She sank into a chair with obvious pain, coughed some more, held out a protective palm when I approached her. “Leave me alone. Fine.” Gasp.

A few minutes later: “I should be nice to you. One session with Chad and he’s better.”

“Better …”

“Sleeping through the night.” Her chest heaved. She adjusted the oxygen. “Cuddly. I love when he’s cuddly. It’s like nothing’s wrong and we’re the way we used to be. Come here. Please.”

I sat down next to her.

“Closer. I promise I won’t bite.”

I shifted nearer. She took my hand. Kissed my knuckles. “Sorry for the other one. Kiss. That was gross.” Massaging my fingers. “This is a nice one. This is how I really feel: You’re a lovely man.”

She began to cry, reversed it abruptly when Chad bounced in announcing, “I’m thirsty, Aunt Bunny says I can have choco-milk if you say so.”

“Sure,” said Gretchen, grinning. “Look who came to visit.”

Chad’s eyes shifted to me.

“Say hello to Dr. Delaware, angel.”

“Kin I have choco-milk?”

“I said sure. Don’t you want to say hi to Dr. Delaware?”

Shrug.

Bunny Rodriguez came in. “I told him what you—”

“Chocolate milk’s milk so it’s healthy, go pour.”

Bunny trudged to the kitchen, filled a four-ounce glass. The boy drained it. “More.”

Bunny said, “Gretch?”

“Whatever.”

Glass number two disappeared just as quickly. So did three. Milo-in-training.

I walked over to Chad. “Feel like drawing again?”

“Guess.”

“Or we can do something else.”

“Draw.”

Gretchen said, “Have something healthy, too, on top of the chocolate milk. Everyone needs to be healthy.”

“No.”

“Whatever, angel.”

In his room, Chad said, “Mommy wakes up all the time. She’s wet.”

“Wet on her face?”

“All over. Her jammas.”

“She’s sweating.”

“I guess.”

“Know what sweat is?”

“It comes out of your body when you’re hot.”

“Exactly. Do you ever sweat?”

“When it’s hot.” Flicking the corner of a drawing pad. “She does it when it’s cold.”

“Even if it’s not cold, she may feel cold.”

“Why?”

“That happens sometimes when people are sick.”

“Her skin,” he said. “Then she coughs and I hug her. She like bounces.”

“From coughing.”

“I hug her.”

“You want to take care of her.”

He thought about that. “I don’t want her to fall.”

“Off the bed?”

“Anywhere.”

“That would be scary.”

“It would hurt.”

“Like falling on the floor.”

“I did it once,” he said. “It hurt. Mommy kept sleeping. I put myself back in the bed.”

“You’re good at taking care of yourself.”

“Let’s draw, I’m gonna win.”

Six bouts of frantic, page-ripping black circles later: “Mommy’s not gonna die.”

I said nothing.

He said, “That’s what I think.”

Chapter 26

t took a couple of days but Darrell Two Moons came through.