Sylvie
When he wakes up, I reheat him a bowl.
“Can you hold it okay?” I ask him, looking at his cast. “Is that your dominant arm?”
“Yeah, unfortunately.”
We stare at the soup for a minute.
“This is about to be really embarrassing for me,” he says, “isn’t it.”
“I mean, what are our options here?”
“I could drink it like a cat.”
“Like, lapping it up? I feel like that would burn your tongue—”
“I didn’t say it was a good option. Just one option.”
“Okay. That’s one option.”
“Another option,” he says, warming up to it, “is we teach Winslow to feed it to me.”
“Winslow?”
“Yep.”
“I feel like it would make more sense if I did it, seeing as I have thumbs.”
“You are not,” he says feelingly, “feeding me soup.”
I put my hands up in surrender. “What’s option three?”
“We get a really thick straw, and—”
“Okay,” I say, standing up. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to stick a spoon in your left hand. You’ll kind of cradle the bowl with your right. And you’re going to feed it to yourself and it can be sloppy and gross and weird because I’m going to turn around while you eat it.”
Knox looks at me seriously for a minute. “Okay.”
“Okay.” I face the other direction.
“Don’t turn back around.”
“I’m not turning back around.”
“Oh my God,” he says, making a sound in his throat. “This soup is so good.” There is a slurping sound, and it’s so cartoon-y that I laugh.
“I have some gluten-free crackers,” I say, starting to stand, “if you want—”
“I want you to not turn around,” he says. “Are you—celiac? Or whatever?”
“No. Why? The crackers?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I just didn’t know if you were.”
“I might be. Who knows,” he says. “I don’t think it’s the kind of thing I’d know.”
Silence. Slurping.
“Why?” I ask.
“A broken arm’s the only kind of thing that gets me to the doctor. My—mom hasn’t been much into that stuff.”
“Where is she now?”
“Traveling.”
“Sorry if I’m asking a lot of questions.”
“I’m sorry I’m not,” he says. “I’m communing with this soup.”
I hear his spoon hit the bottom of the bowl.
“Can I get you anything else?” I ask, popping to my feet.
“Hey,” he says, “easy—I don’t need anything else. I have a lot more right now than I’ve had in a while.”
“I have some cupcakes I made—”
“Stop,” he says, and puts out his hand. “Two things. You don’t need to be my waiter, or my nurse, or anything. You’ve done a whole lot more for me in the last few hours than—it’s just been a while. I just want to hang out and listen to this weird radio show and watch it rain with you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good.”
“That’s one thing. What’s the second thing?”
“Can we do all that,” he asks, “while eating a metric ton of those cupcakes?”
“Totally,” I tell him, and I’m grinning like an idiot.
“Did you make them from a box mix?”
“Yeah, I don’t have a ton of room for raw ingredients and—”
“With the icing from a can?”
“Yeah,” I say, “sorry—”
But Knox is lifting his eyes to the ceiling. “I have died,” he announces, “and gone to heaven.”