I stared at them, and the room seemed to narrow in around me.
“My parents never talked like that,” I said slowly. “Not really. I mean, my father sometimes told stories. About where our family came from. Ireland. Ulster. It was my great-great-grandfather who left the country after a war broke out. They snuck out of the country through allies and hid in Boston with people named Murphy. But—different? I don’t know. I felt like a normal kid.”
I thought harder.
Sick? Injured? The thought stumped me.
My childhood felt suddenly very far away. My life before Arthur had been warm and bright in memory. But now the details were slippery, like trying to hold water in my hands.
“I don’t remember being sick much,” I admitted. “Not enough to think it was unusual. I got scrapes and bruises like any o
