thick I sometimes sat on the edge of the bed after waking because standing felt too ambitious.
‘Any medication changes?’ she asked. ‘Any supplements, powders, sleep aids, drinks, anything new?’
Before I could answer, Evan stepped close from the grill. ‘She doesn’t take anything. She reads things online and convinces herself she’s sick.’
Naomi did not turn her head. ‘I’m asking her.’
He smiled without warmth. ‘I’m her husband.’
‘Then you know how to give her space.’
I had not realized how starved I was for that kind of sentence until I heard it.
I swallowed and said the thing I had been refusing to say even to myself. ‘The tonic.’
Naomi’s pen slowed. ‘What tonic?’
‘At night. Honey, ginger, lemon. He makes it for me.’
Evan laughed too quickly. ‘Now the tea is the problem?’
Naomi kept her eyes on me. ‘Has it tasted different lately?’
The answer sat in my mouth before I spoke it. Bitter. Metallic sometimes. A chalky film at the bottom of the mug. I had noticed all of it. I had also spent months explaining it away because the alternative was unthinkable.
‘Yes,’ I whispered.
Celeste moved in fast. ‘She’s frightened. People say nonsense when they’re frightened.’
Naomi looked up then, first at Celeste, then at Evan, and for a single second I saw the whole situation rearrange itself in her mind.
She reached for her radio.
‘Dispatch, Unit Four requesting law enforcement. Family member interfering with patient assessment.’
Evan’s jaw tightened. ‘Are you serious?’
Naomi’s voice did not rise. ‘Take three steps back, sir.’
He did.
They boarded me, lifted me, and rolled me past the food table. I remember the platter of ribs still steaming. The abandoned sauce brush. Celeste’s face tightened in indignation, as though the deepest injury of the evening had been to hospitality.
Evan did not ride with me.
At the hospital, the world became fluorescent, efficient, and cold. Scans. Bloodwork. Neurological checks. Repeated questions from different people with different badges. A nurse washing glaze and soot out of my hair while I stared at the ceiling and shook from something deeper than cold.
My legs did not stay fully numb. Sensation came back in sparks, then vanished, then flared again like faulty wiring. The neurologist ordered more tests. Toxicology was added. By midnight, I felt wrung out and raw enough to cry at the sound of my own name.
That was when Evan arrived.
In a fresh shirt.
He smelled clean. No smoke. No spice. No trace of the patio. He stood at the foot of my bed instead of beside me.
‘You changed clothes,’ I said.
‘I wasn’t going to sit in a hospital smelling like barbecue.’
There was still dried sauce in my hairline.
He looked at me the way people look at logistical problems. ‘You really scared everyone tonight.’
Not Are you in pain.
Not I’m sorry.
Not I should have listened.
You scared everyone.
I turned my face to the wall because if I had kept looking at him, something in me would have broken in a way that had nothing to do with nerves or toxins.
The next morning, Dr. Halpern came in with Detective Lena Ortiz.
Some news announces itself before a word is spoken. A detective by a hospital bed is
