Chapter Eighteen Two Weeks, Two Continents
The email arrived on a Thursday, and Jennie read it four times before she believed it.
Congratulations, Dr. Jennie — following your outstanding performance during your fellowship year, we are pleased to confirm your appointment as a permanent Staff Pediatrician at St. Maple University Hospital, effective at the completion of your current rotation.
She stared at the screen so long that Sophia had to physically wave a hand in front of her face.
“Earth to Jennie. What’s happening. Your face is doing something.
” “I got it,” Jennie said, voice unsteady.
“The permanent position. I got it.” Sophia shrieked loud enough that two nurses came running, assuming an emergency, and found instead a small, joyful chaos of hugging and disbelief that took a solid ten minutes to sort itself out.
The second piece of news arrived that same week, though it had been building for months — a call from her mother, tearful and insistent, that it had been far too long since Jennie had come home.
“Your cousin’s engagement is next month,” her mother said, “and your grandmother keeps asking when you'll visit, and Jennie, I know you're building your life there, but we are building our life here without you, and it is not the same.” Jennie sat with the guilt of that a beat too long. Six years. Six years of video calls and rushed holiday messages and a homesickness she’d gotten so good at hiding she sometimes forgot it was there at all. “I’ll come,” she said. “Two weeks. Vl ask for leave.”
She told Lin Xing that evening, over dinner at her apartment, watching his face carefully for a reaction she couldn’t quite predict.
“Two weeks,” he repeated. “Starting when?” “Next Saturday.” He was quiet for a moment, turning his fork slowly, and Jennie recognized the particular stillness that meant he was working hard to keep something contained.
“That’s good,” he said finally. “You should see your family. It’s been too long.
” “You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.
” A small, rueful almost-smile. “Is it that obvious?” “A little.” He set down his fork.
“I’ll miss you. That’s all. It’s not a complicated feeling.
I simply haven’t had much practice saying it out loud.
” Jennie’s chest ached, warm and full at once.
“You’re getting better at it. The practice, I mean. ” “I have a good teacher.”
The morning she left, he insisted on driving her to the airport, loading her suitcases into his car with the same careful precision he brought to everything, refusing to let her carry anything heavier than her purse.
At the departures curb, they stood for a moment in the cold morning air, neither quite ready to say the actual goodbye.
“Text me when you land,” he said. “Even if it’s the middle of the night here.
” “I will.” “And eat something other than airline food. I know how you get.” “Yes, Doctor.” She smiled up at him, and something in her chest tightened unexpectedly at the thought of two weeks without the hallway, without the balcony, without the small, quiet rituals they’d built without ever naming them.
“I’ll be back before you know it.” “Two weeks feels considerably longer than it used to,” he admitted, quiet.
“Since when?” “Since approximately three months ago.” He held her gaze, something warm and unguarded there.
“I’ve noticed time behaves differently around you.
It moves too fast when you’re here. Too slow when you’re not.
I don’t have a clinical explanation for it. ” Jennie’s breath caught. “Lin—’
“Your flight,” he said gently, nodding toward the terminal, the moment slipping away before either of them could chase it further. “Go. Before I say something we don’t have time to finish properly.”
She hugged him — quick, warm, entirely too brief — and turned toward the terminal doors, heart hammering, replaying his words the entire way through security.
It moves too fast when you’re here. Too slow when you’re not.
She thought about it on the plane, somewhere over the Atlantic, unable to sleep despite the exhaustion of an overnight flight.
She thought about it in Kochi, hugging her mother at the airport, home and homesick simultaneously in a way she’d forgotten was possible.
She thought about it especially on the ninth day, standing in a jewelry shop in her hometown with her cousin, half-heartedly browsing while they waited for the tailor to finish alterations on the engagement outfit.
A simple platinum ring caught her eye — elegant, understated, nothing flashy about it at all.
She picked it up without entirely deciding to, turned it over in her hands, and thought, with a clarity that startled her: this reminds me of him.
She bought it before she could talk herself out of it, tucked it into the bottom of her handbag, and told herself it meant nothing.
A pretty object. A whim. She didn’t examine, too closely, why her hands were shaking as she paid.
Back at St. Maple, the ward had gone noticeably quieter without her — quieter than anyone expected, and quieter than anyone commented on except Sophia, who noticed everything and rarely kept it to herself.
“He’s barely eating lunch,” she reported to Emma on day six, watching Lin Xing sit alone in the cafeteria, a sandwich untouched in front of him.
“And he keeps slowing down outside 1202 in the evenings. Like he’s forgotten she’s not there.
” “Give him a minute,” Emma said. “He’s figuring something out.
” “He’s figuring it out very slowly.” “He’s a careful man.
Careful men take their time.” A small boy from the ward, passing by with his physiotherapist, tugged on Lin Xing’s coat that same afternoon.
“Where’s Dr. Jennie?” he asked. “She promised she’d draw dinosaurs with me.
” Lin Xing knelt down, managing a small, genuine smile for the boy despite everything.
“She’s visiting her family. Far away. She’ll be back soon. ”
“Tell her I miss her.” “I will,” Lin Xing said, and something in his voice, quiet as it was, carried more weight than the boy could have known. So do I, he thought, watching the child run off. More than I expected to.
Fourteen days after she left, Jennie’s flight touched down in Toronto at just past six in the evening, and she came through the arrivals gate exhausted, jet-lagged, and grinning the moment she spotted him waiting exactly where he’d promised he would be.
“You came.” “Of course I came.” He took her suitcase before she could argue, studying her face like he was checking for something.
“You look tired.” “I am tired. Wonderfully, thoroughly tired.” She smiled up at him.
“I missed you. More than I expected to, honestly.” Something in his expression shifted — warm, relieved, undone in a way she’d rarely seen from him.
“I missed you too,” he said simply. No hedge.
No careful clinical framing. Just the plain truth, offered without armor for the first time since she’d known him.
Jennie’s whole chest went warm. Somewhere at the very bottom of her carry-on bag, wrapped in an old scarf, sat a small velvet box she still hadn’t worked out what to do with.
For tonight, it could stay exactly where it was.