Chapter 78. Care-Package delivery
Chapter 78. Care-Package delivery
The day after Alice and Boris left, Mom declared I was officially on “light duty only.” Translation: couch, tea, and the remote. The fever had broken to a dull simmer—99-point-something—but my energy hovered at rain-puddle depth. Mom banned textbooks, banned streaming binges longer than two episodes, even tried to ban phone scrolling until I reminded her that memes were basically the only vitamin keeping my brain alive.
So Wednesday found me cocooned on the living-room couch with a fleece blanket branded Brooklyn Botanical Reserve (souvenir from last year’s field trip) and a mug of ginger-lemon tea. “Light duty only,” Mom had decreed, which meant I could migrate from bed to couch if I promised not to faint en route. She’d left for a grocery run, trusting that Serge would do periodic “breathing checks.” (He did, from a ten-foot distance, as though my heartbreak were contagious.)
I was half-watching an old MythBusters episode about whether yawns are contagious when my phone buzzed across my thigh.
Lara Voss — the contact icon she’d set for herself was a microscopic cross-section of mold hyphae. Appropriate.
Lara: Heard you were out sick. No pressure, but I’m passing your block on the way home. Can drop bio notes + moral-support soup. If doorbells hurt your head, I’ll just leave it on the stoop.
I stared at the screen. Lara’s usual flirtatious sparkle was stripped down to something… gentle. Practical. No winky face. No how about I nurse you back to health, wink-wink.
Just bullet-point kindness.
Before I could decide how to answer, an e-mail banner slid across the top of my phone:
To: AP Biology – Mrs. Kline
From: Lara Voss
Subject: Data continuity for Emma Turner
Hi Ms. K.
Emma’s been running a fever; I’m happy to log growth measurements for our rye trial so the dataset stays intact.
She’ll verify numbers once she’s back.
—L.V.
She’d CC’d me. Under the brief note was a neat spreadsheet template already half-filled with dates. A second buzz: new text.
Lara: Promise I’m not forging numbers—just making sure the experiment doesn’t denature before you’re back on your feet.
I felt an unexpected warmth uncurl in my chest. No flirt emojis, no sly invitations. Just… care.
The contrast to Irene’s last communication—a single meme of a cat clinging to a ceiling fan, delivered three days ago and never followed by text—hit me like the cold side of the pillow. Lara’s message expected nothing back except maybe a health update; Irene’s silence expected me to…what, decode her feelings via GIF frequency?
Mom’s key rattled in the lock. “Delivery on the porch,” she called before the door even closed behind her.
“Not mine,” I croaked.
“Has your name on it.”
She set a brown lunch sack on the coffee table—folded neatly, no glitter hearts—and returned to unpack groceries. Wrapped in a brown lunch sack were a pint of matzo-ball soup still warm, rubber-banded shut, two pages of lecture notes with laser-precise handwriting and tiny zip-bag of rye seeds labeled feel better in Sharpie.
No perfume cloud, no post-it hearts. Just efficient kindness.
“Who’s the soup fairy?” Sergey asked from the hall.
“Lab partner,” I said, warmth in my cheeks that wasn’t fever. “Apparently quinoa can wait, but rye can’t.”
He grunted—his version of approval—and disappeared.
I messaged back:
Me: Soup is a 10/10 germ fighter. Thank you. PS: you didn’t have to e-mail Kline, but I appreciate the save.
Her reply was almost instantaneous.
Lara: Symbiosis, right? Mycelia flourish when networks stay intact. Heal up. The petri dishes are chanting your name.
I laughed—first genuine laugh since Alice’s visit. Then a strange guilt fluttered: Irene hadn’t checked on me once, unless you count the unread meme buried under group-chat spam. One side offered calm, catechized care; the other side offered silence (or storms when silence cracked).
I sipped soup, the dill and chicken broth easing the scratch in my throat, and tried not to translate kindness into consequence. Lara wasn’t swooping; she was steadying the experiment, steadying me. And steady suddenly felt wonderful—like dry socks after rain.
Mid-afternoon sunlight angled through the blinds, dust motes drifting like lazy plankton. I sipped broth and scrolled up through my thread with Irene. Last outgoing from me: “Made it home.”
Delivered, never read.