Kaya Bluebird woke to the sound of her youngest sister crying her name from the hallway. She was thirty-one, and she had been answering that call in one form or another since she was twelve, when their mother walked out and left three girls in a quiet house. She sat up, pushed dark hair streaked with white out of her face, and swung her feet to the cold floor. The house still smelled like the broth she had simmered last night, trying to feed grief out of her sisters one bowl at a time. Elleanor stood in the doorway with one hand pressed low on her stomach. Her late-teen face was pale, her jaw set the way it got when she refused to make a fuss. "Joy's throwing up again," Elleanor said. "Bad. She has a fever." "Your belly?" "Later." Kaya took the hall in six steps. In the bathroom, Joy knelt over the toilet in a black jacket and jeans, dark hair stuck to her neck. Joy was in her early twenties and treated animals in barns without proper tools; she did not flinch at blood or fear, and she did not flinch now. She flinched only at her own body. "How long?" Kaya asked. "Since three." "Fluids?" "Can't." Kaya put a hand to Joy's forehead. Hot. This was not a bug. This was the whole stack of things the doctor had named for her: the gastritis, the ulcerative colitis, the nervous stomach, the IBS, all flaring at once because Joy had buried a horse she couldn't save and then buried the feeling under work. Kaya had watched her sisters grieve for weeks. She had cooked. She had listened. It had not been enough. "Elleanor, kitchen. Kettle on. Bring the small pot and the ginger." "I'll do it," Elleanor said, and went, one hand still on her stomach. Kaya wet a cloth and folded it against the back of Joy's neck. She held Joy's hair in one fist and rubbed slow circles between her shoulder blades with the other. Joy heaved again. Nothing came up but bile. "I'm calling the clinic," Kaya said. "No." "Yes." Joy did not argue a second time, which was how Kaya knew. Elleanor came back with the pot and set it beside Kaya's knee without a word. Then she sat down hard against the tub, sweating, and pressed her forehead to her arm. Kaya looked at one sister curled around the toilet and one sister curled around her own belly, and she understood she could not sit with them the way she had all week. Broth would not fix this. She reached for the phone on the counter. "Maple Street," she said when they picked up. "I'm bringing both of them in. Now." She hung up and reached for her coat. The waiting was over. Whatever came next, she was driving.

Kaya drove with one hand and kept the other on Joy's knee. Elleanor sat in the back with a plastic bowl in her lap. The clinic sat at the end of a short street, a tidy building with a striped awning and flower boxes under the windows. Kaya parked at the curb and got both sisters out. They did not make it to the door. Joy bent double beside a metal trash can on the sidewalk and threw up green bile and pieces of last night's toast. Elleanor took two steps toward her, gagged, and threw up into the same can. Kaya held Elleanor's hair and reached for Joy's shoulder at the same time. Her hands were not enough hands. "Inside," Kaya said. "Now. Both of you." "Not the exam room," Joy said. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "Not the man in the coat." "Lindy," Elleanor said. "Get Lindy." Kaya knew the name. Lindy Ginger was new in town, a healer with soft eyes who had taken a room at the back of the clinic. Joy had let her feel a bruised wrist last month without pulling away. That was rare. "Lindy," Kaya agreed. Inside, she asked at the desk and did not sit down. Lindy came out from the hall drying her hands on a towel. She looked at Joy against the wall and at Elleanor against Kaya's side and did not waste a word. "Back room," Lindy said. "Both of you." She walked them past the exam door Joy feared and into a smaller room with a cot and a chair. She had Joy lie down first. She pressed her fingers low on Joy's belly. Joy hissed and turned her face to the wall and threw up again into a basin Lindy had already set beside her. Lindy moved to Elleanor and pressed the same spots. Elleanor made a small sound and shut her eyes. Lindy stepped back. She looked at Kaya. "Flare," Lindy said. "Both of them. Joy's gastritis and colitis together. Elleanor has IBS and gastritis too. Mild nervous stomach on top." "Grief," Kaya said. "Yes." "What do I do." "Fluids. Rest. Small sips, not gulps. I'll start a line on Joy here. Elleanor can drink if she goes slow." Lindy paused. "No solids today. Broth tomorrow if it stays down." Kaya sat between the cot and the chair. She held Joy's hand on one side and Elleanor's on the other. Joy's fever was still hot under her fingers. Elleanor was shaking. "I thought food would fix it," Kaya said, quieter. "It won't," Lindy said. "Not this." Lindy set the line and left them the basin and a paper cup. Kaya watched the drip start. She had gotten them here. That much was done. Now she had to figure out how to carry two sick sisters home and keep them still, when neither of them had ever stayed still for her before.

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.

Kaya woke on the floor by the fort with her cheek on a cushion. The house was quiet. Joy and Elleanor were still under the sheet roof, breathing slow. She sat up too fast. Her stomach clenched hard, a bright twist under her ribs. She got a hand over her mouth and made it down the hall to the bathroom before the first heave came. Green bile hit the water. Then more. She gripped the rim and rode it out, sweat cold on her back. The pain was worse than she had let it get in years. She knew this pain. She had a name for it, four names. She had never said them out loud to her sisters. The front door opened softly. Footsteps in the hall. Lindy's voice, low, checking on the girls first, then following the sound of the sink. "Kaya." Lindy knelt on the tile beside her. She did not touch her yet. She watched the color of what was in the bowl. Her soft eyes went quieter, the way they had at the clinic when she read Joy's chart. "How long has it been this bad?" Lindy asked. "Since last night." Kaya wiped her mouth on her wrist. "It's mine. It's not from them." "Tell me." Kaya swallowed. Her throat burned. She kept her voice under the doorway so it would not carry. "Gastroparesis. Gastritis. Reflux, kind of bad. Nervous stomach. IBS, but milder." She looked at the floor. "The girls don't know. They think I just have a sensitive tummy. That's what I let them think." Lindy nodded once. She did not look surprised. "I fed them the chicken and rice," Kaya said. "I watched them eat it. Then this morning I heard Joy ask if I was okay and I lied to her face. And now my stomach is doing this because I'm — " She pressed her hand flat to her sternum. "Because I did this to them and my body knows." "You didn't do it," Lindy said. "Grief did. You know that." "They're sick because of me." "They're sick because they lost something. You brought them to me." Lindy put a hand on Kaya's shoulder, light. "Now listen. If they see you like this, they will carry it. You know that too." Kaya nodded. Tears slid down without sound. "Rest," Lindy said. "That's the only thing for you right now. I'll sit with them. You lie down." "I can't — " "Rest," Lindy said again. Quieter. "I've got them for an hour." Kaya let herself be walked to her own bed. Lindy pulled the blanket up to her shoulders and left the door cracked. Kaya lay on her side with a hand on her stomach and listened to Lindy settle by the fort in the hall. For the first time since the clinic, someone else was holding the line. Kaya closed her eyes and let go of it.