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“Teddy,” Jo scolds, only there’s a laugh in it, so he knows he’s not in trouble. “You know you don’t need to dote on her so. It’s only a cold, and Amy’s a grown woman.”
“But she’s expecting, Jo,” Teddy protests, as though that were the trump card to warrant all his frenetic motion, darting back and forth between his wife laid up in bed and her endless list of errands, begging the cook for a soup that might tempt Amy and wetting a washcloth for her neck. Well, Amy herself had probably taken to playing it, Jo scoffs privately. She always did like an excuse to order people around, perhaps most especially her husband, and that even before they were married. And Laurie’s typical buoyant affections, always liberally bestowed upon those he cares for, have only magnified now that Amy is carrying his child. It’s as though her newly swelling belly exerts the force of a planet, with Laurie orbiting tightly around her. Even with months yet stretching ahead of her, Amy would have no worry of exhausting her husband’s eager attentiveness.
It’s as though he’s forgotten Jo’s done this quite recently herself, has a sweet son across the way at Orchard House busy wrapping his grandparents around his finger. “Yes, yes, and while I’m sure she’s convinced you of her noble suffering, you know as well as I do that she’s always had a tendency toward the dramatic in her illnesses.” It had started as a shared habit of childhood, four sisters clamoring for a little extra time with Marmee and her tender pity. What Jo doesn’t say, the reminder neither needs, is how that habit altered as Beth grew frail. In fact, by then, the worse any of the girls felt, the quieter they kept about it. After all, they’d grown to recognize what truly sick looked like.
But Amy never quite managed to grow out of her theatrics entirely, and Laurie’s always fallen for her machinations easily. From the very beginning, really, when Amy first sobbed to him over her injured hand, and thus wove the boy across the way into the Marches’ lives. Jo remembers a dozen instances across the years: stamping her foot impatiently when her friend wouldn’t follow her out-of-doors, having acquiesced to a sniffling Amy’s begging to play games inside instead; Teddy carefully bandaging a simple skinned knee, and that from running off with a pair of Jo’s shoes.
“If she’s going to suffer, the least I can do is try to ease what I can, and sit with her for the rest,” Teddy says quietly, and in him, Jo recognizes the best of the boy he was and the growth of the man he is now. Her sweet and solid Teddy, ever determined, far more patient.
Jo watches as he readies a tray with treats to tempt his wife from her malaise: a fanned spread of cookies, applesauce, a soft biscuit with jam, tea made just the way she likes. It’s Jo who hands him the honey, recalling how Marmee would spoon in a sweet dollop to soothe her girls’ sore throats.
Laurie was made to love like this, she thinks. Big, sweeping, indulgent, ostentatious. It’s always the sort of thing she’d have no patience with Fritz for trying. But then, he wouldn’t, would he? And that has made all the difference.
When they walk into the bedroom, they find Amy propped up in bed with a pile of pillows, flipping rather listlessly through a book. She glimpses Laurie first, as he steps to the side of the bed, and brightens immediately.
“How are you feeling, my lady?”
Amy’s smile is at once wan and warm. “Better with you at my side, my lord.”
There’s simultaneously a tease and unbearable tenderness in it, and Jo’s struck by the unpleasant sensation that she’s intruded on a private moment. It brings her back to that first conversation with Teddy upon his return from Europe, asking what it was his new wife called him and his sudden ducked-head shyness and uncharacteristic blush with his answer: “My lord.” She sees a trace of that same quietly incandescent joy on him now. Amy Laurence, like any prim and proper society lady, typically maintains some reserve in company, even with family, though Jo has heard the nickname slip now and again. Still, Jo gives a polite cough to announce her presence, as it’s clearly gone unnoticed.
“Your sister dropped by for a visit,” says Laurie, retreating to gesture Jo closer. Under different circumstances, Jo would openly jest that in his delight to see his wife, he’d momentarily forgotten their guest entirely. As it is, she mentally jots it in a file to rib her friend for later.
Amy rustles among the sheets, straightens; Jo takes a step nearer. “All the way from Plumfield? Oh, Jo, you shouldn’t have. I’m afraid I’m not particularly pleasant company at the moment.” This she concludes with a hacking cough. It nearly brings a smirk to Jo’s lips contrasted with her own far daintier version, a rare swap between the sisters.
“Not quite. I brought little Rob to see his grandparents, and Marmee mentioned you were feeling unwell, so I thought I’d nip across to check on you.” Jo sweeps an evaluating gaze over her sister. Lank yellow hair fans over the pillows; her nose is red and chapped, skin pale but cheeks flushed. Her eyes are slightly glazed, but the moment she catches on to Jo’s observation, they narrow in irritation, so she can’t be too far gone. “And how shall I report back that her youngest is getting on? Not quite darkening death’s door yet, are you?”
Amy rolls her eyes. “I’m not a street waif in one of your theatricals, Jo; I’m made of stiffer stuff than that.” But then she fails to suppress a shiver, and for the briefest flash Jo is pressing back against the memory of cracking ice.
It’s chastisement enough for any gap in Jo’s compassion; she pulls up the chair from Amy’s vanity beside the bed and grips her sister’s hand. “Truly, I’m sorry you’re ill. I understand you had to pass on a Christmas party or two.”
“It’s good of you to pretend, Jo, but I know you don’t think that’s important.”
“I do if you do,” Jo counters honestly. They’ve come a long way over the years in understanding one another despite their differences. “And besides,” she adds with a wink, “it’s Laurie I truly feel sorry for. I suspect he was looking forward to showing you off on his arm, the lovely Mrs. Laurence with a babe on the way.”
Amy blushes enough to show beyond the coloring of fever. “I don’t know about that,” she begins, but Jo’s already caught sight of Laurie fighting to swallow a grin. It’s simply the Laurence way to enjoy being seen, and besides, it’s hardly a secret they’ve longed for a baby these past years. With a huff, Amy shuffles them all past her sister’s daring: “It’s hardly a bother; I’m sure I’ll be better for our family Christmas, and that’s the party that truly matters.”
“You could hardly miss Daisy and Demi opening presents,” Jo agrees. “They’re such fun at this age.”
“Laurie,” Amy says, “do you think the fire’s burning low?” The words aren’t a moment out of her mouth before he’s up and striding to do her bidding. It’s been this way since the moment they returned from Europe newlyweds. Undeniably, Amy has always been bossy. A fitting mercy for her, then, to be wife to a man who it would seem rather likes to be bossed about. Like most boys who grow up playing mostly with girls, perhaps he’s simply accustomed to it.
While Laurie stokes the fire, Amy asks after the school. Jo launches into tales of kitchen mayhem, Fritz’s patient teaching, petty squabbles among the children, and the buzz of welcoming newcomers. “Perhaps you can come give some painting lessons, once the weather turns,” she suggests.
“I hardly think I’m qualified—”
“You learned from the French masters,” Laurie argues. “I’ve never known anyone who could coax such beauty from color alone like you can.”
Amy rolls her eyes again, the lasting mark of a March sister. “And I suppose you’re quite unbiased.”
“Laurie’s right,” Jo interjects. “You have way of starting with something half-formed to mold it into its best and truest nature.” Of course, she’s thinking not only of Amy’s art, but in a way, also her husband.
Amy responds with a noncommittal hum. “Perhaps I’ll think on it. That does remind me, Jo, how is your writing?”
Both Amy and Laurie listen to Jo outline her latest story with interest, though Amy’s tiredness has begun to catch up to her, and her eyelids appear to grow heavy. Soon thereafter, Amy sniffles pathetically, and Laurie’s near-instantly at her side with a fresh handkerchief. To hide a laugh, Jo feigns a sneeze into her fist. At the sound, Amy’s eyes widen in alarm. “Oh, what am I thinking? Jo, you can’t be here, you’ll catch cold too! And you with a little one waiting at home, on top of new students to keep you busy.” The sleeves of her nightgown flap at her wrists with her shooing motions, which threatens to set Jo to wheezing.
“All right, all right, I’m going,” she acquiesces. She squeezes Amy’s hand before releasing it. “No, don’t get up, Laurie, I can see myself out.”
Once Jo turns to go, Laurie perches on the bed next to Amy.
“It was good of Jo to come,” Amy murmurs. How well her sister loves, she thinks, in a way that is always intensely, uniquely Jo. “I would have liked to hear more about her book, if only…”
“I’m sure she didn’t take any offense. You can ask her at Christmas and she can regale us all.” Laurie lightly strokes a hand across her forehead, runs long fingers through her sweat-soaked hair. “You’re a bit feverish yet,” he says, and she catches the fretful note he tries to disguise. “Do you still feel like you’re in a furnace?”
Amy had woken him in the night with her flailing, tossing their heavy quilt off her body with a vengeance to rival Jo on a rampage for justice. But she shakes her head. “Quite the opposite, in fact. Even after you stoked the fire, I simply can’t seem to get warm.”
That’s all the instruction he needs. Laurie darts off to fetch her another blanket and ensures it’s draped just so. Amy murmurs her thanks, then fixes him with wide puppy-dog eyes. Obediently, he climbs into the bed beside his wife, curling his body around hers, heating his hands with an exhaled breath so he can rub them up and down her arms.
When the chill has at last abated, her goosebumps replaced with a more pleasant kind, Amy shifts to feel Laurie’s arms tighten around her. Even with all the discomfort, there’s nowhere she’d rather be.
“Better?” he asks softly.
Amy hums contentedly. “Very good, my lord.”
Laurie makes a pleased sound in her ear, then squeezes her hip. From there, his hand shifts to rest atop the curve of her belly, where their babe is busy growing.
“Is she still keeping you up with her somersaults?”
“You’re terribly confident she’s a she.”
“Her mother’s the fourth March sister. Were I still given to gambling, I’d lay good money on those odds.”
“Maybe we’re due for a boy in the family.”
“Hmm.” Laurie kisses the space below Amy’s ear. “Son or daughter, I’ll be delighted; I only hope our little one takes after you.”
A fond smile curves Amy’s lips. “As long as she doesn’t get my nose.”
Laurie flicks that very same nose and prompts a laugh: no one but this husband of hers could get away with that. “I love all of you, Amy Laurence, nose most certainly included.”
It’s a remarkable thing, the way Laurie makes Amy feel easy to love. All her life, she’s been called demanding, dramatic, difficult. But Laurie’s is a kind of love larger than life, seeking a target the same. From childhood, Laurie’s been the type constantly searching for approval, and where he’s unlikely to have it, he’s a ruinous habit of running and burning. But where he feels he belongs, it’s the opinions of those he admires which provoke him to improve. And what he needs most is just what the woman he chose likes to give. Laurie craves Amy’s praise, and in turn Amy delights in drawing her husband up into the greatest version of himself.
Amy’s eyelids begin to shutter; her head lolls against the pillow. She listens to the nearby sounds: the crackling fire, the grandfather clock ticking from the hall, their mingled breaths — Laurie’s soft and deep, Amy’s thick and wet. It will be good to be done with this cursed cold soon. She threads their fingers together.
“You don’t have to stay here with me,” she tells Laurie sleepily. “It’s only the afternoon, and I know you have work to do.”
“Nonsense,” he replies automatically. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
It’s an echo of her own thought from earlier. As she drifts into a doze against Laurie’s chest, Amy relishes the simple peace they share.