Page 36 of Stone Vows

“You can only have one,” she says, choosing hers carefully among the three others that remain.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because only the first one you pick will be your fortune. The others don’t count.”

I feel my face break into a boyish grin. “I didn’t know there were rules.”

“Oh, yes. Just ask Sal,” she says. “You can’t trade fortunes with someone else. You have to eat the entire cookie before reading the fortune. And if your cookie is empty, that’s a sign of good luck.”

We both open our cookies, taking great care not to peek at our fortunes while we eat them. “You first,” I say, nodding to her hand.

She opens her slip of paper.“Your smile will tell you what makes you feel good,”she reads.

She looks up at me and smiles. Then she realizes what she did and she blushes.

I read mine next.“Love is like war, easy to begin, but very hard to stop.”

“Huh,” she says, musing over the saying. “Did you ever wonder who makes these up? Probably some guy who lives in Boston.”

I laugh as I pick up her fortune to toss it in the trash.

She reaches out and grabs my hand, forcibly taking it back from me. “I want to save it.”

I raise my brows at her. “Another one of Sal’s rules?” I ask.

“No. It’smyrule,” she says. “I only throw out the bad ones.”

I watch as she puts the piece of paper on the side table next to her bed. Then I tuck my fortune into my front pocket.

I clean up her tray and box up the leftovers. There are a lot of leftovers. Maybe I can give them to someone on the street later. I put the food by the door so I don’t forget to take it when I leave.

“Yes! Go, go, go, go, go!”

Elizabeth is screaming at the television, practically standing on her knees on the bed, having dislodged the fetal monitor as she cheers on a player. It’s the same player who had that crazy double-play the other day. His name comes up on the screen as they show the replay of his triple that just landed him on third base, resulting in an RBI. His name is Caden Kessler. I recall the name. There was some press coverage about him early in the season as he changed his number, something that rarely happens in the majors.

“You seem kind of obsessed with number eight,” I say, teasingly. “But seriously, you should calm down, you don’t want to start bleeding.”

She sits back down, looking embarrassed as I walk around the bed to readjust the monitor.

“It’s not just him,” she says. “I likeallof them. They’re a great team.”

As I fix the strap around her belly, the door opens and Gina walks in. Her eyes quickly shift around the room, first looking at me, then the television, then the bag of Chinese food.

“I was walking by the nurses’ station when I heard her monitor alarm,” she says. “But it looks like you have it all under control, Dr. Stone.”

I finish adjusting the strap as Gina’s eyes burn into me. I can tell she’s taking in my appearance. My street clothes. My clean-shaven face. My extreme guilt that I wouldn’t be feeling if I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

“Elizabeth, have you met Dr. Lawson yet?”

She holds out her hand to Gina. “No, it’s really nice to meet you.”

Gina walks over next to the bed and shakes Elizabeth’s hand, finally tearing her eyes away from me. “You, too.”

I resume my spot in the chair next to the bed and pretend like me being here is a perfectly normal thing. “Gina and I are doing our residencies together,” I tell Elizabeth. “She’s also in emergency medicine.”

“That’s nice,” she says. “Did you get assigned a babysitting duty as well?”

Gina steps behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder. Then she rubs it around to my back. “No, Dr. Stone was the only lucky one. We’ve had some good times in the program, haven’t we, Kyle?”

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