She had a fever and she knew it. Her legs ached and there was a tenderness in the pit of her stomach. She put the thermometer back into her mouth. From where she lay she could look out the window and see her playhouse that Charles had made out of an ice shed. The roof was covered with new-fallen snow and she shivered at the cold scene. She longed for spring and those lazy days that she spent in that fantasy house. Just she and her father.

When the door opened, Jean Paul, age fifteen, was already awake, propped up in bed with his physics book. Behind his head the small clock radio played a soft rock and roll. He was wearing dark red flannel pajamas with blue piping, a Christmas gift from Cathryn.

“You’ve got twenty minutes,” Cathryn said cheerfully.

“Thanks, Mom,” said Jean Paul with a smile.

Cathryn paused, looking down at the boy, and her heart melted. She felt like rushing in and swooping him into her arms. But she resisted the temptation. She’d learned that all the Martels were somewhat chary about direct physical contact, a fact that initially had been a little hard for her to deal with. Cathryn came from Boston’s Italian North End where touching and hugging was a constant. Although her father had been Latvian, he’d left when Cathryn was twelve, and Cathryn had grown up without his influence. She felt 100 percent Italian. “See you at breakfast,” she said.

Jean Paul knew that Cathryn loved to hear him call her Mom and gladly obliged. It was such a low price to pay for the warmth and attention that she showered on him. Jean Paul had been conditioned by a very busy father and seen himself eclipsed by his older brother, Chuck, and his irresistible baby sister, Michelle. Then came Cathryn, and the excitement of the marriage, followed by Cathryn’s legal adoption of Chuck, Jean Paul, and Michelle. Jean Paul would have called her “grandmother” if she wanted. He thought he loved Cathryn as much as his real mother; at least what he could remember of her. He’d been six when she died.