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Would she rewind her life by two weeks if she had the chance, eliminate the incident in the alley so that she and Roman had never officially met?
No. As much as she hated to admit it, now that he was in her life, she didn’t want him to leave.
She moved to take the blanket off Olivia, then noticed that her daughter’s cheeks were red, her hairline damp with sweat.
She bent to put her hand on Olivia’s forehead.
She was hot.
Not just hot. Burning up.
Ruby hurried to the bathroom for the thermometer and made her way back to the living room where she placed it gently inside Olivia’s tiny ear. She waited for the beep, then looked at the display.
102.9.
She went to her bag, hanging on a hook by the door, and dug around for the piece of paper the pediatrician had given her after Olivia’s immunization.
She skimmed the page, past the description of the shot and the expected side effects to the headline at the bottom:When to Call the Doctor.
The first one was a fever over 102.
Shit.
She called Doctor Singh, Olivia’s pediatrician, then waited while the answering service relayed the message.
“It’s probably not serious,” Doctor Singh said when she called back, “but I’d like you to bring her into the ER anyway.”
“The ER?” Ruby felt utterly blindsided. Olivia had never had a reaction to a vaccination.
“It’s just a precaution,” Doctor Singh said, her voice soothing. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Okay,” Ruby said, already trying to figure out how she was going to get a feverish Olivia out of the apartment and onto the subway. “Thank you.”
She hung up and called Brooke.
Straight to voice mail.
Of course. It was Friday night. Brooke was probably out with her friends drinking away their stress or whatever else single people without kids did on a Friday night.
She could call Adam, but the thought was repugnant to her. The last thing she needed was to give Adam a chance to berate her about Roman.
She thought about calling her dad, but it was late, and she didn’t want to worry him.
She looked at the flowers sitting on the dining room table, then hurried over to pick up the card that had come with them, his phone number neatly typed on the bottom.
And then his words when she’d texted to say thank you:
In the meantime, call if you need anything. Anything at all.
23
ROMAN
The dining table at the Brighton Beach house was lavishly set despite the fact that the only people sitting around it were Roman, Eric, Igor, and Eva, Roman’s mother.
It was always like this at his parents’ house, their weekly dinners an extravagant affair, as if they were trying to impress a prospective business partner instead of simply connecting with their two sons.
It wasn’t an event Roman looked forward to but it was one he was expected to attend, and now more than ever, he didn’t want to rock the boat.
