The pain slowly subsided. One moment I was in the kitchen with my family around me, then darkness swallowed my world. I wasn’t aware of anything, not time passing or my thoughts. For a moment in the darkness, I just existed. No past, present, or future. And then I was lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling.
Something was pushed into my hand and Danny’s voice came around telling me to drink.
I didn’t argue. Tea washed the rest of the pain away, not that I knew I was still feeling it. My head sunk back into the pillow and I felt like I worked a full day in the sun without a sip to drink.
“Ugh.” I rubbed my head, wondering what was going on in more ways than one. Holly looked like she let out a breath she had held for hours and the windows were dark. “What happened?”
“You had a migraine that knocked the wind out of you,” Danny tittered. He patted my head from behind the couch with nervous hands. “Sissy said she used to get them all the time when she was your age.”
“Sissy randomly started getting migraines when she was almost thirty?” I asked. “That sounds—” A wave of nausea made me roll over and groan.
“Yes, I did.” Sissy came out of the kitchen and pushed me back to the pillow with a single finger to my forehead. “Never had money to see a doctor if I wasn’t bleeding out so I don’t have any receipts to prove it, but it was right around the time your mother started giving me gray hair. That one I can give you photographic evidence for.”
I waved off the maternal aggression. “No, ma’am,” I conceded meekly.
“Tea helping?” she demanded.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then it seems like we know what we’re talking about, don’t it?”
I squinted up at her and smiled like a kid caught with their hand in a candy jar. She returned it. The finger holding my head down brushed the hair from my eyes.
“Keep your butt in that seat and finish your tea,” she ordered. “When you’re done, you can come and get some dinner if you’re feeling up to it.”
I downed the rest and let her words settle.
“What time is it?”
“Trixy left for work a bit ago,” Danny said. “You’ve been out all day, you hungry?”
“I’ve been asleep all day?” I asked, incredulous. My stomach growled, answering my question. “Food sounds good.”
I wobbled to the table with Danny at one arm and Holly at the other, shadowing like they expected me to fall over before I could make it to a chair. Holly went about heating up a plate of food.
Danny nodded at Holly with a smile. “This one is quite the cook. The only way we could get her to take a break from watching you was to have her help out with lunch and dinner.”
I laughed and regretted it as my head pulsed with pain. Danny poured me another cup of tea from a kettle on the stovetop.
“She’s been cooking since she could reach the counter,” I told him. Holly slid the plate in front of me and I resisted the urge to go in with my hands.
“She must take after her grandmother.”
Sissy snorted from the sink. “And what was wrong with your cooking?”
“When I got home from work I only had enough time to change uniforms before I was out the door again.” I avoided their gaze, tugging playfully on Holly’s sleeve instead. “She made me sandwiches, my little housewife.” I offered her half a dinner roll to nibble.
The sounds of dishes clinking in the sink paused.
“Jinx couldn’t feed you?” Sissy asked, head turned to the side.
Holly put the roll back on my plate.
“When she was home, she mostly just slept.” I was glad Sissy had her back to me. I wouldn’t have been able to look her in the eyes. Holly bit her nails until they bled and I changed the subject. “Before I spent the whole day comatose on the couch, I was thinking about taking Holly around the island. Show her my old stomping grounds.”
Danny leaned against the counter, spinning the rings on his fingers. His brows pulled together as he glanced at Sissy. She set the last dish on the rack and wiped her hands slowly on the towel.
“Once you’re feeling up to it,” she said, “I think that would be a good idea. Let her get a lay of the land so she doesn’t feel cooped up in the house. Lord knows you and your cousin never let the grass grow under your feet.”
I chuckled. That was the truth. If Trixy wasn’t dragging me to parties we were too young for, I was wandering around the town, the ruins, and the wilderness searching for . . .
I got caught on the memories. I knew I traipsed all over Ibys like it was my kingdom, but there was more to it than that. I was out in those mountains, in every abandoned house, creeping through the remains of the Manse for a reason.
But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what that reason was.