Chapter 1 - THE WORD IN THE HALLWAY
“Oncology is ready for you.”
The nurse said it softly.
She might as well have fired a weapon in the hallway.
I stared at Sophie.
She stared at the floor.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then she pushed herself up with one hand against the wall.
Her knees almost folded.
I caught her elbow.
She jerked away.
“Don’t.”
“Sophie.”
“I said don’t.”
The nurse looked between us.
Sophie gave her a tired smile.
“He’s my ex-husband.”
The word ex landed strangely.
The nurse nodded without asking questions.
I followed them anyway.
Sophie stopped outside the oncology doors.
“You can’t come in.”
“Tell me what they found.”
“No.”
“You said you tried to tell me.”
“I did.”
“Then tell me now.”
She looked at me.
There was anger in her face, but underneath it was something worse.
Disappointment that had gotten old.
“Four calls, Ethan.”
My throat closed.
“I know.”
“No, you know the number.”
She rubbed the tape over her IV.
“You don’t know what it felt like to hear your voicemail four times while a doctor was telling me there was a mass on my ovary.”
I could not speak.
She continued.
“I left messages.”
“I deleted them.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because if you’d heard even one, you would have come.”
That hurt because she still believed something decent about me.
I did not deserve it.
“What kind of mass?”
Her mouth tightened.
“They removed part of it during an emergency procedure six weeks ago.”
“Six weeks?”
“You were already gone.”
“Cancer?”
She looked away.
“The pathology was complicated.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m tired.”
The oncology door opened.
A physician called her name.
Sophie stepped forward.
Then stopped.
Without turning around, she said, “Don’t make this about saving me because you feel guilty.”
The door closed behind her.
I stood alone in the hallway.
My phone felt heavy in my pocket.
Four voicemails.
Deleted.
May you like
For the first time in my life, I wished desperately that technology had refused to obey me.
