Chapter 19: Ollie in the Night

Rafe drove me to the hotel and didn't say a word.

At the suite door he put the car keys in my hand.

"I'll be in the corridor," he said. "Go."

Sylvia opened it before I knocked.

Her pearls were gone, and her hair had come out of its bob.

"He's through there," she said.

Clark stood at the window of the sitting room in a wrinkled shirt, with his arms wrapped around himself.

He looked at me and said nothing at all.

I went into the bedroom.

Ollie lay in the middle of a big bed with his curls plastered to his forehead.

His cheeks were bright red, and his eyes were shut tight.

The string with Clark's ring was still around his neck, tangled in his pajama collar.

"Ollie," I said. "It's Willa."

His eyes opened.

He looked at me for a long moment.

"You came," he said.

"I did."

"Grandma Sylvia said you were busy."

"I'm not busy."

I sat on the edge of the bed, and he crawled into the crook of my arm.

He was burning.

The hotel doctor had left a bottle of children's medicine on the nightstand.

I measured it out and held the spoon, and he swallowed it without fighting me.

"Cold cloth, please," I said over my shoulder.

Rafe was in the doorway already, with a wet flannel in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

He had gone to find them without being asked.

Ollie squinted at him.

"Who's that?"

"A friend of mine," I said. "He fixes boilers."

"Why?"

"Someone has to," said Rafe gravely.

Ollie considered this and decided it was acceptable.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Held Her Son the Night I Lost Ours from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.