Once the visiting was done Rosie lay in her hospital bed reading Midnight in the Dollhouse, the book Tessi had lent her. Rosie loved it immediately because she understood a little bit of how the little girl in the book with the broken hip felt. It was a good distraction, because even worse, she'd heard her parents fighting in the hallway, which made her angry. Why was her mother upset at Daddy? Didn't she know? Hadn't anyone told her? And why was her father yelling at Mami? Couldn't he see what was wrong?

Rosie sighed, turned her page and had a sudden onset of coughing that had both her parents rushing into the room. She had Lili on one side passing her fizzy water and Cam on the other, stroking her upper arm.

'Are you okay, Rosita,' Lili asked when Rosie had taken a few big gulps.

'Do you need any more medicine for your arm, baby?' Cam inquired.

'No, but...but I can hear you.'

'Hear us?' Lili's eyebrows beetled together.

'I don't want you to fight.' Rosie looked side-to-side at them both. She struggled to sit up straighter in bed and tried to speak as maturely as as almost-nine-year-old could. 'Mami, Daddy was already at the school doing the presentation for the big kids about being a soldier. Someone ran to the office and got him. He said that if we had waited to call you I would be in much much worse shape.'

Lili clamped her lips together; she'd already heard this from Cam himself but it was a whole new dimension of understanding when she heard her daughter say it. 'I know sweetie, but-'

'No buts, Mami,' Rosie interrupted her, a little surprised at her own courage. In any other situation, she would never ever talk to her mother like this, but this was not any other situation. 'You are the best mami in the history of the world and you always do the right thing. Daddy did what he thought was best.'

She turned to her father now. 'And Daddy, you can't yell at Mami either, because she is allowed to be upset that no one told her until I was already at the hospital what happened. If something happened and you weren't there, and Mami did the right thing like you did, would you yell at her?'

'No,' Cam replied after thinking it through in a logical way. 'No,' he repeated, 'I wouldn't yell at her because a good soldier does what needs to be done right away and deals with the other later.'

'Exactly,' Lili agreed, thinking of when Lili had gotten word about Cam being shot and coming home. Without a second thought, she'd called her brother and he and Meredeth came right over; she hadn't thought to call her parents first, or even Cam's mother Felicity. She'd called her brother and hadn't given a damn about the consequences of it. Thinking of that now, she sighed. Shame was never a negative emotion she handled well and Lili had to fight to keep her composure in front of Rosie. 'I'm sorry, cari.'

'I'm sorry, too, baby.' Cam kissed her forehead, then went into the hallway, as he knew his girls need some time together.

'Mami, I'm sorry for sassing you just now,' Rosie whispered, poking at the bed with the fingers of her good hand.

'No, sweetie, never apoligize for speaking your mind,' Lili replied firmly. 'It's always important to stand up for yourself.'

'Do I have to go back to school?'

'Not to that school. We were thinking you might like to try Tessi's school instead.'

'I would like that.' Rosie looked at her mother. 'Can we read a story?'

'Of course, baby.'

'Duncan too. He thinks he should have protected me.'

'Duncan too,' Lili agreed, then brushed Rosie's dark curls out of her green eyes. Her daddy's eyes, Lili thought, a soldier's eyes. 'Do you want anything to eat? The doctors said you can eat whatever you want.'

'Ice cream.'

'Okay, even being in the hospital, ice cream is pushing it.'

'Maybe can Meredeth make some of her really yummy soup? That would be nice. And ice cream for dessert.'

'I'll go ask her.'

Lili kissed Rosie's forehead and a few minutes later, Rosie had her first smile in what felt like forever when her brother came into the room holding up his beaten up and battered copy of George's Marvelous Medicine.

'Wanna read , Rosie?'

'Sure, Duncan Donut.'

Duncan grinned and perched himself in the bed beside his sister, turned to the first page of chapter five. He was a very good reader and very proud of it. 'The Cook-Up,' he read aloud, his finger beneath the words. 'In the kitchen, George put the sauce pan on the stove...'