beautiful.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t say that enough.”
He glanced at me.
“About her.”
Then:
“About you either.”
“One thing at a time.”
He smiled.
“First, staying.”
“Yes.”
“Then talking to Mom.”
“Yes.”
“Then helping with your mother.”
“Yes.”
“Then everything else.”
“Everything else.”
He nodded.
“Step by step.”
The morning light filled the room.
The kind of light that only feels noticeable after you have been awake through an entire night.
June kept breathing quietly.
The antibiotic was beginning to work.
Her fever would continue falling.
By the next morning,
