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“Any word from his family?” Peter asks quietly, standing in the hall of the intermediate care unit, eyes flitting between Mark and their bedridden patient behind the window.
“No. We’ve been calling and calling. It’s always the same secretary picking up. The same nothing answers… I don’t know if they’re even passing our messages along to the family.”
What the fuck, Peter thinks. He flashes back to last year, when Carter was graduating from med school. The litany of family members he’d listed who were coming to his party. Where were these people now? When he needs them?
It’s baffling.
“How’s he doing?” Mark asks now.
Peter shrugs, resigned. “More of the same.”
“What’s his temp?”
“102.”
Mark sighs. “Poor kid.”
Peter grunts.
Carter was going to be fine. He was going to be fine. It was just pneumonia.
Really bad pneumonia.
But still. Just… just pneumonia.
Peter’s shoulders slump. He should have caught this sooner. Carter had been coughing for days. It shouldn’t have taken the kid collapsing on the floor of Trauma 1 for him to realize that Carter’s illness wasn’t just a cold.
But that’s what had happened.
“Thanks, Mark,” Peter says.
“You’ll let us know if anything changes?”
“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” Peter says distractedly, once again staring through the window of the private room where Carter has been stationed for the last 18 hours. He is, blessedly, sleeping. Finally.
It had been hours of coughing and wheezing and chills. Peter’s usually buoyant resident had been reduced to a pale, shuddering mess in a hospital gown. He’d gone quiet, silent tears slipping down his cheeks the time he’d coughed so violently he vomited.
Peter slips back into the room. He hangs back, shutting the door quietly. He exhales, listening to the mechanical hiss and click of the nebulizer strapped to John’s face, oxygenating his lungs. Watches the slow drip drip drip of the IV that pumps his student full of fluids and broad-spectrum antibiotics.
Almost against his own will, his eyes move towards the chest x-rays posted to the wall. Lungs filled with fluid. Thoroughly, thoroughly infected.
Peter curses himself again.
Objectively, he knows this is not his fault. People get sick. It happens.
And yet… Carter was his student. His responsibility. He should have known the kid was lying when he said he was fine. God.
Early morning the next day. Peter knocks at Carter’s door. He doesn’t wait for a response before going in.
Carter blinks tiredly at him from the bed. He doesn’t even try to say anything. His face pale. His eyes watery and red-rimmed. He looks awful. Worse than yesterday.
“Fever still hasn’t broken yet, then?” Peter asks.
John just shakes his head.
“I’m sorry, man. It sucks.”
John shrugs. Peter can see, now, that he’s shivering underneath the thin, hospital-issue blanket.
God. He looks miserable.
A beat of silence. Carter reaches up towards the nebulizer. Starts tugging at it.
“Carter, I think you should keep that on…”
He doesn’t listen. Peter watches wearily as the kid manages to yank the mask down, past his chin.
He coughs. Peter tenses.
“Taldoomaprents?” he slurs. Then blushes.
Peter blinks. Resists the urge to slap the mask right back over Carter’s mouth.
“You wanna try that again?”
“Did… you talk to… my parents?” Carter asks, wheezing in between every other word.
Peter’s heart constricts.
“We’re trying, man. We can’t seem to get a hold of them. We’ve left messages.”
Carter blinks, casting his gaze downwards.
“Thas okay,” he says quietly. Wheeze. “They’re…. busy.”
Peter bites the inside of his cheek. He awkwardly gives Carter a pat on the arm.
“We’ll keep trying, alright?”
He nods. Coughs again, wet and raspy and thick. When he finishes, Peter slides the nebulizer back over his mouth and nose. Peter can practically hear the crackle of fluid in John’s lungs. It’s painful to hear. He can’t imagine how it feels for Carter.
“Keep this on, alright? I’ve got to get down to the ER. Just… ah… hang in there.”
Carter doesn’t say anything. He shivers and turns his head away, eyes flickering closed.
Peter gives his arm a quick squeeze. God. He’s burning up. Still.
“Take it easy, Carter.”
Peter is flipping through charts at admit in the ER when a dark-haired woman in a fur coat stalks up to the desk.
“Excuse me-” she says, looking at Jerry, who is talking on the phone. He holds up his hand, indicating to her to hold on.
Her eyes flash. She clears her throat. Long fingernails click against the counter. Dark, dark red. Nearly black. “Excuse me,” she says to Jerry again, loudly.
Peter rolls his eyes as he signs off on a chart.
Jerry hangs up the phone. “How can I help you, ma’am?” he asks with a forced smile.
“Hello. I’ve gotten about a hundred calls from this hospital in the last two days about my son.”
“What were the calls concerning, ma’am?”
“Apparently my son has a fever. I don’t understand what all the hysteria is about.”
Jerry blinks at her. “Okay… um… what’s your son’s name? I can get some information for you.”
“He works here. His name is John. John Carter.”
Peter almost chokes. Jerry does a double take.
The woman flushes. With anger or embarrassment, it’s unclear. “My name is Eleanor Carter.”
Peter looks the woman over. Carter’s mother. He doesn’t know what he should have expected.
Jerry recovers. “Ma’am, we’ve been trying to get in touch since Tuesday. The only people we’ve been able to talk to are, like, secretaries and housekeepers.”
She doesn’t say anything. Just gives him an incredulous look, as if to say what did you expect?
“Carter’s like, really sick,” Jerry adds.
Her lips purse. “I was told it’s a fever. I’m sure he’s fine.”
“He’s got pneumonia,” Peter snaps, speaking for the first time. Mrs. Carter’s gaze snaps to him. Her eyes narrow. Peter continues. “He’s practically delirious from the fever. He can barely breathe on his own. He’s been asking for you.”
She blanches. “I would like to see him, then,” she says stiffly. At the same time, her eyes dart towards the doors. She shifts uneasily.
Peter pauses. “Fine. I’ll take you to him.”
From outside the window, Peter watches mother and son interact. She sits in a chair by his bedside. The chair is scooted a couple feet from the edge of the bed. Her hands are clasped in her lap, her expression wooden.
Carter’s pulled the nebulizer off again. He seems to be doing most of the talking. Irritation flares through Peter. He’s going to tire himself out. He’s going to deprive himself of oxygen. He shouldn’t be talking this much. He’s sick, goddamnit.
The scene unsettles him, and he can’t really articulate why. All this time, they’d been desperately trying to get anyone from Carter’s family to visit him. And now, somehow, the kid looks even lonelier now that his mother is here by his side.
She didn’t ask questions about how John was doing, about his prognosis, while Peter walked her to John’s room. She doesn’t reach out to him now, doesn’t hold his hand or comb his sweat-slick hair from his feverish forehead. She doesn’t soothe him with comforting, loving words.
She’s just… sitting there. And her eyes keep looking at the door.
It’s making Peter feel disconcerted. It’s just… not what he expected.
Inside, Carter starts coughing. Peter tenses as he waits for the fit to resolve. It doesn’t, though. Five seconds… ten… shit. Peter finds himself moving into action as the alarms on the monitors begin to sound.
He rushes into the room, closely followed by a nurse.
“Christ,” Peter snaps, moving to Carter’s side. The kid hacks and heaves and coughs and coughs and coughs, wet and crackling. His face is gray. Tears stream down. His eyes are locked on his mother and terrified.
She just sits there, frozen, while he gasps for air. The coughs won’t stop.
Carter’s oxygen sats are falling. The coughing is getting weaker – he’s losing consciousness. Jesus. Peter grabs the nebulizer and slaps it over Carter’s face. He cranks the humidified oxygen level to the highest setting.
“C’mon, man. Stay with me. Breathe. Breathe, Carter,” Peter urges. He’s startled as he finds John suddenly latching onto his hand, gripping it tight as he continues to cough. Flecks of spit and sputum spray against the inside of the mask.
Cautiously, Peter squeezes John’s hand. “Get it out, man, get it all out.”
Carter’s throat convulses. He chokes for a second, making one last horrible hacking sound, and then the coughs stop.
John’s hands fumble for the small metal basin on the side table. Peter, knowing what’s coming, hands it to him and gently peels off the nebulizer with his free hand. John weakly spits into the basin, a massive glob of disgusting greenish-yellow gunk. Peter winces.
John collapses back onto his pillows, wheezing loudly. He has not let go of Peter’s hand. Reluctantly, Peter uncurls John’s fingers so that he can retrieve a tissue. He wipes the inside of the mask, cleaning it fastidiously before returning it to its position covering John’s mouth and nose.
“No more talking,” Peter snaps, flicking John’s temple gently. John groans. Christ. His whole face is soaked with sweat.
“Mrs. Carter, would you mind grabbing a washcloth from the cabinets…” Peter trails off as the older woman abruptly stands. But instead of heading towards the cabinets, she heads for the door.
“Where are you going?” Peter snaps. She turns around. Her face is ashen, her eyes glistening. She’s breathing heavily.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’ll… I’ll be back. I’m sorry.”
And then she rushes out the door.
Peter blinks.
What the fuck.
Peter looks down at John, who is staring at the door from where his mother just disappeared. He frowns.
“Where’d she go?” John’s voice is muffled behind the mask. He sounds so confused. So exhausted.
Peter’s stomach twists. “She… she had to step out. She said she’ll be back. I’ll… I’ll stay here until then.”
“Oh.”
Peter shifts uncomfortably. “Shh,” he says. “Stop talking. Just focus on breathing.”
They sit for several minutes, Carter taking greedy mouthfuls of oxygen through the nebulizer. His cheeks gain some color when Peter comes over with a damp washcloth to clean up his face. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Twenty. Eleanor Carter does not return.
Peter glances nervously at his watch. He has a surgery in forty-five minutes. He can’t stay much longer. But also… he doesn’t want Carter to be alone. Where did his mother go?
“You don’ have t’stay,” Carter slurs tiredly, his eyes blinking.
“That’s alright,” Peter says stiffly. “I can wait.”
Carter hums. “S’okay,” he says. “She’ll… she’ll come back.” Peter tries not to think about the way Carter’s voice cracks as he says it. The way it sounds like he doesn’t quite believe what he says.
“I’ll stay,” Peter repeats. He looks away the moment he sees John’s eyes start to water. Carter’s naked vulnerability is deeply unsettling. It feels like an intrusion to bear witness to it.
When he looks back, Carter’s eyes are closed. He looks so exhausted and defeated. For a moment, Peter thinks he’s fallen asleep. But then he speaks again. “S’not her fault,” he mumbles sleepily. “She’s thinking ‘bout Bobby.”
Peter doesn’t know what this means. He doesn’t particularly care. She should be there. She should have been there from the beginning, from the first call they made after Carter fainted. She should be here now, holding his hand.
Peter thinks about the time he had mono as a kid. The way his own mother had doted on him, pressing cold compresses to his forehead, sprinkling his head with kisses, making him feel loved.
He always kind of assumed Carter came from the same kind of family.
He is starting to rethink some of these assumptions.
Why can’t she see how desperately he wants her to be there? To comfort him?
Peter feels a flash of indignance. Why do I have to be the one holding his hand? I’m not his damn father. I have shit to do. This is ridiculous.
“Go to sleep, Carter,” Peter says.
Wheeze. Hiss. Click. Wheeze. Hiss. Click. Wheeze.
Carter slowly falls asleep. And Eleanor Carter does not come back.
She is back the next morning, however, when Peter stops by John’s room an hour before his shift begins.
Peter walks in. She zeroes in on him immediately.
“John isn’t getting better,” she announces loudly, frantically stroking her fingers through her son’s hair. Peter blinks, feeling slight whiplash at her sudden change in disposition.
“Yeah,” Peter says, eyes flicking to John. Half lidded eyes, pale, sweaty. Shivering. The fever still hasn’t broken. “He’s still got a fever. We’re giving him antibiotics. We’re doing our best to keep him comfortable.”
“It’s not enough,” she snaps. Carter winces at the volume of her voice, right in his ear. Peter scowls at her.
“We’re supporting his oxygen levels. We’re treating the infection. We’re keeping him hydrated. This is how pneumonia is treated.”
“Well, it’s not good enough!” She lurches to her feet and stumbles, barely catching herself by grabbing onto the chair. “I want… I want to take him home,” she announces, breathing heavily.
Peter blinks at her, disbelieving. “Excuse me?” he says.
“I want to take him home. Get me… get me the forms!” She takes a stilted step towards Peter, swaying.
What the fuck.
“You can’t take him home right now,” Peter says slowly, taking a step towards her, studying her. Her pupils are slightly constricted. She looks pale. “Are you feeling alright?” he lobs the question at her like an accusation.
She stares at him. “What?”
“I said, are you feeling alright?”
She sways again. “I’m taking my son home,” she declares, right in Peter’s face. His eyes nearly bulge out of his skull as the scent of sour wine on her breath hits his nostrils.
It’s 9:30 in the morning, he thinks to himself, shocked. This is insane. What the fuck is happening right now?
Peter looks at John, who is watching them, apparently awake. But his eyes have a glazed-over quality to them, like he isn’t properly comprehending what they are talking about. He gives Peter a weak wave.
“Are you drunk?” Peter hisses to her, softly so that Carter cannot hear.
Her eyes flare. “How… how dare you?” she snaps. But then her knees buckle. Peter swears, barely catching her. He curses whatever God allowed him to get out of bed this morning as he practically drags John Carter’s intoxicated mother into a chair in the corner of the room. He stands in front of her, blocking her from the view of her feverish son. This is completely fucked, Peter thinks to himself angrily as he takes her pulse, pushing away her hands as she tries to shove him away. 60 and weak.
“What did you take?” he asks through gritted teach.
“How… how dare you?” she asks weakly, her eyes tearing up.
“Your son is sick and you come to his hospital room drunk, talking about taking him home. What is wrong with you?” Peter snarls.
“Mom?” A voice from behind them. Peter whips around. Carter’s taken his mask off again. He’s looking over at them, eyes wide and confused. “Wass goin’ on?”
Peter’s heart sinks. “Nothing, Carter,” he says, at the same time that Eleanor says “Nothing, John.”
They glare at each other. Peter and Eleanor.
“What did you take?” Peter asks her again.
“Nothing,” she snaps, pushing to her feet, swaying again. “I’m taking him home. I want him discharged. He’ll get better faster outside of a hospital. There are too many sick people here.”
She heads towards the door, clearly intending to talk to someone else about this insane plan. Peter moves quickly, blocking the door. “If he leaves this hospital now, when he’s this sick, he could die,” Peter growls lowly, pausing for dramatic effect. He glares down at the woman fiercely, with burning anger. “You try to take him out of here, I will have you admitted for over-intoxication and suspected drug abuse.” The threat is not subtle. It’s overt. She blanches. Peter sneers.
“Get out of here. Sleep this off. Don’t come back until you’re sober.”
He opens the door for her. She stands there, blinking at him furiously. “Leave.”
She flushes and stumbles out the door.
If Peter was a better person, he might have gone with her, called her a cab, made sure she got home safe.
He’s not that person, though. He couldn’t care less about this woman.
With a sigh, he cancels his surgery for that day. Settles into the chair at Carter’s bedside.
The next day, Peter once again goes to check on Carter before he starts his shift. It’s his fourth day in the hospital. The nurse tells Peter that Carter’s fever is down to 101.2.
He approaches the room, expecting silence. He does not expect the hushed voices coming from inside the room. He immediately recognizes the voice of Eleanor Carter.
Peter feels another flare of anger about the events of yesterday. He’d had to explain to Carter over and over again that his mother had to leave. And the kid kept asking for her, again and again. Peter couldn’t bring himself to tell his student that his mother had come into the hospital at 9am, drunk and probably on pills. That she could barely stand up straight, could barely walk.
In all honesty, he hadn’t really expected her to return after yesterday’s performance. She hardly seemed to have Carter’s best interests at heart.
He considers knocking. Instead, he closes his eyes and listens in. The voices are muffled through the closed door, but still audible. Along with the unmistakable sound of Carter’s wheezing.
“You know how much I love you, John.”
“Love you too, mom.” His voice barely a mumble. Hoarse and creaky.
“It would just be so helpful to your father and I if you could call her.”
“I will. I told you I would.”
“John.”
“You… you want me to call Gamma now? I don’t know if… I really don’t feel great right now, mom… ‘m not sure that’s a good idea…”
“Don’t be silly, John. Of course you can call her now. Just tell her that the thing with the storm charity was a misunderstanding. There’s no reason for her to be cancelling our cards.”
“Mom…”
A loud sigh. “I don’t understand why you’re being so difficult about this, John. Your father and I have always given you whatever you wanted. Why can’t you do this for us?”
Coughing. Wheezing. “Mom, my head hurts.”
“I’ll get you some ibuprofen, as soon as you make the call. It will only take a minute of your time, John.”
Enough. Peter pushes through the door. Eleanor Carter startles in her chair, where she sits stroking her son’s arm. Carter’s face is scrunched up in pain. His wheezing is loud. His lungs rattle with short, stunted coughs.
“Good morning,” Peter says stiffly, glaring at the woman who, moments before, was leveraging her son’s pain to get him to do what she wanted. “How you feeling, Carter?”
Carter shrugs helplessly, uncomfortably. “…not so good.”
Peter hums and grabs the ear thermometer. A second later, the reading pops up on the screen. “101.6,” he reads out. “You should be resting. Maybe your mother can go grab you some tea from the cafeteria.”
John shakes his head quickly. “No. I want her here.”
Mrs. Carter shoots him a haughty look. “He wants me here,” she repeats condescendingly. “Maybe you should go get him some tea from the cafeteria.”
Peter ignores her. “Well, you should still get some rest. And stop taking the nebulizer off, man. You need it.”
John shrugs. “Got tired of it.”
Peter rolls his eyes.
“While we appreciate your dedicated concern, Doctor Benton,” Mrs. Carter cuts in, “I was actually just having a private conversation with my son. So maybe you could give us some privacy.”
Peter scowls. “Is that what you want, Carter?” he asks, his tone shifting to something more gentle. Concern flares in him like a beast. Everything about this situation feels rotten.
“Of course that’s what he wants,” Eleanor snaps.
“I wasn’t asking you,” Peter says quietly, his eyes not leaving his student. John’s cheeks flush. He coughs painfully. Then looks the other way. “Carter?” Peter prods. “Do you want me to stay?” Peter doesn’t want to leave Carter alone with this woman.
There’s a silence. John blinks rapidly. He looks at Peter. He looks at his mom. “Maybe you can come back later, Doctor Benton,” he rasps finally, quietly.
He doesn’t look at Eleanor. “Are you sure, Carter? Is there anything you need?” he asks it slowly, carefully.
But John just shakes his head.
Peter sighs. Gives up. “Fine. Suit yourself.” Heart clenched, angry at being dismissed by his own student, he sweeps out the door. He’s about to storm up to surgery, but something inside of him tells him to wait. He takes a few steps backwards and listens at the door again.
“I do not like that man. How is he even a doctor?”
“What?”
“People like that. I don’t get it.”
“He’s just… he’s just kind of harsh sometimes. But he’s a really good surgeon. The best.”
Peter’s heart clenches.
“Hm. Well. Enough of all that. John, let’s call your grandmother.”
“I’m so tired, mom.”
“This will only take a minute.”
“Mom-”
“Now, John.”
A pause.
“Okay.”
The sound of movement, some shuffling around. The phone being pulled off the wall.
“You’re going to stay, though, right? Until I get discharged?”
“Hm?”
“This thing with Gamma… that’s not why you’re here, right?”
“What? Don’t be silly, John. Of course not.”
“So you’re staying until I’m better?”
“Yes, John.”
“Oh. Okay. Good.”
The beeping sound of numbers being dialed. Peter walks away, feeling slightly nauseous.
Peter is once again at the admit desk in the ER when he comes face to face with Eleanor Carter. He glares at her. She glares at him.
It’s early afternoon, a few hours since Peter had eavesdropped on her and Carter’s conversation.
“Doctor Benton, good,” she says in a clear, lofty voice. “I need you to pass a message on to John.”
Peter frowns. “I’m sure you can manage to pass that message along yourself. He’s right upstairs. As you know.”
“Well, he’s sleeping right now, and I have to leave.”
“Well, talk to him when you’re here tomorrow.”
She rolls her eyes at him. Peter’s glare intensifies. “No, I won’t be here tomorrow. Something urgent has come up. I’m leaving town.”
Peter freezes. He’s only just able to stop his jaw from dropping. “You’re joking.”
“I assure you, Doctor Benton, that I do not joke,” Eleanor says coldly.
“You’re leaving? And you’re not saying goodbye?” Peter is aghast.
“Spare me your judgement, Doctor. I wouldn’t expect you to understand the responsibilities that come with being a part of the family I’m in. Please tell John that I was called back to the Cape, and that I’ll call him in a few days.”
With that, Eleanor Carter turns on her heel and sweeps out the doors of the ER, leaving a dumbstruck and sickened Peter Benton in her wake.
Peter dreads the end of his shift. Dreads going back to Carter. But his shift ends all the same, and he once again finds himself in the hall outside of Carter’s room.
“How’s he doing?” he asks the charge nurse.
“Mmm. His lungs are finally clearing up, which is good. But his fever spiked again, just about twenty minutes ago.”
Peter sighs. “What’s his temp now?”
“Back up to 103.”
Peter shakes his head, cursing his luck. Cursing Carter’s. Hating Eleanor Carter. Despising that she’s put him in this position.
It’s terrible.
It’s awkward.
This situation has thrust upon Peter a kind of intimacy with John Carter’s life that he never asked for and never wanted.
He didn’t want to know that John Carter’s mother was a manipulative, drunken shrew.
But now he does know that. And he’ll never be able to forget it.
He slips into Carter’s room. The nebulizer is gone. Carter is curled up in the bed like a child, knees to his chest. He’s fully shaking under the hospital blankets, eyes squeezed shut.
Peter instinctively walks over and lays a hand on his forehead.
“Jesus, Carter, you’re burning up,” he sighs quietly, sinking into a chair.
Carter’s eyes flutter open. “D’ctor Benton?” he slurs.
“Yeah. It’s me.”
“ ‘m so cold.”
“Your fever is spiking,” Peter says gently.
John sniffs. His teeth chatter. He looks around. “Where’s my mom?”
Peter closes his eyes. Dread fills every nook and cranny of his body.
“I’m sorry, Carter. She left.”
“When’s she coming back?”
Peter gives Carter’s arm a tentative squeeze. “She’s not, man. She said she had to go back to the Cape or something.”
“Oh.” Carter’s response is practically a squeak. To Peter’s horror, a tear rolls down John’s cheek.
“She said to tell you that she’ll call in a few days.”
“Oh.”
“Carter…”
“It’s fine,” Carter says, his voice rough. He coughs. “She’s busy, is all. It’s okay.”
The boy won’t even look at him. He looks… so sad. So pathetic.
“It’s not my business, Carter. But… it’s not right. Her leaving without saying goodbye.”
Carter says nothing. He sniffs. “You wouldn’t understand,” John says through chattering teeth.
Peter frowns. “What wouldn’t I understand, Carter?”
“It’s complicated. My family. It’s just… complicated. Don’t… She’s… she’s not a bad person. She just… struggles.”
Peter would beg to differ, but now isn’t the time to argue with him. Not when he’s half delirious from fever.
“Whatever you say, man,” Peter says instead.
Carter glares at him through glassy eyes. “She doesn’t do well in hospitals. She gets anxious. My… my brother died. He was sick for a long time. We spent a lot of time in hospitals. She… it’s hard for her.”
Peter’s heart sinks. Christ.
“I didn’t know that. About your brother. I didn’t know you had a brother.”
And Carter shrugs. “ ‘s not important.”
Peter sighs, suddenly feeling deeply, deeply sad. It pisses him off, how sad it all makes him. “It’s still not right, that she left. Just so you know. You know that, right?”
Carter stares at him for a moment, pain in his eyes. He shrugs, then looks away. His neck is flushed red.
“Okay,” Peter says, simply. It’s not okay. Nothing about this is okay. But he wants to move on from this. “Do you need anything right now? More ibuprofen? Some more blankets?”
It occurs to Peter that Eleanor Carter probably never asked her son if he needed anything, the whole time she was here. Too concerned with herself, with forcing John to fix her ridiculous problems. Leaving as soon as she got what she needed from him.
John blinks up at him, eyes big and wide. “More blankets?” he asks. He phrases the request like a question, hesitant and nervous.
“Of course, man. I’ll get you some blankets.”
Peter stands up, ready to go ask the charge nurse where they keep their extra blankets.
But Carter grabs his wrist before he can walk away.
“What is it?”
John blinks rapidly. “You’re… you’re coming back, right?” His voice is quiet and small. Timid. Scared. It breaks Peter’s fucking heart.
“Yeah, man. Of course I’m coming back…. Of course I am.”
He hurries out of the room, then hurries back with an armful of blankets. He carefully unfolds them and helps Carter burrow himself inside their warmth.
All while wondering how the hell someone like John could have come from someone as cold and unfeeling as Eleanor Carter.
Cut from the same cloth, Peter thinks, he is not.