Rule Number Twenty-Five:
Always be prepared to make a swift exit.
I staredat Henry as I pressed the phone to my ear. “This is Dr. Aldritch.”
He dropped his hands to his hips, a fingertip tapping rhythmically against his belt as he gazed at the floor. Though I had the kitchen island between us, it was like I was still there, up against the door with his hands all over me. I couldn’t get it out of my head.
And that was a problem because I’d heard about two percent of this call. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that. Could you start over?”
“It’s Ciarra down in Emergency, Dr. Aldritch,” she said. “Your sister’s been brought in.”
“My—what? My sister’s in the ED? My sisterBrie?”
Henry jerked his head toward me, blinking for a moment before striding across the room. He settled a hand on my back. I leaned into him. I didn’t even think about it.
“Rescue brought her in about fifteen minutes ago. They’re working on her now. Looks like she collapsed and has some minor injuries from that, and her ostomy bag was filled with blood.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” I pressed a hand to my forehead.Goddammit, Brie. Not again.“Thanks for the call, Ciarra.”
“Anytime, Dr. A,” she said.
“I have to go,” I said to Henry, shoving the phone in my back pocket and grabbing my hospital ID. “My sister passed out somewhere and she seems to have some intestinal bleeding, which could be a sign of any number of serious problems, once again.”
“Yeah,” he replied, following close behind me. “I’m going with you.”
“That’s unnecessary.” I pulled the door shut with more force than required. The staircase was steep and winding, and I couldn’t focus on my stepsandargue with Henry at the same time. Not tonight. “I don’t need any help with this, but thanks. You should go home.”
When we reached the sidewalk, he said, “I’m still going with you.”
“I don’t really need another complication on my hands right now, Hazlette. My sister is more than enough.” I gave a bitter shake of my head as we walked down Temple Street. “It always goes like this too. Every few years, she forgets to take care of herself and then something catastrophic happens. She’ll end up sick for months and require lots of care, and then promise she’ll do it right this time until she ultimately starts killing herself all over again.”
Henry didn’t say anything as we crossed Cambridge Street though I could feel the gentle scrape of his glances on the side of my face. With every step down the craggy brick sidewalk, thoseglances pressed deeper, like he was pushing through all the layers separating me from the outside world. Like he was seeing the person underneath it all.
And the trouble with that was I rarely let anyone see through those layers. When I did—and Meri was the only real case study for this—it was only the result of growing a whole tree trunk of trust and faith in that person.
All I could do was wonder howHenrycame to be one of those people.
Andwhenhad that happened?
Honestly, I barely knew the man. We were relative strangers if we weren’t counting that night in Tahoe. And talking until all hours this past week. And the fact I’d just fed him my grandmother’s Hatch chile stew and I was stupidly sentimental about that recipe.
Acquaintances. Nothing more.
“How long has it been?” he asked. “That your sister has been dealing with this condition?”
“Most of her life. Diagnosed with Crohn’s disease before kindergarten. Constant hospitalizations. On and off feeding tubes for years. Then an ostomy after high school when it just progressed too far. That helped, it put more time between the serious flares, but she forgets to play the maintenance game.”
“And you’ve always been the one taking care of her.”
I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t a question,and while he wasn’t wrong, this was far from the time to dump the details of my oldest-daughter complex on him. He didn’t need to hear about me managing my sister’s medical conditions long before earning my MD or how I’d do it again in a heartbeat, always, no question about it, but I wouldn’t mind a little acknowledgment from her. That I didn’t know how to live without worrying about what would go wrong with her now. That I never hesitated to help her move and get her out of leases when she grew tired ofa certain city because I knew the upheaval would do a number on her body. That my home would always be her home, but hers was never mine. That it killed me a little bit every time she went a whole month without refilling her meds, or drank coffee—one of her biggest triggers—or stuck to a heavy rotation of everything bagels as if she’d ever had any hope of digesting seeds. That I didn’t keep score, but I lived with a lot of deep, dark questions about whether she’d crack her life wide open to save me if I ever needed it. That all of it hurt in sharp, stinging ways that I’d taught myself to ignore.
As we closed in on the back side of the hospital complex, Henry reached for my arm, stopping us under an overhang. I twisted my lanyard around my palm with my free hand. His gaze rolled over me like a storm cloud.
“Breathe for a minute,” he said. “I know you want to barrel on in there, but I need you to breathe for me before you do that. I need you to understand that I am going to hang out for a bit. I’m not going to crowd you while you do your thing, but I’m also not leaving you alone right now.”
I cinched the lanyard a little tighter. “Why are you doing this?”
He pushed some hair off my forehead and tucked it over my ear. “Because I want to keep an eye on you.”
