“I…” She searched for an answer that didn’t sound like defiance. “I’ve cared for a baby before. Maybe I can help.”
“You’re here to clean and cook,” he said, voice hard. “Not play nursemaid.”
“I know, sir,” she said carefully. “But he’s—”
“Still not your concern.”
The words struck like a slap. Janelle looked down, jaw tight, breathing shallow.
Marcus stood abruptly, chair scraping. “I didn’t mean…” He stopped, shook his head like he didn’t know how to fix what he’d said. “Just stay down here.”
He climbed the stairs, leaving Janelle alone with the hiss of the stove and the ache in her body that wouldn’t listen to orders.
The crying started again upstairs. Weak. Thin. Like a candle flame threatened by wind.
Janelle scrubbed the table, swept the floor, washed dishes that didn’t need washing. She changed the cloth pressed against her chest twice. Her body kept spilling what her heart no longer had a place to put.
By late morning, Marcus called down, exhausted. “Water.”
She climbed the stairs with a tin cup, moving slow like the house itself might accuse her of wanting.
The loft was small: bed, trunk, crib by the window. Marcus sat beside it with a bottle in his hand. The baby lay in his arms, head turned away, lips pressed shut.
The child’s skin wasn’t just pale. It was gray.
Janelle’s throat tightened.
“He won’t take it,” Marcus murmured, voice emptied out. “Nothing since yesterday morning.”
He tried again, pressing the nipple to the baby’s lips.
The baby turned away weakly.
Marcus’s shoulders sagged, and for a moment he looked like a man old enough to crumble into dust.
Janelle backed toward the stairs. “I’ll be downstairs.”
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