August 22nd, 1906
The sun was just barely poking through the slight cloud cover the night had provided, yet no one in the house had slept last night. Alice and Cynthia both had a mild stomach flu and were completely miserable because of it. We're pretty sure Alice got it first and gave it to Cynthia, but there's no way to be sure of it, and it doesn't really matter in the end. In any case, both girls were in so much pain from the illness that they had been unable to sleep last night, and Mary and I were too busy taking care of them to get any.
At least we could be thankful they didn't have the deadly version of the disease. A doctor had all ready confirmed that last night, and said they should get over it just fine at home. I was glad I could both my little girls out of the hospital this time.
Mary held Cynthia in her lap and rocked her on the rocking chair, watching as she finally drifted off into sleep. Alice was curled up against my side, and already sound asleep. She was warm from the fever, but not so much that it made it uncomfortable to have her next to me, and to have my hand on the small of her back, holding her close to me. I didn't care if I got sick from her, as long as I could make her feel better in any way I could. The sweltering heat of the deep summer only helped the disease spread quickly among young children and older adults. There was talk of a worse form of Influenza slowly making its way around the country, but not many people had gotten it, and it wasn't much worse than the normal kind of flu people got every year.
It took awhile longer for Cynthia to finally fall asleep, and I had a feeling she would be up before long. Alice had been asleep for about an hour already, so she probably would wake up soon as well. Over the past few days, the girls had gone through the worst of it apparently; Alice already seemed to have a lower temperature than she did last night. I wasn't sure about Cynthia, but I could only guess she was getting better as well. Mary held her for a while longer before brushing a lock of her blond hair out of her face and setting her down next to Alice. This surprised me; usually Mary went out of her way to make sure Cynthia had as little to do with Alice as possible. It was probably just because Mary had been up for the past three days though, not that she was feeling any better about having a physic for a daughter. In fact, Mary is only starting to hate her daughter more. After I came home from work and found that Alice had another bruise, this time on her upper arm, and said her mother had grabbed her after she had a vision, I warned her that if she ever hurt again, I would take both the girls away from her, but I doubt the words had any effect on her. I hated having to wonder everyday if Mary would hurt Alice again, and this time much worse, but if I brought her with me, I would lose my job, and that was not something I could take a risk on. The field for journalists is though, and I'm lucky I found a job at the newspaper I work for now. We would have to move out of the city for me to find work somewhere else as a journalist, and writing was the only thing I knew how to do. I just had to make do with telling Alice that she could no longer tell her mother when she had a vision, but it was hard on her, she was used to being able to tell someone, and now she had to wait until I got home at night to say anything about it. She felt more alone than most people ever will, and she wasn't even out of her childhood years yet.
Just then, I felt Alice start to move and wake up. "How are you feeling, sweetie?" I asked softly so I didn't wake up her sister. She needed to sleep, since she had been up just as long as me and her mother had been.
"better," She said, then yawned.
I couldn't help but smile. She had said no more than four days when she first got sick, she was only off by a half a day. Leave it to my little girl to know everything about anything.
Throughout the day she and her sister both started to get much better, but they were both clearly still sick. It would be a few more days before they went back to sleeping through the night and being able to hold down what they ate, but at least they were a little better.
That night I saw Alice looking up at the moon and the stars in the perfectly clear sky. Ever since I told her the moon glowed because it was on fire, she had gotten more pleaser out of just looking at it than any other kid on earth. She told me it was because she wondered how a fire could keep burning for so long, and if it ever went out, would it stop glowing? I promised her it would never go out.
I picked her up and put her on my lap, tucking my chin in her soft hair. She wrapped her little arms around me, and I felt her suddenly go limp. I looked into her eyes and saw they were focused far off, meaning she was only having a vision. She always felt safe to view the future when I was around, and wouldn't willing go into it when she was with anyone else, not even her grandparents, who she was all most as close to as me. I'll never stop being proud of this.
I was a little iffy on if I wanted to publish this or not, but in the end I decided I would, hope you liked it, the next one will be out later tonight or early tomorrow afternoon!
