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“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

I quirked a brow as I frowned. “But I'm sick. You said I have a fever. I shouldn't go if I'm sick, Daddy. I might get someone else sick.”

“It'll be fine.” He leaned on the counter and said, “I'm gone too much. I need to be around more for you. You need your father in your life, and I need you. Who's going to run my company when I'm gone?”

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere right now. I mean in the future when I'm old. I want you to be the one who takes my place.”

“Dad, I could never run your company. I'm just a kid.”

“Your training starts now then.” He stood up, walked to my side, and kissed the top of my head. “Go get ready. We leave in an hour.”

“Are you sure I'm not too sick to go to school?”

“I just cured you, Pumpkin.” He placed his hand against my forehead. “Your fever is gone already.”

For the first time in my life, my father brought me to school that day. It was nice—different, but nice. When I got home, all I wanted to do was go to bed. My father was there, which was out of the ordinary. He was always at work. I usually didn't see him until after dinner, and that was just him passing by to head to his office to do more work.

I came into the house, not in the mood to talk. My father was waiting at the door, but I walked right by and went to my room.

“Poppy, how are you feeling?” my father asked.

“Uck,” I said.

He followed me to my room and sat on the edge of my bed. My father grabbed my face in his hands and moved my head around. “You're color is back. That's good.”

“Well, I don't feel good.”

I felt like I had been hit by a train. Going to school was probably not a good idea. After the medicine that morning, my stomach began to hurt, and I had a headache. I barely ate lunch, and I felt super tired.

“A virus can do that.”

“Can it really?”

“Of course it can. We never know how our bodies will respond to something foreign. Let me listen to your lungs.” He went and retrieved his medical bag. My father pressed the bell against my back and listened. “Take a few deep breaths for me.”

I did as he asked. He moved the bell to my heart and listened again. My father then pushed the warm pads of his fingers around my neck and under my jaw. He held open one eye and flashed a light, then repeated it on the other.

“But I thought your medicine was supposed to make me better.”

“It did, it took down your fever, but that doesn't mean you won't still feel a little sick.”

“A little sick? My head is pounding, and my belly hurts.”

“That will all go away. I promise. Do you remember telling me about going to France this morning?”

I looked up at the ceiling as I tried to recall the dream. Bits and pieces floated through my mind, but they weren't fitting together as well as they had that morning. There were blank spaces now. Voids within the dream that I couldn't picture anymore.

“I remember a little bit. Why?”

“Well, I was talking to a few colleagues of mine, and I think I know what might be happening. Do you remember a few months back when you were riding your bike down the hill in the back?”

I thought about it. I remembered riding my bike to the park during the summer before school started and riding it around the loop in the driveway, but I didn't remember riding it down the hill. “No.”

“You don't remember it at all?”