The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald

at the school to catch his cold, but he sensed, from the way she whispered to Mrs. Donovan and to the practice mothers, that there was something more serious going on.
    Upstairs, he inhabited the pillowy landscape of Martha’s bed, and she brought him chicken noodle soup on a pale green plastic tray with a doily and one of the white dinner napkins. She brought him juice with a straw that folded down on a little hinge. There were two pillows, not one, and the bed was almost as wide as it was long. Several times a day, Martha would sit on the side of the bed and cross her thick, stockinged legs at the ankles and play cards with him. Game after game of War, Rummy, Go Fish, and Old Maid. After each game, she would refill his juice glass and fill one for herself. Then she would make them clink glasses, just like grown-ups. “Here’s to your health,” she would say.
    When his fever rose, she gave him orange-flavored chewable aspirin, which made his whole mouth pucker and his teeth feel like chalk.
    Frequently she said things like “Alone at last,” and “It’s just the two of us, isn’t this nice?” Henry wasn’t sure if it was nice or not.
    Sometimes he would fall asleep and wake to see her shadow on the wall and then turn to see her at her desk, writing out checks with her face scrunched up, or pasting trading stamps into books. Several times a day, she would reach for a small blue jar with a turquoise top and label. She would open the jar and dip two fingers in and then slather Vicks VapoRub onto his chest, rubbing and rubbing beneath his pajama shirt, looking into his eyes while the smell of the menthol mingled with her intensity. Henry, not for the first or last time, experienced the sensation that to breathe, he might first have to be engulfed.
    CHRISTMAS CAME ON a Monday, but it snowed the whole weekend before, and all but one of the practice mothers were stranded at school for the holidays. Though Martha had been looking forward to having a break from the girls, she found herself relieved that there were extra hands to care for Hazel while she ministered to Henry. And then there was Christmas Day itself—for once not a practice Christmas for the students but the real thing. Henry heard the bustle of the mothers downstairs, but Martha told him he wasn’t well enough to leave the bedroom.
    “You don’t want to get the baby sick, do you?” Martha asked.
    “I wouldn’t.”
    “I know you wouldn’t on purpose,” she said. “But sometimes you can get people sick without meaning to.”
    Henry ran his fingertips along the loose crisscross stitches on the shiny border of the blanket.
    “Anyway,” Martha added mysteriously, “I have a surprise for you later, and I think you’re going to like it.”
    All morning long, Henry slept and woke, hearing the sounds of the mothers downstairs as they fussed over the baby and opened their presents for her, then giggled and said their goodbyes. Finally, he heard whispering on the stairs and wanted to go and look, but he knew that Martha would be angry with him for getting out of bed. He dozed again. When he woke, Martha was standing at the foot of his bed, shielding a large object with her body.
    “What is it?” he asked her groggily. “Is it my Christmas present?”
    “Ta-da!” she said, and stepped aside to reveal a brand-new TV set.
    IT WAS THEIR BEST TIME TOGETHER, and years later—even after he couldn’t forgive her for so much else—Henry would be grateful to Martha for this. All afternoon, they sat side by side on her bed, and every few minutes, she would pop up to change the channels, as magically as if she were changing the view outside the window. They saw a cooking show called Stop, Look and Cook, and part of an opera called Hansel and Gretel, and at three they saw something called Uncle Miltie’s Christmas Party, with a strange, exuberant man named Milton Berle, who at one point wore a dress. Then, at four o’clock, they stopped changing channels,