"They hardly know what's happening to them. Cade."
"How can you not know you've stopped breathing?" Adrian asked.
"Something happens to their nervous systems." Daddy said. "If you were better students, you wouldn't say so many stupid things." He turned to me with concern. "Miguel didn't mention it to me when I met him earlier. Is that why Willow is shut up in her room like that?"
"Yes"
''How sad," Danielle said.
"Yes hard, very hard," Daddy said.
"Is it because his father is Cuban?" Cade asked, unintimidated by Daddy's reprimand.
"No." I said sharply and quickly. "SIDS affects people of all races, religions, and even income levels. It occurs during sleep and strikes without warning. And you can't tell from looking at the baby, either. Seemingly healthy children can suffer from it."
"Still sounds like suicide to me," he muttered. The maids began to clear off our dishes.
"I knew someone in France whose baby suffered SIDS. It's hard an everyone in the home." Danielle said. "Always tension in the air. Everyone nervous. worried." She thought a moment and turned to me. "Why don't you say here for the weekend?"
"Stay over?"
"You can be here for the barbeque. Your mother won't have to worry about you while she is worrying about the new baby."
"Oh, no. I don't think--"
She wants to 'rehearse' tomorrow, I bet," Cade said. "Right, Hannah Banana?"
"Stop calling me that. Cade." I blushed because I knew why they were always calling me that. He had once done a very nasty thing with a banana in front of me and from that day on, tagged on the nickname. Daddy was under the misapprehension it was a term of brotherly endearment. I wasn't about to explain
why that wasn't so. "Rehearsal," he muttered.
"As a matter of fact we do have a session planned for tomorrow."
Cade broke into laughter. "A session?"
Adrian smiled at me.
"You're more than welcome to stay. Hannah," Daddy said. "I'm sure the boys would like it, too." he added, sounding more like he was threatening them.
"Sure. Maybe she could sing for us, too," Cade said. "I can't stay, but thank you. Daddy. Danielle."
"All right," Daddy said, folding his napkin. "Let's adjourn to the den where we'll have some birthday cake and watch these two juvenile
delinquents unwrap some undeserved gifts."
"Did Grandmother Eaton send us something yet?"
"Of course," Daddy told them.
I had never so much as received a card, much less an actual gift from our grandmother.
"She usually spends a bundle. Last year they bought us the water jets," Adrian told me, even though he knew I knew, They so enjoyed rubbing in my grandparents' rejection of my very existence.
We rose and walked dawn the long hallway to the sitting roam Daddy referred to as a den. It had more informal furnishings, a long circular leather sofa with recliner chairs on both ends which faced an inthe-wall wide-screen television set. There was a long, rectangular glass table in front of the sofa and piled on it at the moment were t
he twin's gifts.
"These are all from the family," Daddy explained. "My parents happen to be in Cape Ferrat on the French Riviera at the moment. Your aunt Whitney and uncle Hans are in Switzerland," he told the twins, but neither seemed very interested. They were eyeing the impressive pile like ravenous wolves. "Your cousins have all sent you gifts. boys. I want you to be sure to send out thank-you cards this year, hear me?"