When I open Kat’s door, she is sitting on her bed, already dressed in a too-tight, too-short dress of pale pink and holding the broken doll against her chest. Her cinnamon-brown hair is a tangled mess from sleep, but her eyes—so very like Martin’s—are bright pools of topaz with not a hint of slumber clinging to them. Has she been awake for a while? Was she able to hear the conversation taking place directly below her on the first floor? It is impossible to tell from the blank expression on the child’s face.

I reach for the hairbrush that I placed atop the bureau last night, and then I sit down beside Kat on her bed. “Did you sleep all right in your new room, love?”

She looks at me, her eyes communicating an answer that I can’t decipher.

“I think today we should buy some new bedcovers for you in a color that you like. Do you have a favorite color?”

The girl looks down at her lap. I wonder if her gaze is drawn to the hazy pink hue of her dress.

“Pink, maybe?” I say.

She nods, and it is almost like hearing her voice.

“I love that color, too. Would you like one braid or two?”

Kat slowly holds up two fingers.

“Two it is, then. Can you turn a bit toward your pillow, love?” She obeys and I put the brush to her head and begin to gently loosen the tangles. “My best friend growing up had hair this color. So very pretty.”

To fill the silence as I attend to Kat, I ramble on about how my mother used to braid my own hair too tightly and how my midnight blue hair ribbons had been my favorite.

“There,” I say when the plaits are done. “You look very pretty. And we’re getting some new clothes for you today. Won’t that be a treat? You’re getting so tall. You’ve outgrown all your dresses.”

Kat looks down at her too-small dress and then raises her head to look at me again. The child looks troubled, as if the thought of parting with the constricting dress she’s wearing is too painful a notion to consider. Perhaps Candace bought the dress for Kat before her illness sent her to her bed for good. Surely she had. Of course she had.

“You like this dress, don’t you?” I say in a more empathetic tone. Kat says nothing. “It’s very pretty. I can make some clothes for your dolly with the material from this dress if you like.” I point to the doll Kat clutches. “I can make a frock for her just like this one. My gram taught me how to sew. I can make her some pantalets to go with it. Would you like that?”

Kat gives her assent in one slight nod. I want to pull her into my arms.

Instead I tell her she can help me make breakfast. We make her bed quickly and then head downstairs.