Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 25

Chapter 25 He Tasted Bitter

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Finished

Julian pressed her back down into her chair. “Trust Nora. She’s more reliable than Olivia.”

Olivia had not gotten far, and hearing that put speed into her step until she was gone from the room entirely.

Constance sighed over and over and came close to tears.

Even then, she never turned any of it on Nora.

Julian tried to settle her. “Grandma, they’re good at what they do, and that doesn’t mean they’ve found the right treatment. Think about how long it’s been since I slept a night without dreaming. They never managed it. Nora did.

“I believe her appetite medicine is better than Olivia’s.”

Cordelia’s treatment had kept his condition in check, and even so he had gone seven years without a dreamless night, let alone one that ran past 12 hours.

Constance turned to Nora, half convinced.

Nora said nothing about knowing medicine and simply beamed at her. “Marrying me agrees with him. Call it a gift from above.”

Julian looked up at her and let that one pass without comment.

Constance still had her doubts and regretted driving Olivia off, and she had no wish to spoil Julian’s good mood by interrogating Nora and ending up on the wrong side of both of them.

All she could do was sigh. “Let’s eat.”

As for whatever Nora had put in that glass, she decided to hold her questions and wait a while.

She had no appetite of her own and kept sighing into her plate, her mind running on how to apologize to Olivia later so Cordelia would keep treating him.

Underneath that ran the other question, of what she would do about Nora if the glass really had been poison and Julian ended up in an emergency room over it.

A heavy sound escaped her.

Constance sighed again, deeper than the last, and looked up at Julian in worry, and her eyes flew wide. “Julian! What are you doing?”

Julian had a forkful of mashed potatoes halfway to his plate. “Eating.”

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10:54 Thu, Sep 17

Chapter 25 He Tasted Bitter

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“You… you can get it down?” Constance could not process it. He was eating, and he was eating solid food.

A mouthful of water had been like swallowing a razor for years, and anything solid was worse.

Nora ladled him a bowl of chicken broth. “You haven’t eaten properly in a long time. Start with something soft to line your stomach, and keep the portions small and frequent.”

He hummed, took a neat spoonful, and his brows drew together. “This soup is a little bitter.”

Constance’s voice shook with it. “You could taste bitter?”

He had lost his sense of taste years ago. Sour, sweet, bitter, hot, and salt had all gone out of reach long before this.

Today he had tasted bitterness, which meant something was coming back.

He took another spoonful. “It really is bitter.”

Constance had the look of someone who had discovered a new continent, and she started loading his plate to test it.

She put a piece of the very tart lemon-butter fish in front of him. “What does this taste like?”

“Bitter.”

She tried the candied yams next, which were heavily sweet. “And this?”

He tasted it lightly. “Bitter.”

She worked through several more dishes and got the same answer every time, so she steeled herself and handed him a chili pepper. “What about that?”

He obliged with a bite, did not swallow it, raised a napkin to his mouth with perfect composure, and spat it out. “Bitter.”

So the full range had not come back after all, and the disappointment showed across her whole face.

Nora laughed softly beside her. “Grandma, stop putting him through it. He shouldn’t be eating this many different things right now. That bowl of broth is what suits him.”

The broth was nothing more than vegetables and shredded chicken, plain and warm and easy on a stomach that had not held food in months.

Constance nodded, smiling all over again. “You’re right. Tasting anything at all is good. It’s

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10:54 Thu, Sep 17

Chapter 25 He Tasted Bitter

progress.”

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She picked up the ladle to fill his bowl a second time. “Skip the rest of it, then, and have more of the soup.”

Nora put a hand out to block her. “One bowl only, Grandma. Small portions, more often.”

Constance had just watched him empty a whole bowl without any trouble, nothing like the years when water alone left him retching up threads of blood, and he had finished it looking like he wanted another.

She set the ladle down, smiling. “All right. One bowl. We’ll do whatever Nora says.”

He had gone so long without food that he was nowhere near finished, and he did as she said and set the bowl down anyway.

After lunch, the two of them planned to stop at City Hall first and then go to the hospital together to see Rosalind.

Constance was still riding the good news, and after some thought she called Olivia anyway.

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