Kaya Bluebird's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Kaya got them home before either sister was sick again. She parked close to the door and walked them in one at a time. Joy made it to the hall. Elleanor made it to the kitchen sink. Both threw up what little water Lindy had given them. Then the diarrhea started, first Joy, then Elleanor, back to back in the small bathroom off the hall. Kaya pulled every blanket from the linen closet. She dragged the couch cushions down and built a nest on the floor right outside the bathroom door. She stacked pillows into low walls and draped a sheet over the back of a chair to make a roof. A fort. Something small they could hide inside. Joy crawled into it without a word and lay on her side with a hand pressed to her belly. Elleanor curled behind her, forehead against Joy's spine. Kaya knelt at the opening and smoothed Joy's hair back. Her hand was shaking. She had fed them last night. Chicken and rice, the bland thing she always made when their stomachs were bad. She had watched them eat it. She had thought she was helping. "I'm sorry," Kaya said. Her voice broke on it. "I'm so sorry, baby. I did this." Joy's eyes were closed. Elleanor did not move. Kaya went to the kitchen so they would not see her cry. She gripped the edge of the sink. Her stomach twisted hard, then harder. She bent over the basin and coughed up a thin burn of acid. It splashed the stainless steel and stung her throat. She coughed again and spat and turned the tap on to wash it down. "Kaya?" Joy's voice, from the fort. Small. Flat, the way she always sounded, but softer at the edges. "You okay?" Kaya wiped her mouth on a dish towel. She kept her back to the hall a second longer so her face could settle. Then she turned. "I'm fine, baby," she said. "It's okay." Joy watched her from the blanket nest, cheek on the pillow. She held Kaya's eyes for a beat. Then she laid her head back down. She did not have another question in her. Kaya crossed the kitchen and sat on the floor beside the fort. She pulled a blanket over her own knees. Elleanor's breathing had evened out. Joy's had too. Kaya put a hand on the sheet roof, light, so they would feel it if they woke. She had lied. She would keep lying, tonight. Her sisters could not carry her stomach on top of their own. She would sit here until morning. She would not cook again until Lindy said she could. That was the new rule. That was what taking care of them looked like now. Her throat still burned. She swallowed it down and stayed.