“How’re you doing?” Cousin says to me.
“Oh, alright,” I say. “I got really well and then – I don’t know – some sort of flu but that was a month ago and I’m still not right…”
“Oh right,” he says. “Strange. And how’s the wheat?”
“Well I reintroduced wheat, but took it out again when I got that gastic flu thing…”
He pauses for a moment, the phone line crackling. “So you reintroduced wheat and then you got ill?”
I think. “I suppose so.”
“Were you like – ravenous?”
“Yes but illness uses up energy…” I say, feeling the donuts slipping away from me.
“Ravenous is very celiac. Light headed?”
“Er, yes…”
“My blood test was negative too,” he says. And if I eat wheat I get tired and ravenous.”
“Have I had enough wheat – to do that sort of damage? It was only four days’ worth,” I say, omitting that I also had 7 chcolate oranges, out of shame more than anything.
“Yes,” he says immediately. “I wouldn’t eat wheat ever again if I were you.”
And something slides into place in my mind.
And – although no donuts – no more unexplained sickness, either.
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