My name is Evelyn Hart, she said. I answered your employment notice. Your foreman turned me away at the gate, but the door was open and I heard your son crying, so I came in. She paused.
Your son has a fever. It's been going on a while, hasn't it? Nathan stared at her. I'm not asking to be hired, she said.
I'm telling you, your son needs attention right now. You can throw me out after. He looked at the baby. Something moved across his face.
Not surprise exactly. More like a man who had been braced for one kind of blow and got a different kind and didn't have the energy to recalibrate. "I've been up with him," he said. "I sat with him all night."
"I know. I can see that." She kept her voice level, not soft in the way that people used when they were talking to someone fragile. Just level, like she was stating facts, and facts were what they both needed right now.
When did the fever start? Yesterday morning. Has he kept anything down? Milk, water, some any rash.
Nathan crossed the room in three steps and stood on the other side of the crib looking at his son. Up close, she could see how tired he was. Not just last night tired. Months of tired, worn into the skin around his eyes and the set of his mouth.
No rash, he said. Just the fever. That's good. That's one thing.
She wet the cloth again and laid it back against the baby's forehead. What's his name? A pause that lasted a beat too long. Caleb.
Caleb. She looked at the baby. Hello, Caleb. Caleb looked up at her with red- rimmed eyes that were glassy from fever, and she could see the moment he registered the cloth, the coolness, some small animal comfort that his body recognized even through the fever.
He didn't stop crying immediately, but he slowed down. You need more water, she said to Nathan. Clean water, cold as you can get it. And if you have willow bark in the house, I need it.