“You don’t forget something like that.”
For several minutes, they sat in silence and listened to the rain. Then he asked, “What about you?”
She glanced up, found his eyes already on her, asking questions she had no desire to answer. She’d known by bringing up that night that she would be opening the door to a subject that was best left closed and locked down tight. Lily didn’t want to talk about what had happened to her that night. She knew it wasn’t fair, but they’d both been around enough to know life wasn’t always fair. She’d been around enough to know some things were best left unremembered—even if she couldn’t forget.
“I need to check on Jack,” she said.
She started to rise, but he reached out and grasped her forearm. “Quid pro quo,” he said.
“It doesn’t work that way.” She’d meant for the words to come out strong, but they came out as nothing more than a whisper.
He must have read something in her eyes, because he suddenly released her. “I’m not going to let this go.”
“Yes, you are,” she said, but her heart was pounding when she walked away.
Chapter 6
Jack had never been much of a crier. Normally he was a content baby with a sweet personality and easygoing temperament. But over the last couple of months, it seemed that he’d been cranky more often than not. He wasn’t sleeping as well. Some days he was finicky with his food.
At 2:00 a.m. Lily turned on the tiny lamp next to her bed, slipped into her robe, went to the crib and gathered her son into her arms. “Mommy’s here, sweetheart.”
But Jack wasn’t having any sweet talk. His little body strained with each wail. His skin felt clammy and damp against hers even though the cottage was cool. Concerned, Lily held him snugly against her, caressing the back of his head and murmuring a mother’s sweet nothings. She tried using the pacifier she kept on hand for emergencies, but he refused it. Cradling him in her arms, she paced the room several times, rocking him, talking to him, stroking him. But he didn’t stop crying.
It was the third time in as many hours that she’d been up with him. The longer she listened to him cry, the more certain she became that something was wrong. She wasn’t exactly sure how she knew, but she did. The pitch of his cry wasn’t quite right. It seemed almost frantic. Usually, he stopped crying immediately upon being picked up. Tonight, he hadn’t even slowed down.
“Shh. It’s okay, big guy,” she cooed. “Are you sick? Do you have a tummy ache?”
Knowing a mother’s nervousness could be easily transmitted to a child, she tried to keep her tone light. But she heard the sharp edge of concern in her voice. She felt that same concern all the way down to her bones. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she feared he might be seriously sick.
She carried him to her bed and laid him down, sliding her finger into his diaper. Dry. It was the second time she’d checked it. And the second time she’d found it dry. Earlier, she’d warmed a bottle of goat’s milk. He’d refused it an hour ago. Surely he must be hungry now. But when she put the nipple to his lips, he turned his head and cried even louder.
Because she couldn’t stand to see him lying on the bed and crying, she scooped him into her arms. Cradling him gently, she hummed a meaningless nursery rhyme and began to pace the room. But Jack didn’t stop crying.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” she murmured. “Mommy’s here, sweet baby.”
She carried him to the ancient rocker beside her bed, she pulled the quilt over both of them and began to rock, the way she had when he was a newborn. Rocking usually quieted him when nothing else would. Even when he’d had a painful bout with colic, rocking had usually lulled him to sleep. They’d spent some long and uncomfortable nights together in this rocker. Then one of the Rebelian women in the village had suggested goat’s milk instead of cow milk. The colic had ceased immediately, and she’d been giving him goat’s milk ever since.
After five minutes of rocking, Jack’s cries became even more frantic. Lily had been trying to ignore the quiver of worry hovering in her gut. Surely he was just being fussy because he was teething, wasn’t he? All babies were fussy when those first couple of teeth cut through their tender gums, weren’t they? But when she laid Jack on the bed and saw that his lips were darker than usual and the tips of his little fingers were blue, worry shot up the scale into full-fledged fear.
“Okay, sweetheart,” she said, scooping him into her arms. “Let’s go get Robert.”
“I’m right here.”