“Easy, sweetheart,” I said, my chest tightening.

“Slow down, you’ll choke.” And before I could reach her, Mason — exhausted, filthy, barely upright himself — leaned over and patted his sister’s back with one thin hand.

“Eat slow, Daisy,” he murmured.

“Eat slow.” I knelt there and watched my six-year-old nephew, who had walked seven blocks and could barely hold his own head up, tending to his little sister before he would take a single cracker for himself, and every gentle excuse Evelyn had given me over three years began replaying in my head with a new and sickening meaning. They’re sleeping.

They’re sick.