“I’ve got some idea.”
“Let me say how sorry I am, about before you left. About that text message. I’ve been thinking, and—”
“Will,” she interrupted, pushing his hair back from his brow. “Let’s not talk about it here, okay? Not in a hospital.”
Will blinked, his brow furrowing, like he couldn’t imagine why a hospital wasn’t a perfectly fine place to have any sort of conversation at all, but then he nodded and said, “Right, yeah. That makes sense. You must want to see Marian and Emily, and I can go check—”
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she blurted desperately, because shewas, and also because she hated the way he’d looked when he’d said that—cautious and maybe even a little scared. She moved to grab his hand, to link their fingers together, to reassure him in the same way she wanted to feel reassured—not just about Jonah, but about her relationship with Will. Her future with Will.
For hours she hadn’t thought about it at all, not really; from the minute he’d called her she could only think about getting back, about Jonah and whether he would be well. She’d clung to each of Will’s updates like a lifeline, but she hadn’t thought much beyond that, hadn’t thought about how they’d left things before she’d gone—Will telling her it was too much, Will telling her he didn’t want anything serious.
But now that she was standing here with him like this, she clung to other things: the way he’d called off work, hustling to get information from and about the doctors who were treating Jonah, the way he’d stayed with her neighbors and kept calm and responsible and practical for them all. She clung to the concern etched into every line of his face, to the wrinkles in his shirt and the hospital badge clipped at the waistband of his jeans. She clung to the way he’d done all this for her and her neighbors, the way he’d taken this all so seriously. He’d been so . . . soloyalto her, and to the people she cared so much about.
She thought of Dee last night—Had that only been last night?—asking whether she’d be okay, if Will didn’t come around. If Will didn’t want anything serious.
Now, though, after the day she’d had, after the things he’d done—that question felt ridiculous, insignificant.
Of course he would come around.
Of course he knew this was serious.
“I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” he said.
“Let me get down there and see this food you brought me. Check in with Marian and Emily.”
Will nodded and loosened his grip, untangling their fingers and moving to tuck his hands into his pockets.
Before he could hide them both away, she caught his hand again, relinking their fingers and setting her other hand back onto her suitcase, rolling it to her side. She looked up at him, a question in her eyes, and his eyes softened, his hand tightening around hers again in answer.There, she thought, a weight lifting.There, that’s settled.He kept hold of her as he shifted, gently moving her other hand off her suitcase and rolling it toward himself instead.
“I’m not going to have Marian and Emily see you carrying your own bag,” he said sheepishly, and she felt her eyes well again, relief and happiness mixed in with all her worry and nerves.
If Marian and Emily were surprised to see Will and Nora walk into the family waiting room hand in hand, neither of them showed it; in fact, if anyone was surprised, it was Nora herself. Months ago, when Nonna had been here, Emily had visited once, pale and shaken, stressed enough that Nora had reassured her repeatedly that it was okay for her to stay home. Now she sat beside Marian, a circle of needlepoint in her lap, her expression not quite calm but not nearly as tense and scared as Nora would have expected. Nora let go of Will’s hand to cross the room to them, greeting them each with a hug and an apology.
“You’ve got no reason to be sorry,” said Marian. “How would you be able to predict when Jonah doesn’t pick up after himself!”
Nora smiled, because that was really just like Marian. For however long it took Jonah to heal, she’d be giving him a lecture every single day.
“I wish I would have been here, though.”
Emily patted Nora’s arm. “He knew you were coming. We told him before they took him to surgery.”
“Anyway, I don’t see what help you would’ve been!” said Marian. “You know who helped is that young man across the hall.”
Nora furrowed her brow, and Will cleared his throat. She looked over to where he stood, his hands back in his pockets. “My tenant. He’s a fourth-year medical student.”
“Right,” Nora said, remembering now. “I forgot.”
“He was very calm for a person so young. I believe he means to be like your Will here. An emergency physician.”
Nora flushed at the phrase:your Will. Obviously, there’d been the hand-holding, and even before that, Nora and Will’s more lax approach to the secrecy of this whole thing. But looking at Marian and Emily now, she wondered if she ought to make some kind of . . . statement? Saying something out loud, though—was that too much, given that she and Will hadn’t had their promised conversation?
But Emily saved the moment, speaking first. “I might’ve noticed him come by some evenings. I only mentioned it to Marian.”
“I mentioned it to everyone else,” Marian said, wholly unashamed. “Corrine is thrilled, I’ll have you know. It’s taken her a lot of effort not to say anything.”
Nora cringed, embarrassed. Probably she’d seen them the night they’d come back from Garfield Park. She should’ve said something sooner.
Emily placidly worked her needlepoint. “I’ll tell you he’s hard to miss when he’s carrying a seven-foot pole up the walkway at almost ten o’clock at night.”
