Page 26 of Time for You

“And you trust this man?” Henry asked for the hundredth time.

Brittany shrugged. “My cousin said he’s not like, a murderer or anything.”

“I am less concerned about his character than his abilities,” Henry said darkly.

“Oh, she said he’s a super good pilot.”

“Super good,” Henry echoed disbelievingly.

Daphne squeezed his hand. “We don’t need to do this,” she offered.

“But according to you, without identification I cannot get on a larger aeroplane, and in order to get that, I would need to commit, and I quote, ‘several federal crimes, probably,’ so if I want to experience the wonder of flight, this is my only option.”

“ Airplane , not aeroplane ,” Daphne interjected.

“I’ll call it what I damn well please, woman,” Henry grumbled.

“My cousin is totally trustworthy,” Brittany promised. “Just because she dumped him doesn’t mean he’s bad at his job.”

In front of them, the small plane Brittany’s cousin’s ex-boyfriend owned puttered to a stop. “You must be Brittany,” he said, standing in front of them on the tarmac. “I’m Chad. Who all is going up?”

“All three of us,” she explained.

“And you must be the friend with the interesting background,” Chad said with his hands on his hips.

They had told him Henry was from an off-the-grid commune and hadn’t had much experience with the world.

When Chad had suggested to Brittany that perhaps a commercial flight would be a little less intense for him, Brittany had had to come up with an explanation for his lack of ID on the spot.

His parents didn’t believe in filing government paperwork, so he doesn’t have a birth certificate or anything, she had said.

“That would be me.”

Chad straightened the blue baseball hat on his head and nodded toward the single-engine plane. “You ready?”

Henry tightened his grip on Daphne’s hand, but his face didn’t show any apprehension. “I am indeed.”

As it turned out, single-engine airplanes were loud .

Their headsets allowed them to talk, but Henry appeared taken aback by the noise even before they began taxiing toward the runway.

He was quieter than usual, and as the plane began accelerating, Daphne heard a sibilant hiss as he inhaled sharply.

His jaw was tight, a muscle twitching, and Daphne wished she could sit next to him, rather than behind Chad.

But then the wheels left the ground, and his face transformed.

He went from tense and anxious to staring around, agape at the world.

There wasn’t much to see, no mountains or oceans or even any of the Great Lakes, just cornfields and small blue-green ponds dotting the countryside, with the Minneapolis skyline off in the distance.

But the sky was crystal clear, a bright, almost-summery blue, and the fields were a promising spring green. And the smile on Henry’s face was brighter than the sun.

He looked around in awe, too absorbed in what he saw to even speak.

When they landed he helped open the door and held out his hand, first to Brittany and then to Daphne.

For a split second, Daphne wondered if this was what it would be like if she lived in the past with him: Henry holding his hand out to help her down from a horse-drawn carriage.

She wondered if he saw it too, a flash of what their lives could be like together, because for a moment he looked sad.

But then he brightened and kissed her cheek, thanking her for showing him a wonder I never even dreamed of seeing.

But his smile was thanks enough.

Daphne had never been this happy. Not when she got into her first-choice medical school, or matched with her dream residency program.

She had always vaguely assumed having a boyfriend of some sort would be a net-neutral move, with the added joy of having a partner being somewhat canceled out by that partner finding her too serious or too committed to her job.

But Henry didn’t seem bothered by any of it.

He had decamped from Helen’s, on account of her returning soon from Florida, and after a brief, only-slightly-awkward conversation about propriety, norms, and morals, moved into Daphne’s room.

He knew she would sometimes have to work overnight, and on those days, he cheerfully did any sort of housework she and Ellie had fallen behind on and spent his time either trying to learn more about the world or perfecting his cooking.

And really, he was getting to be very good.

With Michelle’s help, he had created a bucket list of food he wanted to make while he had access to modern cooking equipment and was methodically working his way through the list, starting with South Asia.

It meant every day for Daphne started in Henry’s arms and ended with her eating something delicious, and she was practically floating.

Everything was perfect, except for the one big thing that wasn’t. Daphne’s heart wasn’t in her work, and people were starting to notice. Dr. Gupta had even pulled her aside for a chat after a particularly rough set of rounds.

“What’s wrong, Daphne?” Dr. Gupta had asked, her face creased with concern.

Daphne had panicked, worried she’d screwed up, and quickly reviewed everything she’d said during rounds, but nothing stuck out to her as a glaring error.

That panicked her even more, until Dr. Gupta held up her hand.

“You’re not in trouble; I’m just worried.

You don’t seem like yourself lately. Is everything okay? ”

“I—uh—yeah, I’m okay,” Daphne stammered. Ellie and Vibol walked past her and bugged their eyes out at her, which definitely didn’t help. “I’m sorry if I screwed something up.”

“You didn’t, and I think you know you didn’t,” she said kindly. “But lately I’ve been feeling like you’re, how should I put it, less than committed to this residency.”

I want to quit. The words floated to the tip of her tongue, and she just barely managed to snatch them back. Daphne fought against her instinct to smooth it all away, however, and settled for something approaching the truth. “I’ve been struggling,” she admitted. “It’s overwhelming sometimes.”

“Of course it is, but you’re a bright student and a good doctor,” Dr. Gupta reassured her.

“But this is what we signed up for when we decided on emergency medicine, so whatever it is that’s bothering you, part of our job as doctors is to figure it out and put it aside for the duration of your shift. Understood?”

“Understood, Dr. Gupta,” Daphne confirmed.

Vibol and Ellie cornered her as Dr. Gupta walked away, both of them looking anxious.

“You didn’t get in trouble, did you?” Ellie asked.

“I’d find that hard to believe would happen with Dr. Perfect here. But what did she want? Looked serious,” Vibol said.

“She wanted to know why I was distracted lately.”

“Did you tell her it’s because you’re finally getting laid?” Ellie asked.

Daphne elbowed her. “No, of course not.”

But rather than join in the ribbing, Vibol looked at her thoughtfully. “She’s right, though.”

“That Daphne needed to get laid more often before this? Or that we can tell she’s finally getting laid?”

“No, that she’s distracted. Something’s changed, hasn’t it? And not just Henry. Something here, at the hospital.”

“No, it’s not that,” Daphne said.

“But it’s something, isn’t it?” Vibol pushed.

“It’s nothing,” Daphne insisted. “Besides, we need to get back to work,” she added, hoping neither would notice the distraction. “Hannah’s giving us a dirty look.”

Hannah was doing nothing of the sort, but Daphne slandered her anyway, just to get out of the conversation.

If Vibol knew something was wrong, he’d start pushing her on it.

Ellie didn’t seem to have caught on, which wasn’t like her, but maybe she really was attributing it to a new-relationship glow with Henry.

Daphne might be able to tell them it was the bittersweetness of knowing Henry had stayed for her with the knowledge that he was leaving in just a few short months, but that would only work short-term.

Because Daphne was rapidly realizing that staying in emergency medicine long-term might not be possible, not if she was already losing interest.

But that meant opening a whole separate can of worms, and she wasn’t quite ready to do that.

“Are you ready?” Vibol asked.

“Ready,” Henry confirmed.

“Do you need Daphne to hold your hand?” Ellie asked.

“When I was thirteen, I broke my wrist, and I survived just fine.”

Daphne laughed. “Yeah, but didn’t you get opium for that?”

“Medicinally.”

“Exactly. That is a lot stronger than what we usually give now, so not the best comparison.”

“Just how painful are these vaccines going to be?”

Vibol pulled the stash out of the cart. He’d managed to wheedle a series of vaccines that were about to expire from the hospital pharmacist, and now Henry was sequestered in a room in the ER on a slow Monday afternoon. “I’m just messing with you—they don’t hurt at all,” he said.

Daphne motioned for Henry to roll up his shirtsleeve and bare his biceps. “What’s in that one?” Henry asked.

“Measles, mumps, and rubella. I know you said you already had measles, but they don’t really sell the M and R parts of the MMR vaccine separately,” Daphne explained.

Ellie finished cleaning the skin and stepped back, nodding to Vibol like they were surgeons in an operating room. “Patient is prepped and ready, Dr. Law.”

“Thank you, Dr. Levine,” he replied, and jabbed Henry in the arm.

Henry winced. “You said that wouldn’t hurt at all,” he accused Vibol.

“I lied.” He shrugged. “Next up: polio.”

Henry glared at him and then turned back to Daphne. “You said most of these are diseases that children catch, correct? Then why give them to me?”

“For one thing, they’re diseases that are most deadly for children, not that adults don’t ever get them.

So it’ll protect you from that. For another, it’ll make it less likely for you to give it to a child.

” She bit the inside of her cheek, doing her best not to think about the fact that Henry might one day go on to have children with someone else.

She wanted him to be happy, she really did, but she couldn’t pretend that image didn’t hurt a little.

Henry winced again as the needle went in, and Daphne switched sides so Vibol could put the remaining ones in his left arm. “And these have truly been so successful you’ve never even seen some of these?”

“I saw measles once,” Ellie said, tossing the alcohol wipe. “Had a case in here my second shift. But never polio, or the others.”

“It’s been so successful people don’t remember these diseases kill kids,” Vibol grumbled. He placed a Band-Aid over Henry’s injection site. “Flu shot is something we do annually, so this one won’t last. The others all last longer, so long as we can get you at least one more before you leave.”

“It won’t be the full schedule, but it’s better than nothing,” Daphne agreed, ignoring the way her heart started to curl in on itself at the thought of him leaving. He’s not leaving yet, we still have time, she reminded herself.

“Will these make me sick?” he asked.

“You’ll probably feel like shit tonight, yeah,” Ellie said. “But I planned ahead and bought instant ramen for you.”

Henry brightened. “The Japanese dish? I’ve been meaning to try that.”

“The real thing is better,” Vibol warned. “The instant stuff is mostly salt, but yeah, it’ll be what you want in about”—he glanced at the clock—“six to twelve hours.”

“We’ll stay in and watch a movie tonight,” Daphne said.

Vibol and Ellie trashed their gloves and exchanged a look. “Glad I’m working tonight,” Ellie said, making a face.

“Speaking of, if we’re not down in the ED in five, Gupta will probably kill us,” Vibol said. “You’re welcome for the continual protection from disease and the miracle of modern medicine.”

“Thank you,” Henry said, laughing but sincere. He took Daphne’s hand in his and turned to her. “Now, about that ramen.”