Phoenix smiled. “Pretty pissed. He doesn’t like being holed up and not able to do anything he wants at any time. But pissed is better than anything else, according to Eric.” Phoenix stared at me a long moment. “I am so sorry about what happened with my sleeping pill. You aren’t feeling well and that is probably because you were running around in the cold.”
“Cold doesn’t make us sick.” I leaned against Barrett. “But your apologies are accepted.”
I could hear Barrett’s heartbeat. I closed my eyes. Kit was going to be okay. We were all okay.
Barrett squeezed my hand, warm and steady. “We’ve had worse days,” he offered, his voice a low thread. “Daryl is dead. You are sick but going to be okay. Trust me, when Phoenix went missing it was worse. When you went missing it was worse. Granny dying was worse. This is an all and all okay day. Considering the ending.”
Phoenix gave a half-laugh, rubbing his thumb along the groove of the chair’s arm. “Somehow we always make it through. You two—” He shook his head with a fondness that softened theshadows under his eyes. “You keep surprising me. You write love songs. You climb down snow draped trees. I mean… fuck.”
The room felt small, safe despite the fact that someone had broken in and died in there earlier. I glanced between them—Barrett’s gentle steadiness, Phoenix’s open apology—and let a slow breath fill my chest.
“Tomorrow will be easier,” I said, not sure if I believed it, but wanting to. “Maybe this is a twenty-four hour bug and no one will try to kill us.”
Barrett leaned closer, his shoulder a gentle weight against mine. “We’ll write a new song for tomorrow,” he said softly, and that I decided to believe was a promise he could keep.
I let my eyes drift close listening to his heartbeat. I could just stay right there.
I woke up in the middle of the night, between Barrett and Phoenix. I didn’t remember getting here which I knew meant Barrett had brought me in here. The twins were back, each asleep in the other bed. I wasn’t better. That much I knew. And that sucked. I coughed and Phoenix adjusted, drawing me closer to him. I was going to make all of them sick.
“Feeling sicker?” Barrett’s steady voice had me turn to him.
“Little bit.”
He nodded. “Let me get you something. Stay here.”
I watched as he rose and exited to the bathroom, coming back with two pills I knew would lower my fever and some water, which I happily took. He lay back down next to me. “Do you think there are people who don’t live like this? Who don’t live from one crisis to the next?”
“Yes. And we will be those people someday.” He ran his thumb across my brow. “I love you.”
“Do you think there is meaning to anything? To any of it?”
Barrett smiled at me. “That is the fever talking. Feels deep, but it’s nothing right now. I do think that there is meaning toeverything. How else could I explain that you exist? So yes, I think there is meaning. And right now, I think you need to rest because we have to figure out what’s next as soon as you’re well.” He kissed my forehead. “I love you, Alatheia. I always will.”
21
My cold lasted days. I was finally feeling slightly better as I sat on the couch between the twins. Barrett played Mozart on the piano. Julian was writing his next play that I didn’t get to know anything about until he was finished—I knew what that was like for sure—and Jeremy was working on a project he wanted to show Stephen about an investment opportunity.
Phoenix had been quiet for the last couple of days. When I’d asked him how he felt seeing the shed he’d told me that he didn’t feel different being there than he had anywhere else. He could remember now but the actual vicinity to the place did nothing for him. I wasn’t sure if that was disappointment in his voice or not. He had been talking to Sam a lot on the phone about why he had taken the sleeping pill.
When he spoke, stopping the quiet of the room, it wasn’t to say anything that I could have expected. “When I was helping Eric with Kit, it felt really right. I mean I knew what Eric did for a living, but I hadn’t really thought about it. Not really. I wouldn’t want to do what he does but I might like to do something similar.”
I wanted to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding him. “You want to be a doctor?”
“Sounds crazy, but yes, I think that is what I want to do. How he knew what to do? How he could save lives.”
Eric was his father. They never discussed those things, but he was, and I’d seen how much he wanted Phoenix to confide in him. He was going to love this.
“I think you should speak to your father. You’d be great at whatever you did.”
Barrett turned around on the piano bench. “So finish high school. Let’s start with that. But yes, speak to Eric. And we’ll see about you actually going to college, which you always said you weren’t going to do. Also, if you’re doing that, I am teaching music. Everyone can kiss my ass.”
Jeremy didn’t look up. “Be a doctor. We obviously have things like gun shots happen in this family. Eric is going to need someone to take over. And yeah, teach music. I’m going to be a lawyer.”
Julian grinned. “I always assumed I would do whatever I wanted. I don’t know what is the matter with the rest of you.”
I couldn’t help my smile. This was so typical of what it was like when the four of them were together. Still, we had hardly discussed what had happened. Or maybe they had. I was just so sick and out of it for the last several days that I hadn’t heard any of it if they had.
“I mean should we have a conversation about what happened?” I swallowed. “Or is it pointless and we all just do better when we don’t bring things up?”
