“Go… away,” Heinz said feebly, waving his hands. “Shoo.”
Kerry found herself moving forward. She touched the old man’s forehead even as he recoiled at her touch.
“You’ve got a raging fever,” she said. “Have you had any medicine? Eaten or had anything to drink?”
He gestured toward the other side of the room, which held a narrow iron bed and a small nightstand on which stood an empty cardboard ramen cup and a bottle of water.
“I’m fine,” he rasped, before seizing up with a fit of hacking coughs that left him doubled over and gasping for breath.
Kerry looked over her shoulder at Patrick. “He needs a doctor.”
“No, no,” Heinz protested. “A little cold is all.”
“Our neighbor, Abby Oliver, is a pediatrician,” Patrick said. “She’s Austin’s doctor. I saw her this morning. Maybe she could…”
“Call her and ask her to come over, please,” Kerry said. She noticed Austin, who was edging closer to his father, wanting to help, but clearly terrified at Heinz’s state of distress.
“Better yet, why don’t you and Austin go fetch her. I’ll stay here with Heinz.”
“No doctor,” Heinz said. “I refuse.”
“It’s either that or I call nine-one-one and have you taken to theemergency room,” Kerry said. “Have you ever been in an emergency room over the holidays? I have.”
“Just leave me be,” Heinz said wearily, closing his eyes and slumping back against the chair.
“I think he should be in bed. Don’t you think he should be in bed?” Patrick asked. Without waiting for Kerry’s reply, he reached down and gently helped the old man to his feet, and basically carried him over to the bed. He plumped up the single wafer-thin pillow, and pulled the sheet and blanket up, tucking them under Heinz’s chin.
“He really feels hot,” Patrick whispered as he passed Kerry. He held out his hand to his son. “C’mon, buddy. Let’s go get Dr. Abby.”
Kerry looked around the apartment. It was neat, with clothes hung on pegs, shoes tucked under the chair Heinz had just vacated, but otherwise totally devoid of personal effects. Her closet at home was bigger. There was a kitchenette, with a tiny two-burner electric stove, an under-counter refrigerator, a sink, and a cupboard. She found a canister of tea, and a mug, and set a kettle to boil on the stove.
In the bathroom, she found a bottle of aspirin. She dampened a towel with cold water and placed it on Heinz’s head and bullied him into swallowing the aspirin with some water. When the water was ready, she made tea in the single mug she found in the cupboard, stirring it with one of two spoons.
“Sip this, please,” she told him. He sighed and turned his head away, but Kerry was undeterred. She reached for his wrist and examined his hand. The skin was pale and unusually shriveled. Her father’s skin had looked the same, last winter, after a bout of flu, when she and Birdie had carted him off to his doctor, much to his displeasure.
“You’re dehydrated,” she said bluntly. “Drink the tea. Or would you prefer to be hooked up to a machine to get IV fluids?”
“You should mind your own business,” he said, in between coughs. “I take care of myself. Nobody asked you to interfere.”
“Why is it so cold in here?”
“Why are you so bossy?”
She spied a blanket folded on the back of the chair and tucked it around him. “Don’t you have heat?”
“Not much insulation in these old walls. And I don’t care to be hot.”
Kerry dragged the chair over to the bed and sat down. “Keep drinking the tea. Do you have any crackers or anything like food in this place?”
“I eat out. Food brings bugs, and I despise bugs.”
She circled the room, looking for a thermostat, and shivered when she found it was set at sixty-two degrees, even though the temperature in the apartment was probably hovering in the low forties.
Finally, she heard the clanking of the freight elevator, and a moment later, Patrick and a young woman dressed casually in yoga pants and a hoodie burst into the room. Kerry recognized her as someone she’d frequently noticed around the neighborhood.
Heinz, struggling to sit up, regarded the newcomer with undisguised disdain. “Who is this girl?”
“I’m Dr. Oliver,” the woman said. She pulled a stethoscope from her jacket pocket, rubbed the stem in the palm of her hand to warm it up, and bent over the old man. “I’m a board-certified doctor, and I’m going to listen to your chest now.” She pushed aside the fabric of his robe.
