Page 23 of Italian’s Christmas Acquisition

“Yes. You are quite feverish,” she said. “It’s over one hundred. That is concerning.”

“Now what are you doing?”

“I’m going to get you some medicine. I’m going to get you soup.”

“What if I don’t want to eat it in bed?”

“I’m going to ask that you eat in bed,” she said. “Because I don’t want to have to maneuver you up and down the stairs every time. You can eat at the writing desk if you like. Otherwise, I’ll bring you a little bed tray to prop your food up on.”

She fluttered out of the room, and when she returned a little while later, she was fully supplied with anything he might need.

He took the medicine, and began to eat, but he felt like his thoughts were only becoming less and less clear. His throat hurt, his body beginning to ache fiercely. He soon fell asleep, but he was very aware that cool cloths were continually changed on his face.

He woke up when the sun was setting.

“How are you?”

“I’ve been better,” he said.

“Well, I’m going to keep watch. Because... Well. I’m worried about you. I’ve been checking on you every twenty minutes or so, which is maybe silly but... I don’t know. You just seem very unwell.”

Had anyone ever worried about him before? It scraped him raw, and he forgot why he ever held anything back. He forgot why he had fashioned himself into a fortress, because it was all too easy to forget the life he’d built in these past twenty years.

It was easy, right now, for him to believe there had only been his childhood, and this moment. Like all the space in between had evaporated. Been swallowed whole by his illness.

“I have never been cared for when I was sick. That’s one reason I decided to stop being ill. It’s very inconvenient when you still have to do everything for yourself.”

He was only half aware of what he was saying.

“What do you mean no one ever took care of you?”

“Just that. But then, I didn’t allow anyone in my room.”

“When you were a child?”

“I had to make a boundary. I had to lock her out. And I could never go out the door. I had to use the walls.” He’d maybe been...seven when he’d discovered that trick. He’d felt very big then, but now in his memory the boy was so, so small.

“I think you’re delirious.”

Maybe. But he could remember it so well. He described it to her. “One of the bookcases turned. I kept it empty. I didn’t like all those books sitting there and collecting dust anyway. I always kept the door locked. And I don’t think she ever knew about the passages. If she had known about them she would’ve filled them up. They were my secret. And they helped me get around the house.”

“You locked your mother out of your room?”

“Everyone.Everyone.But then, she didn’t take care of me when I was sick. No one ever has. Who took care of you?”

He wanted to imagine her life. Not his. Not that little boy.

“Oh. Everyone. My grandmother. My mother. Even my dad.”

“What was that like?”

Suddenly he wanted to know. He wanted to know what it was like if the people around you were... If they were normal. If they could care in a way that was normal. He just was very desperate to know.

“Well,” she said. “They used to make me tea and soup. Wipe my brow, like I’ve been doing for you. Keep me cool. They’d rub menthol on my chest.”

He looked at her, and then down at her delicate hands. And suddenly, his feelings were much less that of a child longing to be cared for. He didn’t wish her to touch him in an abstract, caring way. He wanted those hands on him in a different way.

“Are you going to rub my chest?”

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