“See how smart I am? Since you’re sick and not coming into work anyway.”
“Would you prefer that I—?” Face to elbow again for another round of sneezing.
I really wanted to wash my hands. I stood.
“No. I do not want you at work. You’ll get germs everywhere, and you look gross.”
“I— What?”
“Everyone looks gross when they have a head cold.”
“I am hardly gross. Are you familiar with decomposition, Delaney? Intimately familiar? With decomposition? With things that have rotted down to a primordial ooze? The ending of organic life?”
“Like old cucumbers in my refrigerator?”
He blinked, and almost, almost smiled.
“I am not a vegetable.” He sniffed and laid his head back on the cushion.
“Right, so I’m going to make you chicken soup. You need lots of liquids. Tea or water?”
“Tea. With honey and lemon. Please.”
There was a hint of something in that request, almost laughter, almost fondness. He was enjoying this. A little too much.
“Well, you’re getting water first.” I stood, took a wild guess at which direction the kitchen lay, found it beyond a small, but well-appointed, dining area.
The kitchen was less modern than the living room. The walls were covered with white-washed wood cabinets that had hand-painted tulips, irises, and some sort of herb that might be rosemary etched across the corners. The little drawings added a feeling of spring, of living, growing things.
There were real flowers here, too, and other plants—herbs poking up along the window sill, pots of succulents, and a spray of orchids. Some kind of vine crawled up the molding near the ceiling, and a pot in the corner held blossomless sunflowers that were almost as tall as I was.
I opened doors, pulled out a glass tumbler, filled it with water from the door of the fridge, and carried it back into the living room.
Than hadn’t moved.
“This is unpleasant, isn’t it?” he said.
“What? Life?” I came around in front of him, opened the box of cold tablets, and dropped two in the water.
They fizzed medicinal lemon tang into the air.
“No, a head cold.”
“Yeah, they’re no fun. But it will be over soon.”
“Quite like life, then.”
I sat on the coffee table again. I couldn’t tell if the conversation had just turned dark, or if the subject of mortality was his go-to comfort convo when he was sick.
“Colds end sooner than a lifetime.”
“Within the hour, I should hope.”
“More like four or five days.”
“How disappointing.”
“Here, don’t be sad.”
