She realized later Clara would realize later making sure of everyone. Maisy, he said Margaret's with her. Wesley said she's awake. She took something for the fever. Calder looked at Wesley for one second and something passed between them that was not words.
Then he stepped aside and the doctor went through to the bedroom. Calder stood in the main room in his wet coat and looked at the children arranged around the fireplace. Eddie asleep, the twins, Benny in his corner, Jonah in the hallway, and he stood there long enough that Clara watching him understood that he was doing the same thing she had done in that bedroom all night, holding the fear and not letting it run loose, because there were people watching who needed him not to let it run loose. She got up and took his coat. Sit down, she said.
I'm wet. I know. Sit down anyway," he sat. In the bedroom, the doctor examined Maisie with the thorough, unhurried competence of a man who had been woken by a soaking rancher at 2 in the morning and was not going to let that affect his work. Margaret stoods against the wall and gave him the timeline and the tincture information and answered his questions with the precision that came from 2 hours of close observation.
The doctor listened to Maisy's chest, asked her to breathe, asked her if her throat hurt. Maisie said her throat hurt a little. He looked in her throat. Tonsil fever, he said. Not uncommon.
Not nothing. He looked at Margaret. You gave the willow bark at midnight. A small dose. Good.
Keep it up. Every 4 hours. He produced two things from his bag, a packet of dried herbs and a small bottle, and explained their use to Margaret and Clara, who had come back into the doorway with a brisk economy of a man who expected to be understood. He looked at Maisie. You're going to feel bad for a few more days, he told her in the direct tone that children often respond to better than softness.
Sore throat, headache, tired, but you're going to be fine. Maisie looked at him. When's P coming? She said. I'm here, Calder said from the doorway.
He had not sat down long. He was still in his damp shirt, but he had left the wet coat. And he was in the doorway with his hand on the frame the same way Wesley had stood there hours ago. When Maisie heard his voice, she turned her head toward it, and something in her face did what faces do when the thing they've been waiting for arrives. She held out her hand.
He crossed the room and took it, and she held his fingers with the same grip she'd used on Clara, and she looked at him with her dark eyes and her two warm face, and she said very quietly, "I knew you'd come back. " The doctor found somewhere else to look. Margaret turned to examine something on the windowsill. Calder sat on the edge of the bed and held Maisy's hand and did not say anything because what he would have said was not the kind of thing you could say out loud in a room full of people without breaking something that didn't need to be broken. He stayed there until she fell asleep. The doctor left at 3:00 in the morning with payment that Clara had calculated from the household funds without being asked because Clara knew the household funds by now the way she knew the bread.
And when Calder tried to add to it, she shook her head once and he didn't argue. Margaret should have left too. She didn't. She was in the kitchen at 3:15 making something hot. And when Calder came out of the bedroom, she was standing at the stove with her coat still damp and her hair not quite the careful arrangement it usually was, and she looked like a woman who had been in a hard night and was still in it.
She set a cup of coffee in front of him. He sat down and drank it without speaking. She'll be fine, Margaret said. In a week, she won't remember being this sick. I know, he turned the cup.
Thank you for coming. Margaret sat down across from him with her own cup. I saw you ride past, she said. It didn't seem like the situation called for me to stay in bed. He looked at her.
You stayed with her for 2 hours. Yes, you were supposed to come here tonight to do an assessment. She looked at him evenly. I'm aware. The assessments.
The assessment is done. Margaret said, "I don't need a clipboard to do an assessment. " He was quiet. She turned her cup in her hands. "I came here," she said slowly, "like someone working out what they want to say as they say it, because the county sent me to determine whether these children are in a suitable situation. That is my official function. " She paused.
"Over the last 6 weeks, I have also come here because," another pause, "longer. I have a daughter," she said. "She lives in the eastern part of the territory now. I have a son who died 11 years ago. She said it without looking for sympathy, just stating it.
His name was Thomas. He was 4 years old. Called her said nothing. I'm not telling you that. So feel sorry for me, Margaret said.
I'm telling you because you should understand that when I sat with that little girl tonight, I was I was not entirely objective. Nobody asked you to be objective. Caldera said, I'm supposed to be. You came here in a storm at midnight, Margaret. Nobody thinks you came for objectivity.
She looked at him. It was the first time he'd used her first name. She didn't correct him. I'm going to withdraw my observation report, she said. He went still.