Chapter Five The Milk on the Stove
The door opened faster than she expected. Dr. Lin Xing stood there in a plain white T-shirt and dark jeans — the first time she had ever seen him in anything besides a white coat — and for one full second Jennie forgot every word of English she knew. Oh, she thought. Oh, that’s unfair.
That’s actually unfair. He’s not allowed to look like a normal, devastatingly attractive human being on a Sunday. There should be a form for this too. “Dr. Jennie.”
He glanced past her, toward her open door, toward the faint smell of warm milk drifting into the hallway. “Is something wrong?” “No! No, nothing’s wrong.
I just—” She gestured vaguely, aware she was still in pajamas, aware her hair looked like a small weather event. “In my family, when you move into a new home, you boil milk. And say a small prayer. It’s — it’s supposed to mean the house will be full of good things.”
He looked at her for a moment. Unreadable, as always.
“And I was going to do it alone,” she continued, because apparently her mouth had decided to keep going without consulting her, same as always, “but then I thought — well, you’re the reason I have this apartment at all, so it felt strange to bless a house you basically gave me, without you knowing about it.
Would you — I mean, only if you're free — would you like to come in?
For a minute? You don’t have to. This is a very strange request for a Sunday morning, I understand that.”
He was quiet long enough that Jennie began composing an exit strategy involving the stairwell.
Then he said, “I'd be honored,” in a tone that suggested he was slightly as surprised by the words as she was. He stepped into her apartment, removed his shoes at the door without being asked, and looked around at the half-unpacked boxes, the framed photo of her family on Varkala beach, the small table by the entrance holding her Bible and a plain white candle. “It’s a beautiful home,” he said.
“Thank you.” She turned off the stove just as the milk reached the top of the pot, a perfect white crown trembling at the rim.
Exactly on time. She chose to consider it a sign.
She poured it into two mismatched mugs — she hadn’t unpacked matching ones yet — and carried them to the small table.
“Would you mind if I prayed?” she asked.
“You don’t have to join in. You can just — stand there.
Or leave, honestly, this is very optional—’ “I don’t mind,” he said simply.
She bowed her head. He stood beside her, quiet, respectful, his hands loosely at his sides. “Dear Lord,” Jennie said, “thank You for this new home. Thank You for bringing me safely to Canada, for this work, for every child You’ve trusted me to care for.
Please fill this apartment with peace and warmth. Bless everyone who ever walks through this door.” A pause. Her voice softened.
“And thank You for the neighbor who made all this possible, even if he doesn’t know yet what he signed up for.
Amen.” Standing beside her, eyes closed out of simple courtesy, Lin Xing found himself somewhere else entirely for a moment — his mother’s kitchen, small and warm, her voice saying grace over a Sunday dinner in the same unhurried cadence, her hand finding his without looking, the way Jennie’s prayer had just found some old, quiet corner of him he hadn’t visited on purpose in a very long time.
He opened his eyes before she opened hers.
She opened her eyes to find him watching her — not with discomfort, not with impatience, but with an expression she’d never once seen on him before. Something quiet. Something almost curious, like a man encountering a piece of music he didn’t have the vocabulary to describe. She handed him a mug.
“To new beginnings,” she said. He accepted it. Held her gaze a beat longer than strictly necessary. “To new beginnings,” he agreed.
They drank the warm milk standing at her window, looking out at the grey Toronto morning, and for a few minutes neither of them said anything at all.
It was, Jennie thought, the strangest and most comfortable silence of her entire life.
“This is the first time,” Lin Xing said eventually, “I’ve witnessed a house blessing.
” “What do you usually do? When you move somewhere new?” He considered this.
“Unpack. Sleep.” “That’s it? No milk? No prayer?
No... anything?” “I’ve moved four times in my life,” he said.
“Efficiency became the tradition.” Jennie looked at him — this composed, careful, unreadable man, standing in her kitchen in a plain T-shirt, holding a mismatched mug of warm milk like he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it — and felt something in her chest twist, gently, in a direction she wasn’t ready to name.
“Well,” she said, “I hope this one was better than efficient.” He looked down at the mug. Then at her.
“It was,” he said. Quietly. Like it cost him something to admit it. “Thank you for including me.”
He finished the milk, set the mug down with exact precision, and thanked her again at the door — formal, brief, already halfway back to Dr. Lin Xing, Head of Pediatrics, the version of him the hospital knew. But just before he stepped back into his own apartment, he paused. “Dr. Jennie.” “Yes?”
“The candle.” He nodded toward the small table by her door. “And the cross. You wear one as well.”
A pause, careful, like he was choosing each word from a very limited supply. “You’re Christian.” “Baptist,” she said. “Very.
Sunday service, Wednesday Bible study, the whole arrangement. Why?” Something crossed his face — brief, unreadable, gone before she could name it. He didn’t answer right away.
The silence stretched a beat, then two, long enough that Jennie almost asked again, long enough that she watched him visibly decide something and then, just as visibly, decide against it. “No reason,” he said. “Good night, Dr. Jennie.” The door closed.
Jennie stood there in her small kitchen, two empty mugs on the counter, the last of the milk-warmth still hanging in the air, absolutely certain of exactly one thing.
That had not been no reason. That had been the sound of a very careful man deciding whether or not to say something else — and choosing, at the last possible second, not to.
Whatever it meant, she decided, standing there in her socks in her brand-new home, it could wait until morning.
Some questions were better left to answer themselves.