she really wasn’t afraid that he had It. They’d bundled him up in his naptime blanket with the trains printed on it, since he’d said he was cold.
“Don’t worry, Sarah,” said Iona. Her calm was genuine, and Sarah felt comforted. “He’s not doing too badly at all.” Sarah took Noah’s hand and he looked up at her with a smile that spoke of his delight at being wrapped up in the train blanket. He had been asking if he could bring it home ever since Elliot bought it for him when he’d started daycare.
“Thanks,” said Sarah. “I’ll give you guys a call in the morning.”
* * *
—
When they got home, Sarah let Noah change into his airplane PJS, then took his temperature. “How are you feeling, baby?” She sat on the closed lid of the toilet and contemplated her son. He seemed 100 per cent normal.
“I’m fine, Mommy,” he said. Then he threw up.
She cleaned up the sour-smelling mess in a distracted panic, trying to remember exactly how the virus presented in children. Persistent high fever, headache, muscle pain. Vomiting was only a symptom in the disease Owen had invented. The more time she spent immersed in the world of his novel, the less she was able to distinguish between the real facts and the invented ones.
“I’m better now,” Noah said, even though he was still crying. “Nellie made me eat tomatoes at snack even though I told her I don’t like them.”
So that was it. The last time he had been made to eat tomatoes, Noah had thrown up when he got home, too. She wouldn’t be surprised if the fever had broken now that they were out of his stomach.
“Did you tell her I didn’t want them to force you to eat anything?”
Noah nodded. “They said the rules were for everybody.” He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “I’m sorry, Mommy.”
She held him, feeling her usual rage against No-Neck welling up. The woman must be psychologically damaged to be engaging in an ongoing power struggle with a three-year-old. “It’s okay, baby. I’m not upset with you.” She rubbed his back and shoulders. “Next time you have to tell her you’re allergic.”
She put him to bed despite his protests, holding his hand until he fell asleep. It took less than five minutes.
With her other hand, she called Owen back. “I’m ready to help.” She kept her voice to a whisper. “What do you need?”
“I’m going to the marina this afternoon to look at a boat, and I’d like you to come with me. From what you’ve told me, you’re a top-notch sailor.”
“The marina,” repeated Sarah. “To look at a boat.” She eased herself off Noah’s bed, smoothing the comforter with its gridlock pattern of cars and buses. Why put a traffic jam on a child’s sheet set? But then, she was the one who had bought them.
“I’m in the market for a big purchase,” said Owen. “And honestly, I could use an advisor.”
Sarah paused as she pulled Noah’s door halfway closed. “You’re buying a yacht?” She felt stupid asking again, but then he had said the word advisor. She kept her footsteps quiet as she padded down the hallway to her bedroom.
“I’d like to just call it a boat.”
“Wait, isn’t that what happens at the end of your book?” In the last third of Owen’s novel, after his love interest dies, David Gellar buys a boat and takes to sea with his students and their parents, to escape the disease ravaging everyone on land.
“Yes,” Owen said. “I’m following my own advice.”
When Sarah heard him chuckle, she allowed herself to laugh, too. “For real?”
“Yes, for real.”
“Does this mean you’re going outside?” Ever since the great apartment stakeout, she had avoided mentioning Owen’s agoraphobia. She had never revealed that she’d witnessed him descending to retrieve the coffee like a bloodless vampire terrified of the sun.
“Yes,” he said. “I do still go outside from time to time, for things that matter.”
“I haven’t been sailing in years,” she said. “And I’ve never been yacht shopping.”
“So we’ll be in the same boat, so to speak.”
“I’m sorry, but my son is home with me.”
“Oh,” said Owen. His tone changed. “Is he sick?”
“He—” She heard a small sound behind her in the hall. “One sec,” she said, covering the phone. When she turned around, Noah was standing in the doorway, holding out the digital thermometer, which flashed green behind its numeric display. A normal temperature.
“Please, Mommy. Let’s go see the boat.”
* * *
—
Sarah and