Chapter 11
Russell
After Jules and I got off the phone, I pulled up the email I’d originally prepared when I thought she would say yes to this in my office.
It contains a list of the events I’ll need her around for, and details of what the arrangement includes.
That I’ll propose to her in front of others, and that, of course, she’ll have to say yes.
First, we need a public date. Helpful for people to see us together, and also a chance for us to talk before the gala, get to know one another. For her to make clear what her other negotiations are.
I pull up outside her building, the engine purring as I slow and slide easily into a street parking spot. Somehow, they always seem to be open for me.
Jules’ apartment building is a classic looking brick cube, the kind of no-nonsense buildings that either survived the 1871 fire or were constructed in light of it. Something not made out of wood. Something that wouldn’t topple quite so easily under a wall of flames.
The outside is a weathered tannish-red, with a grid of double-hung French windows and a network of fire escapes trickling down the side of the building. I stare up at them and wonder which one might take me to Jules’ window.
Just as I’m climbing out of the car, my phone buzzes with a text.
Jules: Sorry to do this, but I have to cancel.
Jules: Gus is sick (a cold, not his heart. I think).
Jules: We’ll have to rain check, let me check my schedule for next week and get back to you on it. Sorry again. I’m still good for the gala, though.
I stare down at the texts. If this was a different woman, or a different situation, I might assume this was a last-minute decision about me, and not wanting to go on the date. But Jules and I are not really dating.
Which means Gus is really sick.
A cold, she said.
His heart condition isn’t life-threatening, at least not now. It’s not an immune thing, so a cold shouldn’t be that big of a deal.
As long as it doesn’t escalate into anything worse.
I stand outside my car, hesitating. When I glance up and down the street, I see both a deli and a drug store, and my decision is made for me.
It takes only twenty minutes for me to pick out electrolyte drinks and children’s medicine—that doesn’t conflict with his current prescriptions—at the drug store, and pick up a carton of chicken noodle soup at the deli, along with a few salads and sandwiches for Jules.
As I climb the steps up to her apartment, the deli bag in my arms, my mind bounces between Jules and Gus. The idea of that little boy being sick grates on me, makes me want to do something about it.
Likely because I can see how overwhelmed Jules is. Because I’m a pediatrician, and it’s literally my job to take care of kids.
I have to shift the bags to the side to knock on her door. The apartment number she gave me when I said I would come up to get her, rather than picking her up on the street.
We might be faking this thing, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have any manners.
When Jules opens the door, she says, “Seriously, Ettie, I don’t want you to get si—”
But the words cut off when she sees me standing there.
For a moment, we just look at each other.
She’s wearing a pair of pajama pants with Oscar the Grouch on them, and a shirt that’s so thin it clings to her chest. Her nipples press joyfully against the words there—Boston University—and I have to tear my eyes away from them, looking back at her face.
Her gaze skips down to the bags in my hands.
“I brought soup,” I say, as evenly as I can, even with how the sight of her like this—soft and undone, how she must look when she’s relaxing at home—is doing to me. “And Motrin. I was hoping I could come in and take a look at him. Just to make sure everything’s okay.”
Jules hesitates, and I add, “On the house, of course,” which makes her laugh and open the door.
“Sorry, it’s a mess in here,” she says, clearing her throat and swiping some mail from the counter.
It’s a small apartment, but cozy. The opposite of my place, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and concrete floors.
Standing at the front door, I’m bracketed by the kitchen on my left, which has a breakfast bar, and the living room on my right.
The living room is a small space, really just a couch, coffee table, and TV all lined up in order.
From the front door, I could reach out and touch the back of the couch.
And, from here, I can see into what must be Gus’s room, one of those French windows letting in dim light that reflects off the building across the street, the offices above the drug store.
There are several toys on the floor, a poster of an anatomically correct dinosaur on the wall.
A green and blue duvet that’s pulled half onto the floor, clothes strewn, a single tiny sock right in the threshold.
My mind itches with curiosity about Jules’ bedroom. It must be around the corner, down the hallway between the kitchen and the stacked washer and dryer set into the wall.
“Gus,” Jules says softly, rounding the couch and leaning down, her hand reaching out for something.
When I move closer, I see her running her fingers through the boy’s hair, and for the first time he turns and looks up at me.
Slightly flushed, his dark hair damp with sweat.
“Dr. Burch is here, and he’s going to take a look at you and make sure you’re not too sick. ”
If he thinks it’s weird to see his cardiologist standing in his living room, he doesn’t show it.
“Hi,” he rasps, giving me a weak smile. His face is flushed, his cheek even darker with a red mark from resting it against the coffee table. On the TV, dogs bound around on the screen, one of them spraying water and shouting.
“Hi,” I say, waiting for my professional voice to take over. Any time I’m working with kids in the hospital, I almost get into character. Your friendly neighborhood pediatric heart surgeon, with a gentle voice and goofy smile. But that doesn’t quite happen.
For some reason, talking to Gus feels different, and I go on, “I heard you weren’t feeling good?”
Gus’s brow wrinkles, and he coughs, “I’m feeling bad,” he says, his eyes a bit unfocused. “Mommy doesn’t know if I’m good.”
I raise my eyebrows and look at Jules, who shakes her head and runs a hand through her hair, which only accentuates the nipple problem. My eyes drop to her chest almost of their own accord, and I see her cheeks flush.
“I’ll be right back,” she whispers, crossing her arms over her chest and glancing at Gus. “And that is out of context. I think you are very good, Gus.”
When Jules disappears down the hallway between the tiny laundry room and the kitchen—I must have been right about the location of her bedroom—I make myself busy taking out the soup and supplies. I stash some of the electrolyte drinks in the fridge, pull out Popsicles and set them in the freezer.
This should feel less comfortable than it does. Me in her apartment, having really only just met her. But there’s something…familiar about everything here. Deja vu. Like in another life, this might have been my apartment, and Jules and Gus might have been my family.
I pause, running my fist over my chin and trying to erase that strange feeling.
“What is that?” a voice asks, and I look down to see Gus standing next to the counter, pointing at the chicken noodle soup.
His dark hair is a mess, and one leg of his pajamas is hiked up around his knee.
Without thinking, I bend down and tug on the cuff, so it falls right back down to his ankle.
Gus doesn’t even flinch, just accepting the movement like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Do you like chicken noodle soup?” I ask, straightening up. Gus nods. “Would you like some?” Gus nods again, and together we find a bowl and spoon—plastic ones, which I assume are for him—and I dish him up a serving.
Deli soup is a tradition from when I was a kid. My dad was a shit cook and couldn’t bring us to the hospital when we were sick. So, he’d disappear and return with plastic containers of chicken noodle from the deli down the street, insisting we eat nothing but that until we were better.
Since then, I’ve read a few scientific articles about soup. Easy to digest, bone broths with sufficient nutrients. Hydrating. It only makes sense, from a medical standpoint, why it would help.
But I suspect it has something to do with the comfort, too. Associating the smell and taste of it with getting better.
Gus climbs up onto a stool and takes small, careful bites, blowing on the spoon in a manner that reminds me of Jules, and tells me he’s copying her, making sure his food isn’t too hot.
“Sorry about that,” Jules says, bustling back into the kitchen, now in a pair of sweatpants, a thicker t-shirt, and a bra. I feel a pang of regret and push it away.
While Gus eats, I take his temperature with a forehead test, and it comes back only slightly high. Jules fetches his water bottle from the living room and fills it for him, and together she and I watch him eat the soup while Jules tells me about his symptoms.
Light cough, and a low fever. Scratchy throat. She was right—it sounds just like a cold. Gus can’t get the flu shot because of his heart, and every year it terrifies her that he’s going to catch it, and that his heart condition will make it even worse.
“For now, I think you should hold off on any medicine,” I say, eyes flicking to the Motrin on the counter. “It doesn’t look like influenza to me. Later, if he’s having trouble sleeping, I’d give it to him, but otherwise it’s good to let the fever do its job.”
Gus finishes his soup and returns to the living room, and Jules whispers, “This is the first thing he’s had all day. I can’t believe he ate for you so easily.”
It shouldn’t fill me with pride, the fact that he liked the deli soup. It’s not like I cooked it. But, still, there’s a sense of having done something right that I can’t shake.