Chapter 34 Sick
MIA
Caleb got sick on a Wednesday and I found out at seven in the morning when my phone buzzed with a text that said I think I have something. I read it while standing at the kitchen window with my coffee and translated it immediately into its actual meaning, which was I am sick but I am going to call it something else because calling it sick feels like admitting defeat.
I texted back: Define something.
He replied: Sore throat. Headache. Slight fever. I am completely fine.
I replied: You are not fine. A fever is a fever regardless of how slight you describe it. Tell Coach you are staying home.
He replied: I have a skate at ten.
I replied: You are not skating with a fever. You will get the whole team sick the week before the quarterfinals and Coach will have words.
He replied: It is a very slight fever.
I put my phone in my pocket.
I showed up at Eli’s apartment at nine with a pharmacy bag and a container of soup Mom had made the night before and a thermometer because I did not trust Caleb’s definition of slight even slightly.
Eli opened the door.
He is on the couch, Eli said. He has been very brave about the whole thing.
I can hear you, Caleb said from the other room.
Eli gave me a look that communicated everything.
I went in.
Caleb was on the couch in sweats and a hoodie, a blanket not quite covering him, his phone resting on his chest, and the expression of someone who had decided he was fine approximately forty minutes before his body overruled that decision. He looked at the pharmacy bag, then the soup container, then me.
I said I was fine, he said.
You said it four times in one text conversation, I said. That is how I knew you were not.
I set the bag on the coffee table and took out the thermometer. I held it toward him and he took it without arguing, which was more diagnostic information than the reading itself.
One hundred and one point four.
I held it up.
That is a fever, I said.
I am aware, he said.
You said slight.
It is slightly above a hundred, he said. Which technically qualifies as
Caleb.
He pulled the blanket higher.
I heated the soup in Eli’s microwave and brought it back, then sat in the chair across from the couch and watched him eat it slowly. He did not complain about anything, which was unusual enough to feel concerning in a different way. He just ate.
Your mom made this, he said after a while.
Yes.
She did not have to do that.
She wanted to, I said. She likes you. You know that.
I know. He set the bowl down. I like her too.
He was quiet for a moment.
My father used to say that sitting out meant falling behind, he said. That someone was always working when you were not and the gap was always growing. He looked at the ceiling. He said it when I was eleven the first time I had to miss practice with a fever and I have never been able to get it out of my head.
I looked at him.
Then we take it out, I said. Today. By sitting out a skate with a fever and having it mean absolutely nothing about your worth or your future. It is a skate, Caleb. There will be another one tomorrow.
He was quiet.
You are going to be a very good nurse, he said.
I know, I said.
He almost smiled.
The fever broke overnight.
Thursday morning he texted me from the skate.
Told you I was fine.
I replied: You are only fine because you rested and you know it.
He replied: I rested because you would not leave.
I replied: You are welcome.
He replied: Thank you, Mia. Actually. Thank you.
I put the phone in my pocket and smiled at nothing in particular.
My phone buzzed again before I could move.
Mom: Hamilton Regional called. They want to interview you for the nursing program. Next Thursday. The accelerated oncology track specifically.
I sat down without checking what I was sitting on.
Next Thursday, I read again.
The nursing program interview I had been preparing for since September and dreading since October and not letting myself think about too specifically because thinking about it too specifically felt like jinxing something.
Next Thursday.
I typed back: When did they call.
Mom: Ten minutes ago. I wrote down the name and number.
I stared at the screen.
Everything was actually happening at the same time.
That was either the best possible thing or the most overwhelming possible thing or both.
I sat there for a moment, breathing, letting it all exist together without trying to sort it into something easier.