Chapter 5 - The Fever
By the time we reached Mass General, Chloe’s cough sounded wet enough to make every muscle in my body tighten.
The emergency department was bright, crowded, and strangely cheerful in places. A plastic wreath hung behind the registration desk. Someone had taped paper snowflakes to the glass around the nurses’ station.
Christmas had arrived whether anybody was ready or not.
James stopped at the entrance.
“I’ll wait here.”
I looked at him.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
That was becoming a pattern with him.
Elias took the other two men somewhere down the hall. James stayed in the waiting room while I carried Chloe through triage.
Her temperature was 102.4.
The nurse clipped a pulse oximeter to her finger.
“Has she been sick?”
“A little cough for two days. I thought it was the dry heat.”
“What heat?” Chloe mumbled.
I looked down.
The nurse looked at me too.
“Our apartment radiator has been unreliable,” I said.
Chloe’s eyelids fluttered.
“It was cold yesterday.”
The nurse’s expression changed.
“How cold?”
I wanted to lie.
Instead, I said, “I don’t know.”
A doctor listened to Chloe’s lungs and ordered a chest X-ray. Forty minutes later, he told me she had bronchitis, not pneumonia, and that her oxygen level was good.
Relief made me dizzy.
“She needs fluids, rest, and warmth,” he said. “If her breathing gets worse or the fever doesn’t respond, come back.”
Warmth.
Such a small word.
Such an expensive thing when your home had been taken away. I had spent years treating basic needs like luxuries and calling that discipline.
A hospital social worker named Patrice came in before discharge.
She had silver braids, sensible shoes, and no interest in pretending she did not know what poverty looked like.
“The nurse said you may be between housing tonight.”
“Temporarily.”
Patrice nodded.
“Temporarily can still be a problem at two in the morning.”
I braced myself for pity.
It never came.
She gave me a list of family shelters, emergency housing lines, holiday meal sites, and a food pantry open the day after Christmas.
“Do you have somewhere safe for tonight?”
I thought about saying yes.
Then I thought about Chloe asking if Santa knew our new address.
“No.”
Patrice circled a phone number.
“I can start calling.”
Before she finished the sentence, my phone vibrated.
James.
I stared at the name.
Patrice noticed.
“Someone you trust?”
“No.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Someone who can help?”
I looked through the small window in the treatment room door.
James was still in the waiting area, seated under a television playing a Christmas parade rerun with the sound off.
Maybe.
I stepped into the hall and answered.
“Chloe’s okay,” I said before he could speak. “Bronchitis. We’re being discharged.”
“Good.”
A pause.
Then, “I have a place you can use.”
“No.”
He sighed.
“Grace.”
“I knew there would be a receipt.”
“It’s an apartment above our pastry kitchen on Prince Street. It’s used for visiting chefs. Nobody is there this week. You and Chloe can have it until you sort out your housing.”
“That sounds expensive.”
“It is currently costing me the same amount whether it is empty or occupied.”
I hated that he had a logical answer.
“I don’t want security outside the door.”
“Fine.”
“I don’t want your men checking on us.”
“Fine.”
“I don’t want you buying us groceries for a month.”
“I was thinking breakfast.”
“James.”
“Fine.”
I leaned against the wall.
“Two nights.”
“Three.”
“Two.”
“Two, and you call Patrice if you need longer.”
I glanced through the door.
“How do you know her name?”
“She walked out ten minutes ago and told me if I was going to stand in her hallway looking intimidating, I could at least make myself useful.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
It surprised me enough that I stopped immediately.
James’s voice softened.
“Two nights.”
“Okay.”
When I went back into the room, Chloe was holding a sticker shaped like a reindeer.
“Are we going home?”
“Not our home. We’re staying somewhere else for a couple nights.”
“Hotel?”
“Sort of.”
“Does it have food?”
My throat tightened.
“Yes.”
That answer should not have felt like a victory.
The apartment above the pastry kitchen was small, clean, and smelled faintly of vanilla even at four in the morning.
There was a narrow bedroom, a pullout sofa, and a kitchen with open shelves.
James did not come upstairs.
Elias brought the key and a grocery bag containing bread, bananas, soup, cereal, and children’s fever medicine.
I looked inside.
“I told him no groceries.”
Elias nodded.
“He told me. That’s why I bought them.”
I stared at him.
His face remained completely serious.
“Do all of you solve arguments like this?”
“Usually with more lawyers.”
I almost smiled.
Chloe was asleep within minutes.
I stood by the window watching snow gather on the fire escape.
My phone buzzed again.
This time it was a text from Maya Torres.
I had not spoken to her since August.
My pulse jumped.
MAYA: Grace, I heard Victor got suspended.
Before I could answer, another message appeared.
MAYA: I’m outside Moretti’s.
Then a third.
MAYA: He’s in the basement burning the old shift books.
I called her immediately.
She answered in a whisper.
“Maya?”
“You need to tell James now.”
“What are you doing there?”
“I came because Luis called me. Victor texted him to meet him for cash. I wanted to see what he was hiding.”
A metallic crash sounded through her phone.
Maya inhaled sharply.
“Someone’s coming.”
“Maya, leave.”
“I’m trying.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the screen.
Then I called James.
He answered on the first ring.
“What happened?”
“How did you know something happened?”
“Because it’s four-thirty in the morning.”
I swallowed.
“Maya is at the restaurant.”
His voice changed.
“Why?”
“She says Victor is in the basement burning records.”
There was one beat of silence.
May you like
Then James said, “Lock the door behind you. You’re not coming.”
I was already putting on my shoes.
