“I’m really good at cuddling when sick,” I said. “I barely move.”
“Tell me who says.”
I caught the curious nature of the demand and smiled to myself. “Elliott said.”
“Yeah,” he said on a breath. “He was right. You are. Rub my head. Like you did last night.Grazie.”
He sighed with such tenderness when I began to stroke his head that my heart went to mush, and all of the butterflies in my stomach took a dip. When I started using my nails to caress his scalp, I thought his leg was going to start twitching.
“God that feels good.”
“At least something does,” I said, almost hypnotizing myself with the constant motion of my hand.
“I need to sleep but can’t. This helps.”
“Did you get sick a lot as a kid?”
“No,” he said. “Three times in my life that I remember, including this time. And rarely when drink is involved.”
“You’d probably have to drink the entire factory,” I said on a laugh.
“Yeah, it takes a lot to make me regret it.”
Silence settled between us. Snow twirled outside of the crusted window, kicking up with surges of wind. It howled outside of the door, the big bad wolf attempting to knock our house down.
“You didn’t get sick a lot as a kid.” His voice was still husky, lost in the fever haze, sort of reflective. “I remember.”
“No, but Elliott did. He used to get a lot of ear infections. The flu. Whatever everyone else had in school, basically. If the kid five seats down from him had cooties, it was guaranteed that Elliott would get them too. A sneeze and we would have to prepare for respiratory war. Sometimeshestarted it.”
“He always liked to try everything once.” I felt Brando grin. “I remember during sick season he was absent a lot. I’d come over after school and sit with him. It makes no sense that you don’t remember me.”
This had caused him some grief. He found it unbelievable that I didn’t remember him that night in the snow. He had been a permanent fixture in my home even when I wasn’t.
I danced nonstop, sometimes in other countries, and by the time I was old enough to acknowledge him, my mother refused to allow him over because she felt he was taking the wrong path.
“I don’t think you realize how much I was required to dance. Let’s just say that an eight o’clock bedtime was fine by me. But after our talk in front of the studio, I ran home and rummaged through Elliott’s room.”
“Tell me what you found.”
“You.” I leaned over and kissed his head once more, then began stroking again. “I really didn’t need to, but I asked Eunice if your name was Brando, after I found a picture. Lisette must’ve taken it. She left a folder in Elliott’s room full of photos—she did something with the school newspaper, I think. You were sitting on a step somewhere, no shirt on, your hat turned backwards on your head, looking in the opposite direction.”
“Still you had no fear.”
I looked down at him, dumbfounded for a moment. “Are you being serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would you scare me?”
“I was older. With a reputation.”
“A scary thought for parents, perhaps, but not for a young girl.” I grinned at him and he squeezed my leg. “I stole the picture.”
“You stole the picture,” he repeated, almost to himself. “Fess up the reason.”
I laughed some, attempting to keep the shaking down. I leaned over, took the glass of water, and made him take a sip. I measured out his medicine and made him take that too.
“Aaagh.” He swallowed hard and shook his head. “That’s fucking terrible.”
