His phone was buzzing relentlessly on the side table by his bed. What a joy it had been to be knocked out and unreachable. Zeke considered how much he would like to take his phone and hurl it out the glass window. A fastball straight into the East River.
“Want me to get that for you?” Sybil asked.
“I’m sure it’s just media,” Zeke sighed.
“What about your parents? Shouldn’t you let them know you’re in recovery?”
“I never told them the exact date,” he said. “Of the surgery,” he added in case there was any confusion.
“But Zeke,” Sybil said, astonished, “surely they’ll read about it? Surely they’ll worry?”
It was sweet, he thought, that she took it so personally. Like one of her own kids could leave her in the dark. No wonder she was nosing around Betty’s business.
“That’s why I tell them after the fact. When there’s good news, so theydon’tneed to worry.”
Sybil pressed her lips together, and Zeke thought this was her tell. He was decoding her in a way that he never even figured out the women he was sleeping with or dating. His phone vibrated again, and she raised her eyebrows.
“Fine, okay,” he said. “You can look.”
She reached for her glasses tucked into the neck of her sweater and scrolled.
“No, no, hmmm, I think this is your agent? No, no, delete, delete.” She rested his phone back down. “You’re right. Busywork.”
“You’re extremely efficient.”
“Have you met me?”
“Yes.” Zeke smiled. “Type A plus plus.”
“A compliment,” she said, and smiled.
Zeke laughed, and his entire body hurt. “Ow, fuck.”
“Okay, you’re my patient now,” Sybil said, jumping to her feet. She adjusted his pillow, and he sank his head back on it. For a brief moment, he was too aware of the rise and fall of his chest, the way that she distracted him from his pain. He stilledand stared at the wall, and she tucked him into a little burrito swaddle with the sheets.
“Just tell me how the surgery went,” he said. “Rip off the Band-Aid.”
A long silence bubbled between them.
“Sometimes I think—” she started, then stopped.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Whatever you need to say, I can handle it. I realize I may have to come up with a plan B.”
Sybil’s eyes welled, like his pain was her pain, or maybe that she didn’t want to deal with her own plan B. Both probably. He reached his good arm toward her to grasp her hand. She interlaced her fingers into his and squeezed, and he squeezed back. Like they were drifting so far from where they’d imagined they’d be in life right now, but if they were knotted together, maybe they could survive the undertow.
“Sometimes I think,” she said, her voice catching, “that we don’t believe we’re capable of difficult things because we’ve never been tested. And no one wants to be tested. Why would we ever want to be tested? But if you tell yourself you can’t, you really don’t know until you do it.”
“You would have made a very good doctor,” he replied. “You have an excellent bedside manner.”
“Two things are true: One, I would have made an exceptional doctor. But two, you’re going to be okay, Zeke. Whatever happens next, you’re going to be okay.” She cleared her throat. “Plan B sometimes ends up being so much better than plan A, you know?”
“Sybil Foster, you definitely do not believe that.”
“I’m working on believing it,” she said.
“The only way through is through,” Zeke said, which reminded him of his high school coach who used to say that allthe time. When his arm was throbbing from relentless practice, when he couldn’t throw a strike to save his life, when he got so nervous for the MLB scouting practice that he sat on the toilet the entire twenty-four hours before.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, patting his leg.
