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“How big are these glasses?”
Alek picked at a piece of fuzz on his cast. “I don’t use a measuring cup. Bigger than a shot glass but smaller than a carton of milk.”
“You’ll have to quit the alcohol. At least for a few months. Probably longer. You’re going to have a hard enough time getting around; the last thing you need is to fall while drunk.”
“I don’t get drunk.”
“Have you quit drinking cold turkey before?”
Last January Ian challenged both of them to go an entire month without drinking. It was a scout’s honor sort of thing and Alek had considered cheating—how would Ian ever know?—but Alek was inherently competitive and it really wasn’t all that hard to abstain.
He wasn’t one of those textbook alcoholics-in-denial who insisted they didn’t have a problem and could quit any time when, in reality, they could only quit after walking up and down twelve steps for the next decade. Addiction was something too sloppy for him to allow.
“I’m not going to go into withdrawal, if that’s what you're getting at,” Alek said.
“I’m sure you understand why I have to ask.”
Alek waved a flippant hand. “It’s fine. The only opinion of myself I care about is my own.”
The doctor erupted in unrestrained laughter that certainly didn’t belong in a place of death and dying and losing one’s ability to play the piano. He watched her curiously. Was she unbalanced?
A knock sounded and Alek’s eyes snapped to the doorway, but it was just another staff member—presumably a doctor, if the white coat that hung down to his knees was any indication. He held a pair of to-go coffee cups and a large brown paper bag.
“Thank you,” Dr. Modorovic said, taking the items.
After the man left, she crossed to the abandoned piano keyboard. Alek tensed. He was in no mood to play.
Dr. Modorovic moved the keyboard from the table to the lid of a nearby laundry bin and pulled the privacy curtain to hide it from view. She rolled the table back to Alek’s bedside until it was over his lap, then placed one of the coffee cups in front of him, and began removing food from the bag.
Inside were croissants—“Chocolate hazelnut filling,” shesaid—a small carton of smoked salmon, hard-boiled eggs, pre-sliced wedges of brie cheese, and fresh blackberries. There were two servings of everything.
“What is this? Some sort of adult Lunchable?” Alek scowled. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
The doctor smiled around a mouth filled with brie. She’d sat back down in Ian’s chair and dug into the food with gusto.
“Who says I’m being nice? Maybe I’m just very hungry.”
Suspicious, Alek said nothing.
“Go ahead. I’ll put it on your tab.”
“Tell me why you’re being so nice and maybe I’ll eat.”
She wiped her mouth with a napkin. “You remind me of my cat.”
“Your cat?” Alek was nonplussed.
“Wolfie. I adopted him from the pound, but he hated me for it, like he was insulted that anyone would dare help him. Whenever I tried to pick him up, he’d tense and hiss and scratch. He’d leave for days at a time, but he’d always come back.”
Alek raised a single eyebrow, or at least he tried to. The muscles in his face felt like they were controlled by knotted marionette strings.
“You’ve inferred enough about me in the short time we’ve been together to determine I have the same temperament as your cat?”
“Your personality is,” she looked at the ceiling like maybe she’d find a suitable word up there, “strong.”
Alek tutted and plucked a blackberry from the table. It was bitingly tart. Exactly how he liked them. “Let me guess the ending… Wolfie is a fat, lazy, lap cat now?”
The doctor pushed up the sleeve on her right arm, revealing a series of angry, bright red, scabbed scratches. “These were a reward for trying to remove a burr from his paw.”
