket, and tiptoed toward it, peeking out to see Will’s broad back as he leaned against Jonah’s open doorway, the light from that huge TV flashing as Jonah shouted at him about the guy on first base. She could’ve stood and watched like that for a long time—Will watching baseball with one of Nora’s favorite people in the world, a member of this family she’d been trying so hard to get him to recognize—but when she reached up to scratch her head she made contact with the sweaty, sticking-up side of her hair, and so instead she crept into her bathroom to shower and brush her teeth. When she came out, dressed in a fresh set of pajamas, her wet hair twisted into a loose bun on top of her head, he was back inside again, folding up the blanket she’d left behind and looking like he was getting ready to leave.

The third time, he was in her bed.

It took her a few sleepy seconds to remember how he’d ended up there, and once she did, she squeezed her eyes shut in embarrassment. It’d started with his insistence on her taking another dose of Tylenol and drinking another full glass of water (the whole thing! He was so bossy about water. She did not reflect on how bossy he might be in other contexts; she did not!), and then a pretty effective scolding (no other contexts, none!) when she suggested she might go catch up on some of the work she’d missed during the day. She’d sighed and agreed that yes, she was, in fact, pretty tired, but maybe she’d sleep on the couch, because she had to change the sheets on her bed, and the couch was fine anyway, and—

And he’d said, “Okay, let’s go change them,” and marched past her, and five minutes later they were smoothing clean linens across the mattress and not making eye contact, but it was all fine; she’d get in bed and he’d go, and that was fine and good and normal; it was silly that she’d asked him to stay before.