“Good evening,” I offer, stepping forward. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I’d like to shake her hand, but think better of it.
Amah frowns at Annie, already moving about the room—away from me. “Is he yours?”
“Yes. I mean, no, he’s a work acquaintance.”
Amah points at a round wooden table in the corner, where a glass aquarium sits in the middle, just big enough for two. “Come,” she directs me. “You look hungry.”
“No,” Annie insists as I shake my head despite my hunger. “We need a favor.”
“I’m not talking to you,” her grandmother snaps. Her assessing eyes lock onto me, narrowing distrustfully. The apple does not fall far from its tree here. “Sit.”
I saunter across the room and sit at the table, where a pair of goldfish peek out at me from the reeds.
“Jacques was caught in the rain on his walk home from work last night,” Annie continues. “Might you have anything for him? To ensure he stays well, or anything that develops remains mild. He’s afraid a cough will develop.”
“Medicine.”
As Annie nods, her grandmother studies me.
Grunting, Amah opens and disappears into the door behind her, and I’m immediately hit with the aromas of garlic, onion, and ginger before it slams shut. My stomach growls so loudly, I’m sure Annie can hear it.
But she’s busy exhaling, removing her gloves with her teeth and offering nothing consoling, or even insulting. Her heels remain grounded across the room,and I wonder if she’s regretting her decision of bringing me home. Or thinking about those shears in her pocket.
The door swings open, and Amah returns with two steaming bowls. She places them down, one before me and the other, at the vacant chair. Annie doesn’t wait for Amah to beckon her over, and she’s sitting on my right when the old woman holds her hand out to me expectantly.
I’m about to reach for the coins in my pocket, when she roughly grabs my left palm.
“Amah!”
“Quiet, Annabelle.” Amah positions herself over my palm and peers closely at it. There’s far more strength in her weathered hands than appearance suggests. She lets go and turns my face this way and that in her pincer-like grip. The lines at her mouth vanish beneath a tight, unreadable smile.
Annie blows on a spoonful of steaming broth, the rising scents of anise and spring onion doing little to mask her discomfort. “What is it?”
Amah appears satisfied as she releases me, but the fact that Annie has to ask unnerves me. She’s read something in her grandmother’s expression.
“There are certain illnesses that don’t just weaken the body, but stir up whatever’s waiting underneath. Medicine will not help what is becoming.” The old woman gestures to the broth. “But filling the belly might slow it.”
Without further explanation, she turns away and disappears into the front of the shop, her slippers whispering against the floorboards.
Don’t get me wrong—Annie is a mad genius for suggesting I fall ill, then seek early treatment at her grandmother’s to prevent the worst of it before going to the infirmary. I’ll look back upon this eve in impressed fondness one day when the rush of blood to my face doesn’t worsen the pain in my head.
“Looks like I caught it.”
“Eat,” is all Annie says, scraping around her bowl. She’s determined to appear unconcerned, and I can’t tell if it’s for her benefit or mine. “Hunger won’t do you any good. Amah’s food is also medicine, especiallyjuk. It’s what she says all the time.”
She is right, after all. The broth is delicious, thickened with glutinous rice and thinly sliced ginger. Palpable warmth begins to spread throughout my body. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever had.
The last mouthful leaves a trace of lingering heat down my throat, and I feel suddenly sluggish. The ache behind my eyes has dulled.
I blink at the fish. They blink back.
My bowl’s empty. Amah is gone. The shop is warm, and its scents lull me against the back of my chair.
Annie’s still beside me, pushing the dregs of ginger around her bowl, though I’m not sure she’s eaten anything for minutes. She sneaks glances at me from behind a wave of hair, backlit in the last rays of apricot dusk filtering through the shelves. Her lips part, like she might say something.
Instead, there’s the scrape of wood. A chair moving, a breath too close to my shoulder, and the scent of jasmine. “Jacques?”
Wet fabric clings to my spine and I suddenly realize I’m sweating—drenched, as if I’d been running. I need to stand, to rouse myself, but my limbs are much too heavy to lift.
